How game film has evolved in Indiana high school football

Note: this is the second part of a five-story series across the Indiana newspapers within the Center for Community Journalism at Gannett, focusing on the growth of technology in high school sports. To read the other stories, visit the South Bend Tribune, Journal & Courier (Lafayette), The Star-Press (Muncie), The Herald-Times (Bloomington) or The Courier & Press (Evansville).

BLOOMINGTON ― There’s no place to hide on a high school football field anymore.

When a play goes bad at Bloomington South and the 11 players come back to the sidelines, coaches no longer need player accounts to figure out who missed an assignment or zigged when they should have zagged. They’ve already got four unassailable eyewitnesses lined up.

The Panthers record every play on four different cameras ― one from each end zone and two angles from the press box. Each view is available almost immediately on the sideline. Eight iPads are at the ready, and there’s another one on a tripod for anyone to use at any time.

At practice, iPads and even phones can give the coaches an eye level view of each rep. All of this is part of the evolution of video accessibility in all high school sports, but especially football.

Bloomington South coach Gabe Johnson remembers a time when assistant coaches with walkie-talkies standing behind the fence at games provided the ‘end zone view.’ Hudl started changing that about 15 years ago.

“It takes a small army to work that, and we have that,” Johnson said. “It’s worthwhile. It’s no different than how we view the weightroom.”

As Wi-Fi availability and dependability grew, cameras improved and drones became mainstream, the technology and data analytics once available only to the pros has trickled down to the high school level.

The Class 5A Panthers have one of the Bloomington area’s more sophisticated and comprehensive packages, but even the smallest schools have access to Hudl’s improved system of recording and sharing game film.

“I go back 35 years,” Edgewood coach Scott Fischer said. “When I was playing it was still 16mm film. Throughout my junior year, I can still hear the click-click-click as he backed something up he was showing us on Saturday morning.”

Every play, every angle

Bloomington North and 3A Edgewood have also added a drone to the mix for end zone angles during games and overhead shots during practice. They are not able to fly them during the playoffs, per IHSAA rule.

Both schools will have iPads in the booth and several on the sidelines.

“We film every practice and go back and look at it immediately following,” Fischer said. “It gives us a better sense of what we’re doing right and wrong.”

During games, the instantaneous feedback works best for larger schools which depend on few if any two-way players. At a 1A school such as Eastern Greene, which keeps its best players on the field almost all game, halftime is the best opportunity to impart wisdom gained from the film.

The T-Birds will have a single iPad on the sideline with one camera on the press box and another in the end zone, both run by boosters at home games. Eastern takes only one camera to road games since the opponent will provide their Hudl view as well.

“We’ve had a couple scrimmages (this summer),” Eastern coach Shawn Nikirk said. “They’ve both been on the road, and they sent the film before I got back to school. We don’t have the capability of the bigger schools and we sure don’t have a film guy. It’ll be everybody on staff helping with it.”

Maybe the only bug is just how much coaches have come to depend on the technology.

“It throws you for loop when it doesn’t work,” Johnson said. “It’s worked against us when we don’t critically look at a play because we’re expecting to look at it on the iPad.”

Trading film the easy way

Just like the installation of turf field, Hudl has been a time saver for coaches.

Fischer remembers hanging out with his brethren at an Indianapolis film developer on Shadeland Avenue on Friday night/Saturday morning waiting for the 16mm reels to come out.

Even as VCR tapes came along, it still meant getting in a car and setting up a halfway-point meeting with the next week’s opponent to trade tapes. Now, it’s all available with a click on Hudl.

Generally, each team is expected to trade the wide view of the previous two week’s games, with end zone views optional. But some bargaining can take place. And coaching connections are always good to pick up access to some extra film if there are shared opponents.

The Mid-State Conference, where North is headed next year, works a bit differently.

“(Trading film is) more streamlined and we have more of our weekend back because of it,” said new Cougar coach Brett Cooper, who was most recently at Perry Meridian. “The Mid-State has a pool where you put every game in so you have access to every game from every opponent.”

Who’s watching who?

Having all the game film available online all the time has been a game-changer, giving players 24/7 access at school, home, on phones, tablets and laptops.

When Johnson was an assistant at North in 2003-05, they hired someone to take the film, edit it and cut it into clips and put it on VHS tapes by Saturday morning.

“It wasn’t cheap,” Johnson said. “But it was about the best thing at the time.”

Then came DVD machines that could burn a dozen copies of game film at a time, giving a few players their own copies.

The digital-only format and the ability to sync the data to each snap through Hudl allows each play to be easily sorted for specific position groups or certain situations.

But are they watching? Hudl keeps track. Some coaches are big on it, but ultimately, a player’s performance at practice tells them all they need to know.

“We don’t have a requirement,” Johnson said. “Just because it’s on doesn’t mean they’re watching it. But it is interesting to see which kids are watching. Your quarterback better be watching. But it’s always surprising how much or how little guys watch, but we try not to live in that world.”

Johnson uses an Xbox controller to manipulate the film and can add notes, lines or arrows to emphasize certain things. But players still have to learn how to watch film the right way, focusing on their specific role in the 11-man scheme and not just ball-watching.

“Sunday, the guys are asking, ‘Is the scouting report up yet?'” Johnson said. “We tie so much of what we want them to know into the scouting report so they develop a thirst for it. They know they’ll be held accountable for knowing and understanding it.

“It’s all there for them.”

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