When do you guys watch practice film?

We do it by position, so I make a cutup if just the small fraction of plays with something worth discussing, which saves a lot of pointless scrolling. Easier for some positions than others but it makes my meetings way more efficient.

Thanks for the responses guys. Georgefred86, when you say you spend the first 5-10 minutes of indy making corrections, do you do this on the field and just refer to the film?

We watch film in our athletic period. We have special teams film for 10 minutes, then position meetings for 20 minutes. Saturday's we watch our game for 30 minutes by position. Monday we go over our scouting report and watch opponent film. Tuesday we watch Monday's practice film and correct mistakes. Wednesday we watch Tuesday's film. Thursday we do our pregame practice and watch 10 minutes of film after. I have found 10 to 15 minutes a day works very well. If you aren't watching film you are missing a great tool to help you improve. If you don't have a filmer you can use your phone and film off the hudl app. I do this frequently during individual when a filmer is not available.

On your hudl roster you can monitor how much film a player has watched in the last week and last 24 hours, and when when they last logged in. You can tell give them a time requirement and an accountability reminder if they don't meet the expectation.

amen to #4

That's true, Coach Gordon. It's is one of the pitfalls of Hudl data tracking as far as watching habits. It is not the most reliable. Like you said, I like using cut-ups I make and putting some fun task on the last slide. I do that with my scouting report each week. It is about 8 slides and 8 cut-ups. I know exactly who has and hasn't watched it before we meet Monday if they do the task. We have many kids who don't have internet access away from school. I do film times before school and at lunch for 10 minutes. If they don't have access to film they can come in and watch at that time. 98% of them do. I have them watch prepared cut-ups that are 8 to 12 plays.

One things I have learned over the years... If they see the benefit of watching film they are more apt to do it. We don't watch film to watch film. We watch film to improve our technique, to better understand our scheme, to learn our opponent's scheme, and to examine defensive personnel. We are finally at a point where our players are learning what to look for and why they look for it. It helps us make better in-game adjustments. I give my players a sheet on how to watch film. I tell them to use this as a guideline for 8 minutes a day. Here is a link to the film watching sheet for offensive lineman. docs.google.com/document/d/19W01TpHdAB14rquKFxKwTKpg_RSU9TpMzTJ8467pOVU/edit?usp=sharing

You guys are all at the high school level? And watching that much practice film?? Wow.

Our practice film is uploaded right after practice. We will watch it as a team the following day before practice.

It's not "watching" that is important for players - in my opinion. It is talking about and thinking about what they are seeing. One of my most successful techniques is to have players come to our video session with the numbers of three clips they want to share.
#1 - The clip where they made a good decision or had excellent technique. (If they did not play, or play much, they can use someone else from their position group.
#2 - IF they played, they share a clip of something they did wrong, (mental or physical) and what they should do different next - OR - if there is a clip later on in the game where they did do it right.
#3 - A clip where there brother made a great play that others might not have seen. (This is NOT an obvious highlight clip that the untrained eye could see - but one that wold would need a circle around a player to draw attention to it.)

Players get better when they watch video and TALK and THINK about football - not when we talk to them.

Whats your Thursday like now?

On Monday after practice, the Defense watches Team defense from that day. On Tuesday after practice, the offense watches team practice from that day. On Wednesday, us coaches watch our live scrimmage from that day and take notes. Then we watch Wednesday's live scrimmage Thursday morning with the team.

Defense watches practice film on Tuesday, Offense on Wednesday. The few non two way guys we have go with their position coaches. We will also try to coach up scout team kids to make sure we can get as much as possible out of it.

We will try to cut 10-15 of practice those days to make sure we watch film. it really seemed to help this year.

We are lucky to have some good managers. One thing I have done at different places is to get students who like sports to get involved in the process. They film practice and make highlight films. One coach on the board got his school to set up a class. Find a few kids that are interested in sports but don't want to play. Make them know what they are doing is very important.

i can email our entire student body at once through our gradebook/communication system called SchoolLoop

every single year, before spring ball i send a mass message out to the whole school stating that we are looking for team managers and filmers 

i tell them there will be a meeting date for anyone who is interested at lunch and they meet me in my class
Here I explain the job description and the commitment we need from them 

When i started doing this 3 years ago i had a couple kids 
last year that grew

this past year i had 30 girls who wanted to be managers (and 1 boy who is actually bigger than all but 1 players on our team)
and about 10 kids who wanted to be filmers 

because i had so many interested i wanted to weed out the turds
i gave them 1 week to write me a half page essay on WHY they wanted to be team managers
this cut the number a bit and then i explained i would be making cuts after spring ball if they didnt show up 80% of the time or more 

we developed a schedule for the minimum days they needed to be there 
and i appointed 2 "Captains" for each job 

One Senior as the official LEADER of their position 
and one underclassmen to essentially be their under study so they know how to run things the next year when they take over 

do they miss? heck yeah, all the time
they are like the kids... they wanna miss but everyone is there on game day 

but because i have so many overall, we are always able to have about 4 managers and 2 filmers there every single day 

another thing you can do 

if you are a teacher, offer an insane amount of extra credit to kids who donate their time after school 

i did that for a kid once, ended up being the best press box filmer i have ever had 
deal was he could do his homework in my PE class and get an A, if he filmed every single game for me ( he was a 3 sport athlete in amazing shape and a 4.0 student)
worked out great for everyone and he is in college now