Watching Film as a team

Doing it as a team is probably good once to teach them HOW to watch film, but every game is probably not useful if you have limited practice time.

we split the team into 2 groups. "Skills" and linemen. One group lifts and the other watches film. then they switch.

We run through film pretty quick. Dont have too much time with em. We already practice so we've told them what they did right and wrong already. So not too much time on last weeks game is necessary. but we do spend more time on our upcoming opponent. Just to show them what to look for and all that.

But in a perfect world with all the time and resourves id love to spend more time on film and id love for each position group to watch it with their coaches. thatd be awesome. I played in a system where we watched a ton of film and I felt like it helped us be much smarter players.

With Apex or hudl im sure its much easier. You can easily select just a couple of plays you want to use as an example.

On Monday, before going out on the field, we will watch a little film; just enough to show our kids the opponent's basic O & D. After practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, the defense and the offensive linemen watch film(separately) for about 20 minutes. I don't know what the offense does. On defense, we make the LB's(since they call our signals) and the DB's call out the formation; the LB then has to call out the defense we will run to that formation.
We are on HUDL, but we want to be sure that the kids are looking at film. We also allow kids to come to the coaches' office and watch film during their study hall. It works for us.

We do the same thing. I believe that watching as a team is extremely important because it provides an atmosphere of accountability. Kids can kid themselves. If they're sitting at home watching the film by themselves with just a brief note saying about their play it's easy for them to pretend that it wasn't their fault. When you see the play a few times with the laser pointing at you, though, it's hard to say that you did it right. On the other side of it, when you see a good play you get recognized by all of your peers. That's strong stuff.

The atmosphere of accountability is absolutely necessary IMHO. Mistakes were, no doubt, made and loafs occurred which will need to be corrected if our team is going to CONTINUE to be successful or even BEGIN to be successful. Many players have a way of minimizing the significance of their mistakes or lack of effort in their mind.

Or better yet, inflating a mediocre or less than mediocre performance into something much more respectable. Seeing those mistakes and loafs on film will help that player to understand just how detrimental they were. This should serve as motivation to get it right next time not only for themselves but for their teammates as well.

Great plays and efforts will be evident as well and those need to be recognized also. Being recognized in front of teammates and coaches about the positive performances during the game is absolutely important. This will certainly serve to reinforce the desired techniques and efforts necessary for success.

A balance of both correction and recognition is important to the development of the team over the course of the year. Team film sessions, in my opinion, are still the most effective method to accomplish this task. While Hudl is a neat tool and the time the players are on Hudl can be monitored I believe it's more about the quality of time rather than the quantity.

Coaches have a responsibility to create quality time for correction and recognition and they WILL during team film sessions. I have only coached a handful of players that I could comfortably list who I know would hold themselves nearly as accountable as a coach. Those are usually very special, hard-working kids who truly LOVE football and are students of the game.

The nature of coaching is to be critical NOT negative. The coaches that can be critical of their players without them taking it personally are the coaches who are successful. Team film sessions are vital to the development of any football team.

I know I'm in the minority, but I've always thought that watching film with your kids is a waste of time. They would much rather see you run it against them (no matter how bad a look you give them) than see it on film.

HUDL (in my opinion) has created a market for itself by convincing people that if they don't buy it they're going to be outcoached.

Let me make it clear that we watch film of our game. Usually afterward we watch a few minutes of the opponent but mostly they do that on their own on Hudl.