Highlight Tape Tips

Cover Photo Credit: Hudl

After watching countless hours of film I thought I’d write up a short list of tips for recruits when putting together their highlight tape. I’ll update this in the future, this is just a quick list I put together. Hit me up on Twitter to let me know the important stuff I’m missing @lemminginsider.

1. Make a condensed highlight tape – Coaches have tons of kids to evaluate and don’t have the time to go through every single one of your games; make a single highlight tape of your best plays. I recommend updating your season long highlight tape after every game (if possible), but if you can’t do that then make sure to do it at the end of the season. Try to condense it down to somewhere around 3-4 minutes.

2. ALWAYS put your best plays first – You want to put your best foot forward and try to impress coaches early and often in your tape. Coaches have hundreds and hundreds of kids to watch so you want to stand out and impress them early.

3. Cut off each highlight at the end of the play – If you’re an OT pancaking a DE on the backside of a run that’s most likely going to impress coaches watching. However, coaches don’t need to see the the RB running into the endzone, celebrating with teammates and walking off the field – cut it off shortly after your involvement in the play is over.

4. Post as many relevant and impressive plays of you playing YOUR position – If you’re a WR don’t put blindside blocks on kickoffs near the front. Yes, coaches can see that you can be a physical football player, but they’d rather see you making a nice block on a CB to seal off the edge for the RB or running a crisp post route and catching the ball with your hands.

5. Have your contact info at the beginning of your tape – The more information you put on your highlight tape the easier it is for schools to contact you and recruit you. To be more specific, the biggest things that college coaches are looking for are: phone #, email, GPA and ACT/SAT (if you’ve taken it). While you don’t HAVE to include details listed above, the more you have then the easier it is to recruit you.

6. Don’t show the same play twice from 2 different angles – Yes, there are some exceptions to this in the case that the college coach would like to get a better view on a play, but for the most part it just looks like you’re trying to add in another great play when in reality is just a repeat.

7. Circle/point yourself out pre-play – Coaches want to see you before, during and after the play. Put the arrow/circle on you before the play so they can spot you easily.

8. Put your Hudl link in your Twitter and Facebook bio – Pretty self explanatory. Makes it easy for coaches to watch it. Make sure to put the link to your Hudl profile instead of your most recent highlights.

9. Use your real name on Twitter – I realize this isn’t a highlight tape tip, but is very important nonetheless. Don’t put YoungThug10 or another nickname as your Twitter name or Handle. Put your real name it’s a lot easier for college coaches to find and recruit you.

10. DO NOT put music to your highlight tape – For the love of God we do not want to hear your dope mixtape while your highlight tape is playing. I don’t care if its fire. I have yet to meet a college coach or a scout that does listen to the music of a kid’s highlight tape. Highlight tape music = automatic mute.