Player Grades

Its data and it makes your assistants accountable and they have to know what they need to work on in practice. I would make assistants do them plus or minus for each play and come up with an average for the game.

Ok, i will be quiet now. Why does everything have to be an argument on this site!

We do this. It takes a lot of time. I coach offensive line and linebackers. That’s 7 positions to grade out. It takes me watching each player 2-3 times per play to see if they executed properly. Then I have to fill out the sheet and leave a note. What I find is that most of the time the players make the same mistakes so I would rather make a 10-15 play cut up on hudl with what we did well and what we need to work on. It takes me between 4-5 hours to do both sides.

I am torn on grading the whole thing. I think you are right that it holds coaches accountable, but I would be accountable without it. I don’t think the kids will ever go back and watch the whole film with the grade sheet. I did the grading and cut up this year and my kids said the cut up was more helpful. They do love getting grades though.

Another issue is inconsistency in staff grading. Our receiver coach gives a kid a + as long as nothing bad happens. His kids regularly graded out in the 90’s. I grade based on alignment, execution and effort. My highest grade all year was a 78%. My point is what does the grade actually mean.

Pros of grading:
In-depth evaluation, standardizes the evaluation. Takes the “feel” of how a player did; I definitely have had games where I thought a player played well and I was wrong and vice versa.

Cons:
A lot of time that could be used else where. Inefficient.


I don’t mind doing grading the whole thing, I just don’t know that we get anything more out of it than making a cut up.

It’s not that I want to watch less film either, I actively trying to convince our head coach to let us start filming practice.

I grade on alignment, execution and effort. Two of those things alignment and effort the player is 100% in control of. Unfortunately, the ability level of the opponent will be a variable in the grading of execution. If you don’t execute your block, then you get minus. Obviously, against the stud the grade will be lower. Against the turd it will be higher.

Our staff’s job is to make adjustments in our game planning and in preparation of facing that stud to give our kids individually and collectively the best chance to succeed. We might try to find a way to double team that kid, we might adjust play calling and run more screen game or quick passes, we might try to trap the kid. Whatever we do though, we expect whoever is assigned to block the stud to block him. We know our guy will lose that battle at times and when he does he gets a minus. We had a situation this year that was similar. Our left guard is 5-9 215 lbs and tough as nails. The team we played had a defensive tackle that was a stud (not power 5 but he could play). My guy played his butt off but graded at a 47%. He got an effort decal and I coached him up on the technique things he struggled at. The goal was how to get him to execute better in the future. Fix the things that would have allowed him to score a better grade.

Against a turd, I want our kids to dominate. Don’t let that kid beat you even one time. Grade wise same goal, score as high as you can by taking care of business in alignment, execution and effort.

Simply put in my grading system, the score is just going to be lower versus the power 5 kid.

I don’t really care about the graded number though. I want to take the film and find areas where I can help players improve their game to fulfill their full potential. I don’t want underachievers. If against the stud theoretically you should have made your block twenty times but get him 23 then I am happy. Against the bum you theoretically could have blocked him every time but you miss two blocks I am disappointed. In either case how what can I take from that film to allow me to go into practice and strive continual improvement.

thanks for the input. The discussion is alot of what I'm experiencing. I'm at a mall school - not alot of numbers, so position competition isn't really an issue. We awarded helmet stickers for passing grades (and other things) good motivator but alot of time to ask of the position coaches. When I was an asst I enjoyed grading, but that is probably why I'm HC now. Just seeing how others have done it

We did them this past season for the first time ever. The system itself was okay...Players got a 0, 1, or 2. 2 was they executed their assignment and were aligned properly and executed proper technique as well. A 1 was they either didn't know their assignment, failed in executing the assignment, or they were misaligned. A 0 was they blew their assignment AND were misaligned somehow. Effort, or lack thereof, would result in a 0 as well. As a line coach, everything was either a 0 or 2 for me as OL obviously know where to line up each play.

As far as what I got out of it...absolutely nothing. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Were some players motivated at seeing a poor grade? Perhaps. Plus, it took me so long to get the grading done I felt it cut into my time to watch film on the next opponent. I won't do it again unless mandated by the HC.

I have not done it all season. When we had some position battles early in camp I did keep track of snaps, and execution on a spread sheet while watching film. A couple reasons why we discontinued the practice is a legit question is what was I going to do with it each week? In the situation I was in we were at a small school and maybe the player who grades out to a C- is still going to be better than the next kid off the sideline.

Another reason is I don't need to grade a kid out in order to see he's great, good, or no good. He is either getting the job done or he isn't.

We did grade out units using certain metrics. So offense as a whole based on penalties, turnovers, etc. Defense pretty much the same thing. Then compared that to numbers when we won games vs when we lost. We did share that with players.

I agree with ttaylor it helps hold players and coaches accountable. Forces coaches to watch film and see what their kids are doing. And doesn’t matter who lines up across from you. Shows player each week if they got the job done or not.

I understand those arguments, but regarding the "it doesn't matter who lines up across from you", I guess I would be the kid who was like "F you coach..giving me a 47 because you asked me to block the kid who is enrolling  at Oklahoma in 4 weeks and Scott gets an 85 blocking a sophomore."  

To clarify,  I definitely am not suggesting kids should not be reviewed and evaluated.  Just that a formal numerical standardized grading process might not be the best use of time/effort.   But if you are saying that forcing the coaches to "grade" is the only way to make them watch film and/or evaluate, who is to say they aren't making the grades up, fast forwarding, etc. 

I love when people point out problems but don't offer solutions or ideas.

Waste of time but it does make you look busy, which is the goal of many coaching staffs.
You can always tweet about the amount of time you spend at the fieldhouse.
#lovethegrind

Not a fan of grading. I like sending Hudl play list of game notes to whole position group letting entire group see notes to #1 Mike LB or whatever. I want my LBs making plays and I’ll correct them for how they do it compared to how they’re supposed to do it, but not making a play the exact way I drew up/Think it should be done, doesn’t grade them a 0 in my book. That’s why I quit grading.

Here’s a question for graders:

Say it’s 3rd & 3 to go—Will LB is supposed to line up in a 40 Tech but is too wide (missed alignment) and is supposed to blitz b gap but doesn’t blitz (missed assignment I would guess) but makes a tackle on the perimeter for a loss of 1. What does his grade say?

I am not going to defend the whole system of grading because I would prefer not to do it and just make a cut up with notes on hudl.

I don’t know a better way to do it that fits where I am at currently. Like I said if we know a player is going to be out-talented we try to game plan to put that kid and the team in the best position to be successful.

I understand that you and others would be frustrated for receiving a lower score than a teammate because you went up against a better opponent. I have had this happen and I explain to my guys that their score should be relative to their potential and ability and it can’t be compared to another player’s score because the variables are different. I have a good enough relationship with my players that they trust that I am using grading as a tool to make them better.

I just don’t think there’s a perfect grading system out there, but since our hc requires us to grade the film this is what I found best for me.

I could see the benefits of grading based solely on things a kid can control. In theory if a kid has proper alignment and great effort he should be in position to execute his techniques properly.

I am a process oriented coach so I like evaluating a kid based solely on what he can control completely. I just think the waters get muddied on how much a player can control when the ball is snapped and the variables are moving.

I watch the film (shows my age because nothing is actually film anymore), and write down the mistakes as well as the good.

Then we show it to the kids. I don't need to say "Jimmy you got a D- Friday", odds are he knows he played like {censored} if during films or on Hudl he reads the comments. If the coaching staff thinks he's a D- player, and he doesn't at least think he played poorly then the program doesn't understand the standards.

You can look on Hudl now and see how many minutes (or hours) your assistants are watching. I find that to be a great motivator....and {censored} guys if you are an assistant and you have to be motivated by some external force to watch film you should not be coaching.  If you are a head coach and you have to motivate your assistant to watch Hudl then you need new assistants.