How many game films to you break down?

We would break down the last 2 or maybe 3. We would probably also watch some of the other films looking for different stuff, trick plays, etc...

Listened to the defensive staff of Cincinnati Colerain at a Glazier a few weeks ago and he said they are only going to break down 3 games for their upcoming opponent, either the last 3 games or 3 games against a like defense. Their league has an exchange deal setup on Hudl so they have access to every game the opponent has played up to that point, but they still only do 3. The reason he said they do this is that if you start breaking down more than that you start to create tendencies that aren't really there, because you are looking at things that very likely have changed by that point (the point where you are going to play them).

I break down previous year's game films over Christmas, Spring Break, and Summer.

In our league we trade previous two games.

Sometimes that results in having three films on somebody later in the year. Usually I'll break down two most recent and watch third to confirm what I've got and for any Gadgets or variations that we may need to prepare for.

You can get too much information and wind up trying to get ready for everything and confusing the heck out of your kids.

Generally speaking we trade the previous two games with our opponent. Due to common opponents we will sometimes have 3-5 films of a team at the end of the year.

I am in full agreement that breaking down film of someone who runs a similar scheme is THE most important thing you can do. You will understand blocking assignments and route combos against similar looks.

Everything that we can get our hands on.

2 or 3 most recent games.

In WV playoffs you get every game played. We like the most recent 2 or 3.

Usually when we have had multiple games over the course of the season, the older ones are already broken down.  All the information has been inputted into hudl.  So we only had to put in the newest games.  So running reports usually is not different of a process once the most recent film is ready.

Running the reports is easy, so I liked to make 2 different reports, 3 most recent and every single game we have.  Then I compare to see if any changes have come from earlier in the season.  Another report that I might run separately is if we played them in the regular season. 

I know the whole season report can give a lot of stuff that isn't necessary or doesn't apply to a team like ours, but mostly I am looking for anomalies.  Another thing that a whole season report can give is the D&D situations that don't occur often: 1st & 10 from under their own goal post, 3rd and medium, 2 minute drill, fake punts/FGs, etc...

I tend to run a lot of different reports to compare and evaluate as much information as possible, it's my nature b/c I am a global thinker/big picture thinker.  Just because I break down all that stuff doesn't mean that we teach it all to the kids, or that it goes on the call sheet.

Break down 2-3.

Watch through as much as possible at least once. Even from last year.

In the semi-finals this year, I picked up that if they brought one more guy over to the boundary on kickoff it meant that they were going to onside. I saw it from a film the previous year. We were prepared and they tried to do it on the opening kickoff. We lined up to the onside kick. They moved the guy back over and then kicked it deep.

agree on breaking down during the spring/summer off-season. we also traded every two games to opponents save for our week two game this year where as we were both new staffs, we had just the week 1 game film to go off of.

in general I look for similar defensive fronts as a offensive guy. defensively tried to pick out their top two formations and find their base plays there. with the third offensive group we tried to find the more common stuff they did in special situations. 3rd down and short, medium, long, redzone, trick plays, etc and tried to find a common formation or motion or play to go off for that.