Boise State’s football team will hold its annual spring scrimmage on its famous blue turf Saturday. Nearly 7,000 miles away in Japan, the Hosei University football team will also play a spring game. But the schools have more in common than just that. The Broncos and the Tomahawks have an unusual football relationship that’s rooted in the two schools’ academic partnership.

Six years ago, Bill Parrett had become a regular in Japan. The Boise State education professor had been visiting the country since the early 1980s to Japan to study the country’s schools. Parrott was also instrumental in setting up an academic exchange between Boise State and Hosei University. During a trip to Hosei, Parrett says he was caught off guard when he learned the school had a football team.

"Honestly, I wasn’t even aware that Japan knew what football was," he says. "I had never seen any evidence of football played there in the multiple times I’d been all over Japan doing different things."

Prarrett says the team’s academic advisor had sought him out after coaches at Hosei learned of the academic exchange. Those coaches had watched Boise State beat Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl – and had sent the academic advisor with a request.

"He flat out, point blank said, we love your Broncos, we’d love to come and study how they do what they do," he says. "And we said we’ll come back and check that out and see if that’s a possibility."

The Boise State staff agreed, and in 2008, Hosei sent its first delegation.

During a Boise State practice last week, Japanese coaches and several players who also made the trip watch plays and drills, and then discuss. The players take notes.

"The one thing I know about it is these guys are tremendous students of the game," says Boise State head coach Chris Petersen.

Besides observing, the Hosei staff also meets with Boise State position coaches. Petersen says the language barrier prevents in-depth conversations, but says he sees on their game film the American influence on Japanese football.

"I don’t know if there’s any difference," Petersen says. "They’re extremely similar in terms of the rules or what they’re trying to do. You know, you put on Canadian football… the fields are different, and the downs are different, the motions are different. This to me looks identical. Now there might be subtleties that I’m missing, but to me, it’s American football."

Style might be the same, but other aspects of Japanese football are different. Players are much smaller, and so are the crowds. Officials at Hosei say even though their football program dates back to the 1930s – and despite winning five national titles - some games attract as few as 500 fans.

"That’s not the marquis sport," Petersen says. "But this is a very good product that those guys put out. And the teams they play against, I mean, they’re well coached. These guys know what they’re doing."

The Hosei group's work ethic was on display immediately following one practice last week. Players and coaches sit around a table in the lobby of their Boise hotel room. They’re working on a questionnaire for Boise State’s defensive coaches. The night before, the Japanese group had worked past midnight.

"These coaches that come take it absolutely seriously," says Parrett, the BSU professor. "They work their tails off while they’re here. They’re all about learning, and getting better, and supporting each other and collaborating. They’ve got a good system."

Hosei coaches have also studied at Baylor and TCU. But head coach Hitoshi Aoki says the ongoing partnership with Boise State has also helped his staff run more efficient practices and reinforce the off-the-field development he stresses in the Hosei program.

"Beyond those examples on the field, we observe that the Broncos are putting emphasis on other needs that a person needs to develop himself," Aoki says through a translator. "And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do in Japan. And we’re convinced that we’re on the right track. We’re happy to observe the same thing happening here with the Broncos."

And there’s one more component to the unusual relationship: Boise State relaxed its trademark rules on its blue turf, and allowed Hosei – who’s school colors are also blue and orange - to install the same style field. When it was dedicated last June, a Boise State professor was there and presented Hosei officials with a Boise State flag signed by the Bronco coaching staff.

Professors at both schools are working on expanding their partnership. A group of Japanese students are due in Boise this fall to study physical fitness and kinesiology. That trip too is likely to have a football component. Organizers are trying to schedule the exchange so the Japanese students can attend a Boise State game.

Copyright 2013 Boise State Public Radio