High school football coaches rely on video technology

The days of high school football players huddled around their coach, eyes fixated on a chalkboard or dry-erase board as their coach diagrams plays and shouts adjustments, has come to an end, just like oversized shoulder pads and high-top cleats.

Modern-day coaches are now armed with internet-connected tablets that give them access to plays mere seconds after they occur. Large-screen televisions are common on sidelines, allowing coaches to address entire platoons of players at the same time.

If a correction needs to be made or a scheme changed, coaches have the information literally at their fingertips.

“With the system we use, there’s a lag time of five seconds from when the play happens to when it gets into our system,” Mounds View football coach Aaron Moberg said. “It’s an awesome competitive advantage. We can see plays and make adjustments in real time. We don’t have to wait to do them at halftime.”

The areas behind the end lines of football fields, typically reserved for bands, cheerleaders and field maintenance equipment, are now filled with towers standing roughly 40 feet that house remote-controlled, high-definition video cameras for recording games and practices.

Footage is uploaded and digitally stored, allowing coaches and coordinators to analyze plays and performances and create cut-ups, or edited highlight reels.

“It’s pretty incredible stuff,” said Norwood-Young America Central head coach Chris Goodwin, who was involved with filming games for the Gophers during the Glen Mason era. “We can make adjustments after one series. That’s huge.”

Decades ago, teams had to manually insert and remove film rolls and reels from cameras, send them to film processing labs and wait days for them to be returned.

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