Football Assist Performance Analysis Opponent Scouting

New Data, No Limits: Assist for Football 2018

Apr 18, 2018

4 Min Read

Find out what updates we have planned for Hudl Assist this football season.

We want to make the 2018 football season the best yet. Our goal is to build additional products to help our coaches and athletes dominate their season and make their weekly workflows even more productive. (Want to see the other updates?)

It all starts with Hudl Assist. We took extensive feedback from coaches around the country and used it to inspire improvements to our product. It’s time to get excited.

We’re doing away with submission limits.

As of March 1, you can submit games year-round once you renew or sign up for an unlimited package. It works just like your Hudl account—a full year of access. Your unlimited package also includes any games from the 2017-2018 season. Submit your first opponent’s games from last season to help your team know what you'll be up against.

Offensive formation gets an overhaul.

Last year was the first season we offered offensive formation in our Assist breakdowns, and we took our fair share of blind side hits along the way. But the lessons we learned and the feedback we received put us on track to make this year a success. We’re reworking how we break down offensive formation to ensure better accuracy and more customization to your team’s terminology—plus taking into account backfield and strength. Look for more info later this summer.*

*These offensive formation updates only apply to games played in 2018-2019.

Assist for the small (but mighty) 8- and 9-man teams.

For a smaller team with a smaller staff, we know everyone is usually stretched too thin to even consider advanced data. We want to give these teams the upper hand by taking over the basic data breakdown. We’re excited to launch Assist for 8- and 9-man teams—send in your games and we’ll send back data for both sides of the ball. Smaller teams and smaller fields won’t keep you from having the resources you need to be successful.

No more defensive front and blitz.

At the end of last season, we ran a survey to determine how much value our data was giving coaches. The results? Defensive front and blitz are too subjective—one coach’s 4-3 is another coach’s 3-4 with a walked-up outside linebacker. Because coaches know their own defenses better than anyone else, we’re cutting these columns from our Assist breakdowns this season.

The new guys on the team.

We have two new additions to our breakdowns for the 2018 season: efficiency and series. You’ll see these new columns in your breakdowns in the next few weeks, and we hope they help you make the best decisions when it comes to analyzing your team and opponents.

Efficiency: Does that play actually work?

The efficiency column helps you make informed decisions about the best plays to run. It's based on the gain/loss associated with a specific situation.

On first down, an offensive play is efficient if it results in 40% or more yards toward a first down—four or more yards in a ten yard situation.
On second down, a play is efficient if it results in 50% or more yards to reach a first down.
For third and fourth down, you'll need to get a first down (or a touchdown) for the play to be efficient.

For the defense, a play is efficient if the result is the opposite of the above conditions or if it ends in a defensive touchdown, safety, interception or fumble. We track efficiency with “Yes” or “No”. You can easily filter your data by both options or create custom reports to see what plays and formations are most successful in each scenario.

Try running a custom report with offensive formation, play and efficiency.

Custom report by offensive formation, play and efficiency.

In this example, this team’s best option is to run toss when they’re in tight, and you can dig in to find out why this was the case. This report allows you to stack up your plays and see what you average on different plays. It's a valuable tool to scout your opponents, too.

Efficient teams are winning teams—Assist can help you get there.

Series: Track the flow of the game.

Each series will be labeled to help you better analyze each possession and easily gain insight from their length or turnout.

We generate series based on the plays for one team’s scoring attempt, starting when they gain possession of the ball. A series ends when the other team gains possession.

The first offensive series will be labeled with “1” for all plays.
When the other team’s series starts, that will also be tagged as “1” for their offensive series.
Once the original team gets the ball back, the series will be labeled with “2”, and so on.

Try running a custom report with series and play type.

This report can help you see your opponents' decision-making at different stages of the game. Within your full game, you can also filter by ODK and save their offensive or defensive clips to a separate playlist. Series will keep each drive organized so you can see the overall flow of the game while only looking at one side of the ball.

Or want to know if your team starts slow or comes out of the gates efficiently in the first series of every game? Run a custom report with efficiency and series to find out!