Vetran Coaches - How do you scout?

We have a two game film exchange agreement in our region so that is what we depend on for a majority of our scout film, it's nice since we are all small schools with limited coaches/support people, but when we can we try and get out and see a team live and film the game ourselves.

First thing we look at are the fronts of their defense since we run the ball a ton we feel that is what we want to get first and also numbers and positions of the def. we also get the coverage best we can since some of the film we get is shockingly not up to an NFL quality.

Second would be to get all the plays they ran on cards (try and get tendencies and D/D). We kind of evaluate their personnel as we go watching the film.

We base our game plan on their defense and how we will attack the fronts first then look for match-ups to exploit.

We don't show much film to our kids unless its something that we feel is a huge key for them, mainly due to time constraints . I am sure some will disagree on this but we also don't like to show much of the opponents film because we don't want our kids to form an opinion of them early , like wow these guys suck we should kill them or damn we are in for a long night this week. We kind of set the mentality that all our games are tough and every team is a challenge.

One thing we also do is try and go back and break down the game film from the previous year to get a feel of how a certain team might defend us or attack us based on last year. Gives us a bit of help since there aren't many wing-t teams in our region so we really never know what we are gonna get till game time.

We video and we try to go live (as a staff) as often as possible.

Our goal is to have at least 2 games on every opponent. For Opponents #1 and #2, we rely on previous knowledge and try to get to their summer camp location - Not to video but to go watch their scrimmage. All of the HC's in our league get along great and that has not been an issue. We all respect the ability to get our own kids to line up correctly.

Anyway

What I look for as the OC are:
1. Fronts and Stunts (tendencies)
2. Coverage marriages with fronts
3. How do they defend the flanks
4. How do they defend the flanks to the boundary and field
5. Personnel - Defenders who play with poor technique or are going to be mismatched against our guys. We'll also look for their studs and find ways to gameplan against them within our system.

We set up our attack with those things in mind along with what the opponent may have done the previous year that worked well for them.

We show our Varsity video on the upcoming opponent 30 minutes on Mondays - We just go through big picture with them so they can see why we are gameplanning the way we are. This session usually last 45 minutes as our kids will ask some pretty good questions.

I'll let the DC's and Kicking Game coordinators speak for themselves as it has been years since I've coordinated either of those phases.

Hope this helps

We do much of what OHIO does (we might be long lost twins) Ohio are you bald??? The one thing we do different is we rely heavily on groupings 21, 20, 11, 12 etc. What I don't understand about these HS offensive "gurus" is why they sub. If you are a TE team why would you take out a starter and put your fourth best skill kid in. I am assuming that your X Z and TB are good athletes. This works in the specialized world of NFL and major college football but highly unlikely in HS. My advice stop watching florida and the Patriots on TV and worry about your own team. In all my years of coaching (over twenty) I have never seen a trips formation w/ the TE as #1 on the frontside. What are we not going to cover him?? It first and ten you have a TE in the game we are in a run defense. Put him out at #1 and run a stop make two and 3 your best receivers have two run a corner (smash) and have three run a post. It would be very tough to cover that. if you sub I will be in a pass defense to take that away. just my thoughts, sorry about the rant

Opponents changed things every week when we started scouting them down to play calls to match forms.

One team changes their schemes and forms and basically let their QB(best runner and starter @ MS this yr) run keepers all over the place. They called different plays but he wanted to keep the ball. Hard to blame him, he ran a 90 yard td on a fourth and two one game. I would have preferred to take the 40 spot and play D then. They lost the game anyways, but it was an example of what he can do. So, even though they changed everything, they really didn't.

The other team(league champs) changed their forms within a range of items. At times they put 4 recievers to a side. It didn't matter, they read the same player and route all the time. They just changed appearances and kept the plays the same, outside of their using a swinging gate. If he was in the backfield it was a run, if he wasn't close enough for a reverse it was a pass. They changed things, and kept everything the same. Their best player got the same routes and tags, no matter what they showed.



Chart forms(just note when they are different, d and d, play and yards, vs. the front played. Note some outstanding items or weaknesses immediately.

Coach wingtol, we are not allowed to film our opponents. This is an activity association ruling. Is it legal in the state where you coach?

There are more posts on the offensive board because they keep asking the same questions over and over. Defensive coaches get it the first time.