By: Chad Wilson – Editor in Chief – GridironStuds Blog
Twiiter: @GridironStuds
If you play multiple positions on your high school football team it means a couple of things. First you are a good football player and second you are valuable to your football team. This also means that at the end of the year, you are going to have your fair share of highlights to put on your highlight video. With so many highlights, your video has to be good. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to make your highlight video when you are a multi-position player.
The standard way for most players to go about this is to put all of their plays from their primary position at the beginning of the video. Then, after about five minutes of that, they will put their plays from their secondary position and other positions. In the normal world of doing things, that certainly makes sense. In the world of making a highlight video that you want college coaches to watch, that is the absolute wrong thing to do.
Remember that your highlight video is a demo of what you can do. It’s your calling card. Your highlight video has to invite and entice the college coach into seeking more information about you. They do not have time to watch a nine minute highlight video. At some point the plays from your primary position are going to be routine and the coach will more than likely move on to the next tape and never see what you can do at those other positions. As I have said before, most coaches will determine within the first 30-45 seconds of your highlight video if you have the ability to play for their program. So why not make that 30-45 seconds the best of you.
So how do we give your multi-position highlight video that pow that makes them say wow. It’s simple, put your best plays first regardless of what position you made them from. Furthermore, I would recommend the early part of your video show the best play from each position you played. So for instance, you play WR, DB and you return kicks. Here’s what the first 6 plays of your video should look like:
Play #1: 50 yd TD reception
Play #2: 85 yard kick off return for TD
Play #3: 25 yard INT return for TD
Play #4: 40 yard slant pass caught where you broke a tackle and scored a TD
Play #5: big hit on receiver that caught a ball across the middle
Play #6: 55 yard punt return for a TD
That’s a whole lot better than making that coach wait 6.5 minutes to see that 85 yard kick off return because that’s where you put all your special teams plays on your highlight video. With the example above, you have caught the attention of the wide receiver coach, defensive back coach and the special teams coach for the program you are interested in playing for all in the first 30 seconds. Now you have three times the chance of being recruited by that program as at least one of those coaches may see the value in you as a player.
If you have made a quality amount of plays at each position you can continue the pattern of one offensive play, one defensive play then one special teams play. If the plays are routine, first of they should not be on your highlight video but slide those routine plays further back in your video. Put all the explosive, spectacular plays closer to the front. You want to display what kind of athlete you are. Programs are in love with recruiting athletes these days. They favor that over great high school players. They are recruiting body types and playmakers. Appeal to that with your highlight video. They figure they can always mold you into what they want.
I would also recommend that you then go ahead and make a longer version of your highlight video where you put all of your plays in compartments or even use the Hudl program to make a special teams highlight reel, an offensive highlight reel and a defensive highlight reel. However, that SHOULD NOT take the place of your short highlight video ( 2 to 4 min.) that shows the best plays from each position mixed together.
Just some food for thought as you go about compiling those highlights for the great season you are about to have on the GRIDIRON.
Chad Wilson is a college football recruiting expert and creator of the GridironStudsApp which allows high school football players to gain exposure to college football coaches and fans. Wilson is a former college football player for the University of Miami (92-94) and Long Beach St. (’90-’91) and played briefly for the Seattle Seahawks (’95). He is also a former youth and high school football coach for over 15 years most recently for 5-A State of Florida Champs American Heritage. He runs All Eyes DB Camp a defensive back training company located in South Florida IG: @alleyesdbcamp. Wilson’s oldest son Quincy plays in the NFL for the New York Giants and his younger son plays cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals.
