“I can see what I did wrong, and I can also watch the other players and see if they take the same angle,” Myers said. “I used to have to come back (to the school) to watch more, but now I can just do it from home.”
Xenia, which is preparing to visit Bellbrook tonight in the Dayton Daily News Game of the Week, is, like all high school football teams, in constant search for more effective methods of using videos to teach players and study opponents.
Technology has drastically changed that practice. Many area teams use the Hudl service, which costs between $200 and $3,000 per year depending on the package, while almost all coaching staffs somehow implement digital advances in showing players what they must correct and attempting to learn opponents’ tendencies.
Advances in software have allowed teams to all but create personalized methods of cutting, calculating, scouting and, in some cases, highlighting their players through the taping that used to come reel-to-reel.
“Basically, you’re limited to your own imagination and your own time,” said Tippecanoe coach Charlie Burgbacher, who has rolled with the changes in his 38 years of coaching high school football.
To many, though, football remains a game of instinct, no matter how clear a formula for an opponent’s tendencies is produced with the detailed breakdown of third-and-longs or red zone chances. Coaches also caution against overthinking the game.
Xenia coach Bob DeLong likes that Myers does hours of home preparation — “as long as he’s not just looking at the cheerleaders” — but he also stresses that the time and attention must be manageable with all of the available video breakdown options.
“You can dizzy yourself with it,” DeLong said. “It’s amazing how much you can do.”
So many options
Once Kevin Basinger’s math class broke with the lunch bell on Wednesday afternoon, he slid to his classroom laptop.
Preparing to host Xenia and trying to avoid an 0-2 start, the Bellbrook coach can periodically steal several minutes to catch a few clips. The Golden Eagles began using Hudl this year and Basinger is still learning the options.
“There’s a ton I just don’t know how to work yet,” he said, displaying methods of highlighting players with circles and telestrating using arrows with the software. “It’s just amazing what’s possible.”
Bellbrook joined many schools in using DVDs in previous years, but a video player was necessary to watch the clips. Hudl allows access from any Internet connection.
From the classroom, office, home or coffee shop, coaches and players sign in to watch clips, leave comments on those clips and study tendencies with breakdowns by down and distance, formation, period of the game and place on the field.
By Saturday afternoon, like many teams, Northmont has downloaded its two cameras’ worth of video — a view from the press box and a view from one end zone — and entered the specifics of each play. Teams have traditionally traded several games worth of video before facing one another, and that swapping can now happen on Hudl, giving the coaches more video to break down on the site.
“You can kind of go into information overload,” Northmont coach Lance Schneider said. “You still just have to do what you do best. Every coach has something they like to do.”
Addiction to film
In football, in which 22 bodies move on each play, the study of practice or game recordings has long been some of the most intense in sports. The gamesmanship of using and trading video also has been a tradition.
Versailles coach Bob Olwin recalled instances of a team providing tape on which all the scoring plays were omitted and another trading film of the previous year’s team. DeLong, the Xenia coach, said he enjoyed having breakfast on Saturday mornings with the opposing assistant he met to swap video.
Now the world is digital, although some don’t embrace the change.
“The basketball team used it last year and the football teams are supposed to use it this year,” Olwin said of digital film service. “Right now it’s not being very friendly to us users.
“I don’t think the coaches are real excited about using it, but it was voted on by an executive committee.”
At Eaton, coach Ron Neanen and his staff study videos and tendencies by hand.
“We still do it the old-fashioned way,” he said, “with pen and pencil.”
Some simply can’t afford the technological updates. Meadowdale coach Bosie Miliner and his staff also do breakdowns by hand, but out of necessity.
“It’s less time consuming if we could do it,” Miliner said. “I wouldn’t have to spend hour after hour on Sunday breaking down film — five and six hours — and get a game plan for next week.”
Many coaches hope the digital services can make their practices more effective. Plays or schemes that are clearly ineffective are dropped from the plans. Some said they hope to increase video study in place of hard-hitting practices to decrease player injuries.
Some of that effort is up to the players. With Hudl, each receives a password through email and can log on to the site whenever they want. For players like Xenia’s Myers, that means more specific study of his own movements or the next week’s opponent.
“It’s a chance to learn more,” Myers said. “There are small things that can change a lot in the games.”
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