Greenfield High School Video Coordinator and Receivers Coach
Follow @CoachMitts
In today’s insanely
fast-paced world, football season seems to go by in the blink of an eye. Starting with summer camp in July, it’s
full boar until November/December brings on the state championship games. Warp-speed is the nature of our sport,
but (as we’ve all come to learn at one point or another) intense focus at
season start is what makes or breaks a team.
As the hot summer sun
scorches our field, camp gets underway. It’s the beginning of new season and
there’s a lot of work, sweat and excitement – as well as a lot of forgetting
everything they learned the year before. Which is utterly frustrating because
coaches build from the basics - we lay the building blocks of our systems in
the fundamentals we preach the entire year. But what if we could eliminate how much time we spend on
teaching the elementary principles of football at the beginning of camp?
Uploading a video of
your program fundamentals, and distributing it during summer weight lifting
(simply throw it up on Hudl – which will allow you to track video views), will
save you a lot of valuable time.
Here is how you do it:
Bring in your team leaders at each position and film them doing the correct
fundamentals for your program.
Sure, you can direct the players to various YouTube videos that get the
job done, but none of them will capture the nuances of your program.
Are you a zone blocking
team? An option team? Or a power team? Break down what YOU do to the level
that YOU feel comfortable with. It
can be as simple as showing what the basic three-point stance should be on the
offensive line. You can take it a
few steps further and break down what the center, guard, and tackle should do
when it comes down to run and pass blocking, including first steps, hand
placements and head placements.
You could even tell them what your code words are for double teams, snap
counts or hot calls.
Are you thinking about
tweaking your wide receivers stances?
Show them exactly where you want their hands, feet and body posture to
be. You could even film routes you
want them to know for camp with the play tag given.
The same goes for the
defense. Are you a four-point
stance fan on the defensive line?
Show your nose tackles and defensive ends how you want their feet to be
and what angle you want their back. Break it down even further and show first
step and hand placement if you’re slanting and ripping. Or if you’re a gap team, show where the
first punch and step should land.
Explain and show any and all moves (rip, swim, club, spin) you want your
defensive line players to know before camp. Describe your defensive backfield stances and body placement
– or take it up a notch and show proper back pedal technique and how to
properly break on a ball.
Pre-season education is
almost limitless with video. From
simple basics for your incoming freshman players to advanced techniques for
your varsity players – these lessons give your team a head start to the
“official season”. Once you are
happy with the content you have recorded, upload it to your computer and save
the file. Burn DVD copies for
incoming freshman players (because they likely don’t have Hudl accounts yet)
and upload the film to your Hudl (distribute the playlists to each individual
group). This way, you know each
position gets exactly what they need to see. No Hudl? No problem! Make DVD copies for everyone.
Be sure to save it to
your computer though! This way,
once you start adding film to your account, you can delete the fundamentals
video from your Hudl library and still have it for next year – that’s right,
this is an investment. Record the material once and have it forever.
By spending a little bit
of off season time to capture this film and upload it to your account, you can
shave time off of your camp for fundamentals and give that time to pressing
matters. Let me know if this is
something you already do or plan to do this year to help your program out! Also tell me what else you’re up to –
and I’ll write about it. Here’s to
the offseason coaches!
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