More important, Grading Last night, or Scouting

We don't grade play by play, position by position. Each coach makes notes for his position as we watch the film. We believe that scouting is a better use of time. When we watch film on Monday with the team we focus on watching ourselves. We watch the whole film.

Previous night's film watched and graded/notes taken before Saturday practice at 8 am. Spend Saturday working on upcoming opponent.

I graded all of our film last year through the first three games and I don't see myself doing it again, unless the quality of film we get would upgrade significantly. Like others have said I just didn't feel that the time I put in to grading it was worth it, especially since the film I am looking at is not endzone quality and our pressbox is quite low. What I do now is just watch and take notes over what we did well and what we need to improve on.

Anyway to the poster's question. I think you need to find a balance between both. Ill typically watch our tape between 2-3 times (just offensive plays, so it doesn't take long) and then watch our opponent's tapes right up until I meet the OC at 10am on Saturday to start to put together the gameplan.

But if I would have to pick one as being more important it would be knowing what you need to improve on and what you do well on as a team. Seeing that your OL needs to work on reach blocks will help your sweep more than spending hours trying to formation them. Im of the philosophy that if we take care of ourselves and do our business than everything will normally work out ok.

Coach, I know what you mean and I think we are on the same page, but let me explain where I am coming from.

Obviously we only get so much time for individual so I have to prioritize how much I am emphasizing things. For example, if I have 25m for individual, I might spend 5m on Base Blocks, 5m on Reach Blocks, 10m on Double Teams and 5m on some pass pro drill (just an average hypothetical situation). Now, If I see on film that we really struggled on our reach blocks I might steal 5m from the double teams (since in my hypothetical situation we were good at those in the past Friday) and add it to working reach blocks. This allows me to get players extra reps and maybe explain/focus in on something that we have not been doing well.

Im always going to work certain base skills but if we are going really good in one area but are lacking in another Im going to steal time to focus on things that we really need to work on. Just my way of doing things.

Agreed, thats why I no longer grade. I just take notes on what my guys need to improve on.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I prioritize the time spent on evaluating ourselves more than time spent on scouting our opponent.

I don't have my Wooden book here, but here is a piece I googled from an article that talks about Coach Wooden's philosophy:

www.jongordon.com/blog/2010/08/16/a-quest-for-excellence-2/

"...Coaching legend John Wooden often wouldn’t tell his players who they were playing each game. He felt that knowing the competition was irrelevant. He believed that if his team played to the best of their ability they would be happy with the outcome. In fact, John Wooden never focused on winning. He had his team focus on teamwork, mastering the fundamentals, daily improvement and the process that excellence requires. As a result he and his teams won A LOT."

Scouting cannot be neglected, but some high school teams change up what they do from what they showed on film, so the time investment doesn't always pay off at the HS level. I believe focusing on ourselves, on fixing our mistakes, and getting better is more important. This is the process of excellence.

I would also prioritize showing our own film to my players on Monday over our opponents for the same reason. It's important to show as much of last week's game as possible. Film is the best way to fix mistakes. Making players accountable for their performance by grading is something I highly recommend for position coaches to make their players better and to make themselves better as coaches. It's a lot of work but it pays off.