The Game-Changing Huddle

Not too long ago in middle and high school, I remember our football coaches wheeling out a gigantic black box on a cart. Everyone would gather around the television and the coaches would insert the VHS (DVD in more recent years) and we would watch film on the other teams.  Our coaches had either obtained these films from some sort of black market for high school football videos or they met up with coaches of other teams and simply swapped out films.  It’s probably the latter, but you never can be sure too sure with high school coaches and the actions that they will take [see Texas referee fiasco here]. Nowadays, most schools have done away with VHS tapes, DVDs, and those roll-carts that substitute teachers used to show irrelevant movies.  Instead, coaches and players now simply go to hudl.com.  Hudl has changed and is still changing the landscape of high school football scouting and college recruiting.  

                In preparing for the next opponent, coaches now have an online library as a study resource.  That library may possess just a few games or it may even contain full seasons and 7on7 (a summer scrimmage style of play) games.  Studying these opponents is crucial to the success of a team and therefore Hudl is a great platform for coaches to exploit.  Additionally, coaches can study other teams to learn new formations and plays for their teams to run.  High school coaches aren’t the only ones doing research on Hudl, however.  Maybe even more than them, college recruiters spend countless hours following and scouting the talent of high school and EVEN middle school football players.

                There once was a time when only the most elite players had highlight tapes in high school.  If someone had a high school highlight video fifteen or twenty years ago, it was important to remember that name because you were about to be hearing it on Saturdays and possibly even Sundays.  Now though, every kid trying to play football after high school has the easy ability to compile a video of highlights onto their personal Hudl accounts.  With these videos always accessible on the online database, kids can then just send out the link to as many coaches as they desire.  These links are commonly found in Twitter bios, Instagram profiles, and Facebook statuses.  

This is just another way that social media has changed the game of high school and college football.  No longer is high school football confined to a local newspaper or a message board.  Now every kid in the nation can be seen by anyone whenever.  While this makes every athlete feel more visible to coaches, it should also give them the feeling that the competition is higher than ever for a scholarship since coaches can scout kids across the nation in the comfort of their basements at one in the morning.