Teaching players how to watch film

It helps me to define what the purpose is for watching film. Are we watching ourselves?(technique/execution/effort). Are we watching our opponent?(tendancies/personell/game-plan).

Once we define what we are trying to accomplish through watching the film we will try to make cut-ups that focus on our purpose. I have found watching film by position is most beneficial if you have the time or coaches.

I like to keep the sessions short(20 minutes or less). Keep the sessions focused. Don't watch the game start to finish. Instead break up ST,O and D. Or maybe break it up into situations. Backed-up, Red-Zone, Goal-Line, 3rd down, 2nd and 1st.

Get HUDL. It lets you write notes on the screen that pop up while watching film. Great graphic options & they can watch it at home before that get to school on Monday.

I don't like having kids watch the scouting films. Mostly because most kids don't know football, let alone how to watch a game film to determine anything about their opponent. They usually end up thinking the other team sucks because game film seems to look slower or they're checking out the cheerleaders. Especially if given to them to watch unsupervised during study hall or lunch.

I do however like watching our own film. But kids kind of need to be taught how to watch it. I always want them to watch themselves the first time through a play. See what you did right/wrong. From there see what those around you did. If you're a CB on a toss that was successful, did you set the edge? If no, then there's where the play broke down. If you did, but it was successful, where was the breakdown? Did the OLB not pursue the play correctly? Did the S not run the alley? So, I try to get them to understand what they need to do first, and then move on to understanding what those immediately around them need to do, then to what we need to do as a team.

It does take some intelligence to do it this way, and we weren't real good at it this year. I usually break every film down play by play before we watch it and two years ago I wouldn't have to read my notes, the kids would tell me where a breakdown occurred before I could read them. This year.... Well, it was different.

My experience at the high school level is that you need to watch film in small groups. If you have the resources watch film as a position group so that you can have a strong coach:player ratio.

Prior to watching a play you now have fewer players "distracted" and less likely to daydream. When you have all players and positions you either have multiple coaches talking at the same time or one kid getting ripped in front of his peers and it could be counter productive.

If you have the technology and time to make cut-ups for what you are specifically wanting to watch that would help: inside run, perimeter period, team, down and distance situations etc.

Just my two cents.

How do you find enough time during the week to watch film? We bring the kids in on Sunday evening to watch some cut ups of the previous game and to watch film of our upcoming opponent for about 15 min. O/D each and then lift. We watch a little bit of film on Tues. after practice 15 min. and that is about it. Our practices are 2 hours and 15 minutes, do you guys keep the kids even longer to watch film at the end? We also bring our kids in Tues. morning for lifting. We run a flexible modular schedule so we do not have a common lunch period available. How many of you bring them in before school? I would like some ideas.

Film is essential in our program, and we have had a fair share of forward progress as a direct result. First things first, the whole team watches special teams film daily (practice film), then offense and defense break to watch our scrimmage situations. We focus on technique, what went wrong/right, etc. Game film our players watch less of, though we do review it. This tends to be within position groups, but always with a Coach in the room. I personally like to highlight a few good and a few bad plays... I feel like this translates well for them... (Think "You got beat here because you led with the wrong foot, hat placement was wrong, etc.")

We also use Apex to create cutups for a our players on a weekly basis. I do our opponent breakdown for the offense, so I focus on fronts, coverages, and blitzes. We assign our players 2 DVD-RW's at the beginning of the season and to get their next set of cutups they must turn in their previous weeks.

To be honest, I really like our way of handling film... I think film, being one of the most important tools for a Coach, is naturally one of the most valuable tools for a player.

"The eye in the sky never lies."

*** I know this probably should go in a different post, but... from personal experience with Hudl and formerly DSV, hudl is EASY. its quicker to input, comment etc. Plus its all online so players can watch it anywhere, anytime. Our player love it.

As far as watching film explaining to the player the purpose of film study is huge. they need to know what they are supposed to be doing. Are the grading themselves, watching opposing tendencies, etc. In his D-Line book Fritz Shurmur has a chapter about film study and how he taught it to his (NFL) players every season. He included film study sheet that players filled out. It was D-Line specific but it would be easy to adapt to other positions. Its probably worth checking out that book at the library just for that chapter regardless of the position you coach.

Hope I made some kinda sense,
gwr