Sharing Scouting Report with Players

Kids don't like getting more paper handed to them. They think that they get enough of that in class. They're out here trying to have some fun. More reading material spoils that fun.

What we do is...put it on the field during practice and tell them that they might see THIS...and THIS...and especially THIS.

"When you do see it, here's how we will play it."

Players don't think like coaches. They think like teenagers. You may very well be making more work for yourself than it's worth.

Anyway, that's MHO.

We focus on top 5 formations and plays. On Monday we align the scout team in each of the top 5 formations and walk through the favorite plays. We will also go over any special adjustments/personnel keys. We also make a 20-25 play cut-up of the same top formations and plays and send via HUDL. We will watch that cut-up before practice on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Used to hand out scouting reports, but got tired of seeing them on the floor....

For defense I would do a 1-2 page max sheet with top formations and top plays with a few tips. I would also draw stuff up on the board in the locker room. A lot of on field walk and talk as well. Kids now aren't programed for pen and paper like we were. There should be more pen and paper stuff in school and life in general but that's a different discussion. They can also watch film on HUDL now so that helps.

To be honest players would probably respond more to digital presentations now but I didn't have the time or the want to in order to put them together.

What we do:

Disclaimer I am old and somewhat set in my ways:

I have a paper scouting report with every play the opponent has run, and every front, stunt and coverage we’ve seen. This can get to be up to 24 pages. (8 plays per page). I’ve been doing it since 1994 and at very least it helps me.

Coaches get this report. Players get this IF they want one. I usually have about half the guys who want it- mostly starters and a few freshmen who either really care or want to have it because it’s cool and impresses the girls (in their mind) when they walk around with a scouting report.

Each position coach creates cutups based on what we see and talk about at our meeting (we meet Sunday evening for a few hours).

In addition to being the HC, I also coach OL and LBs. The OL cutup might be 5-10 plays… usually their base plus things we need to prepare for during the week. The LB cutup might be 20-30 clips of the same 3-4 plays. (Sometimes more plays/less clips).

We try to keep it at about 3-5 minutes of viewing time.

If we have any adjustment/new tweak- we will put that on Go Army Edge and have it there and upload it to Hudl (amazing how these teenage technological wizards can’t figure out some of our football apps).

I am going in to my 33rd year as a head coach and I am comfortable with this…

The paper scouting report is efficient (i.e. worth the time) for me because I use it… and that is still a part of the job I enjoy.

The film clips are more efficient for the players… and I’ve had a lot of guys who never get a scouting report, go only off of the film clips provided and know what they are doing as well as anyone else on the field.

We used to give them a paper copy and no one ever looked at it. Then we started sharing it on Drive and no one still looked at it. I’m not a fan of giving it out anymore after that. We can teach what we need to without sharing a scouring report.

If you make a scouting report for coaches, you should share it with players, IMO.
- Maybe not every single thing, because you can give too much information.

Shorten it to the stuff that you find to be the most pertinent to your guys, or even better try and make them targeted to each position group/unit.

I saw one coach on Twitter who discussed how they created an Instagram account that was private and shared their scouting reports and Playbook on it because they knew that their players were always on Instagram.

I am a believer of giving the players the information, sure some or even most of them might not look at it in depth or even at all but it's good to provide it for those who will, and I think it helps you as a coach retain information by summarizing the key points.

I share what they need to know on Google Drive. Less=more.

Not trying to shill a product, but we've been using JustPlay for scouting reports for a few seasons now. I used to create a HUDL playlist/cutup with notes to share out as a scouting report. I can do the same thing on JustPlay and I'm happier with the presentation. Most of the players have the app downloaded on their devices but for those without phones it works just as well on the school issued Chromebooks.

I also provide a paper copy scouting report for special teams.

For those who are unfamiliar, JustPlay is an online platform for digital playbooks and presentations. You pay per user (eg: team of 100 at, complete estimation, 30 bucks a user, comes to appx $3000 annually. So yes, you need to have disposable income in your program to play with OR make something like this a priority over other things. We are paying about 1500 bucks for about 45 licenses but their whole pricing works on a sliding scale. Not to mention, TCU making the title game and unleashing a few articles the week before about how their team uses JustPLay has created some justifiable price hikes). I have no idea their actual cost as they keep that pretty private until you go down the rabbit hole with them and sign up for a demo.

To answer the original question, I feel like JustPlay has saved a little bit of time compared to when I did a Powerpoint style HUDL cutup as you mentioned. It's not astronomical unfortunately. My main positive for working with JustPlay is the scouting report dings on the players phone once a week while they are busy scrolling on TikTok and texting. I've seen positive results (via data tracking clicks, tracking time spent on the JustPLay platform, and getting a pulse on the teams knowledge via quick chats while they enter the locker room on Monday for practice).