Defensive Coordinator, Southwest Florida Christian Academy (FL)@CoachTManes
The amount of offensive diversity a high school defense sees over a season means they’re carrying more calls than ever. Tyler Manes shows you how to use data in the Hudl Beta to shape your practice schedule.
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With how readily available information is in the game of football today, high-level concepts are the norm on Friday nights. It’s normal to see one high school offense running RPOs from the spread, down the street from another offense still running the split back veer.
High school defenses are having to carry more calls to match the plethora of offenses they will see week to week. Every call must have a teaching loop that starts in an "Indy" period and typically ends with a "Team D" period. So how do you split your practice time amongst the various calls?
Staffs spend the weekend inputting their own play data to analyze play efficiency and chart their self-scout, while also combing over the opponent’s film, making hit charts and creating tendency reports. All of this information can be found broken down in the Hudl Beta after the game’s play data is input.
Above, we see the typical breakdown chart that is seen on the Hudl Beta after the play data has been input beforehand. These charts show the call rate percentage for both the opposing offense and our defense this past spring game.
Call rate is important for several reasons. For one, a coordinator should be keenly aware of how much, or how little a call is being used during gametime. Another reason is how it should affect practice reps and time spent on specific tasks during the week.
At SFCA, we use the Hudl Beta tendency charts to help us plan our practice scripts. If by looking at the opponent’s play percentage we find that they are calling “GH Counter” 23 percent of the time, this influences not only "Team D" periods, but also periods like "Inside Run". If we know that our outside linebackers are likely going to be spilling a guard a lot come Friday, then we’ll make sure they get ample time wrong-arming spilling during individual periods.
We also use these self-scout charts to influence how often we rep our own calls during the week. We use the statistics to dictate how often our calls need to be practiced instead of relying on a feel.
You can use this same formula to help influence your practice script during every period; whether you are running a red zone period or just want to be better informed during Team D. Below are the yard lines that the opposing team ran certain plays on, and also the down and distance that they were called. All of this information can be found in Hudl Beta to give your practice time a more feel.
It’s crucial that your player’s practice reps are not only as close to game speed as possible, but close to real game-time situations as well. Building high-IQ football players is a skill that can be improved using your own opponent and self-scout tendencies. Pointing out the down and distance or likely play call out of a formation can mean the difference between winning and losing. Giving the players scouting reports is one thing, but giving them reps against a statistically accurate practice script is a greater advantage.
Tyler Manes helped cut opponent points per game in half during his first year as defensive coordinator at Southwest Florida Christian Academy. He also walks through his entire Tite 3-4 defense on Throwdeep.com. You can reach Tyler at manes_tyler@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @CoachTManes.
Ready to dig into these features with your own video and data?
