By Chad Wilson – Editor – GridironStuds Blog
Twitter: @GridironStuds

The time of year has come.  The majority of high school football seasons are over as the playoffs have started across the country.  This means if you got on the field this season,  you want to compile your highlights and start to get them out in the public and in front of college football scouts.  One of the most important positions on the football field is the quarterback and the competition for scholarships is fierce. Your highlight tape as a QB is everything so here are three things you must know when putting your quarterback highlight video together.

Show All Of You In Your First Ten Plays

Many quarterbacks are orderly individuals that like to put things in categories all nice and neat.  This is great for you to lead your team through the adversity of a football season.  However,  it may not be the best thing when putting together a highlight video.  I often see quarterbacks organize their highlight video in this fashion;  First 10 plays are all fade patterns.  Next 8 plays are all slants.  The next 8 plays are all QB runs.  This is not the way to go.  College coaches are pressed for time, especially during the Fall when they are in season.  Your first 1o plays on your highlight video need to show everything you can do.  Within those first 10 plays, highlight everything you think you do well.  So your first 10 may look like this:

Play #1:  Great fade pattern for a touchdown
Play #2:  A nice comeback route with some zip on it
Play #3:  A nice run off of a zone read
Play #4: A well executed bootleg play fake and pass
Play #5: A really solid seam throw
Play #6: A touch pass dropped in between a couple of defenders
Play #7: A play where you went through your progressions and hit the 2nd or third option
Play #8: A play where you ran out of options, pulled it down and scrambled for good yardage
Play #9: A well executed play fake with a deep throw (if you have a good arm)
Play #10:  A throw into a zone that you zipped in between two defenders

Within those 10 plays you have shown yourself to have many dimensions to your game and have also appealed to many different schools as all colleges don’t run the same type of offense.  Putting the same type of throw or play back to back to back on your film will suggest to the coach that you are a one trick pony.  Use the first 10 plays as a preview of all of your skills

Don’t Make Your Video A Feature Length Film

We get it quarterbacks,  you were really good and you want us to see every play you made this season.  A college coach is not going to watch your 15 minute long highlight video.  I like those quarterback highlight videos to be no longer than 9 minutes.  I often tell quarterbacks to make two highlight videos.  You can make one video for scouting purposes and another as a keepsake for you and the family.  I understand that there are some plays during the season that are your favorites but they may be meaningless to a college scout.  Put the sentimental plays on your keepsake film,  you know the one you will breakout when you are 43 years old for the kids who are going to laugh at the weird facemask you had on your helmet.

You Don’t Always Have to Show The Entire Play

This may come off as selfish but this is your highlight video and you are highlighting you.  What’s most important is the throw you made.  So, on many of your clips you can go ahead and cut the clip after the throw has been made and completed.  Quite frankly,  after that ball is caught,  your job was done. Cutting the clip, after the completion allows you to get more plays onto your highlight video in a shorter period of time.  Now, if you have a favorite receiver that you feel is under-recruited and you want to get him some help then you can including some full clips where he looked really good.  However, for the most part, cutting that clip after the pass was completed is the way to go.  You can put the full clip on your keepsake video.

As always,  I highly recommend that you put your Hudl highlight video on YouTube and also order the DVD of your highlight video.  Your Hudl video belongs to the school you play for and they can restrict your access to it whenever they want.  Happy film editing and go hard for that ticket to the next level.

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Chad Wilson is the owner and operator of GridironStuds.com a college football recruiting site and creator of the GridironStuds App,  the most popular recruiting app for high school football players in the country.  iPhone users download the GridironStuds App now and create a profile so college coaches can find you.  Click here to download.   Android users can download a modified version click here.