Summer is here, and for just about every high school coach, now is the time when you become a full-time coach. Time feels like it is on your side, and you can work on things that will make your team better in the fall. What is the most effective way you can put yourself and your team ahead of the time crunch and the week-to-week in-season sense of urgency?

Last summer, I had the privilege of interviewing coaches who use a classroom method called “flipped learning.” The coaches refer to the method as “flipped coaching.” I adopted this method last season, and I was able to help a young offensive unit learn what they needed to do to be successful.

Flipped coaching utilizes simple tools to give your players the ability to learn at their own pace and have some materials to refer to when they need review. Installation meetings and film review can be done beforehand with the coaches’ key points and instruction saved for further review. The advantage comes for the player in that he can learn at a pace comfortable for him. In a live meeting, a coach cannot be rewound and listened to again. With flipped coaching, the player can do exactly that and review as many times as he needs.

This is a great tool for game plan initial installation at the beginning of the week along with game plan review at the end of the week. The app for our video editing software allows our players to watch and listen to these videos on their smartphones. This is important, because in surveying our players, 85 percent were using the mobile app to watch film rather than a computer.

Watching video is helpful for player learning. Having the coaches’ voiceover included in that is an even bigger boost to player learning. Rather than leaving it up to the players to decide what to focus on, the coaches can highlight certain areas of the video and make key points on techniques and assignments performed correctly as well as points which can be improved.

As the season progresses, they become used to this format in how they receive their information. Until I started using this process, I always felt crunched for time in installing and explaining the game plan. Now, I release these videos on Mondays, players can review what we went over in our Monday meetings and get more detail before they practice on Tuesdays. At the end of the week, I pull the video clips from our team periods and use it as review. I show both the good and the bad to ensure that players understand exactly what needs improvement and why they need to do it correctly. The review video is done after our last padded practice on Thursday, and the players can review Fridays and Saturdays before the games. The videos range from three to five minutes. Because I break them up by personnel groups, only players in that group need to review it. What I like best is that they can view it on their smartphones at any time.

Below is an example of our game plan presentation at the beginning of the week. We utilize opponent film and still shots to explain our plan of attack. We use a screen recording software to capture video and presentations that are in our video editing software. The video we create is then loaded back into our software and made available for the players to review by the end of the day Monday.

After the last full practice of the week, I take a few minutes and give a video game plan review, which includes practice video from the week. This is an effective tool for the players to finalize their study for the week and be ready for game day. The game plan review video is below.

Now is the time to put together and get it to your players before camp. They can learn it at their own pace and come into camp with a sound understanding of your system. The time it takes to put one of these together is no more than the time you see in each video. In five minutes or so, you can share all the important information they need and support it with video and diagrams. The minimal time investment now will pay huge dividends later. When you progress into the season and continue to use this format to teach your players, the time on your part remains minimal but learning time for the players is greatly increased.

Utilizing the technology available is applicable at any level. Whether it is your digital editing package or a private YouTube channel, you have the ability to provide something better than the paper playbook

 

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