Flower Mound Marcus head coach Mike Alexander is tired of his players lying in the locker room at halftime.
Whether it's a defensive tackle claiming he was double-teamed or a linebacker claiming he was in the A-gap, the kids can't fool him anymore. This season, he's going to put an iPad in front of his players and show them the footage.
In May, the UIL allowed the use of in-game technology in press boxes and locker rooms for the 2024 football season, creating an open market for camera and software products that promise a competitive edge in Texas high school football. Marcus selected SkyCoach, an instant replay system that syncs with all the cameras the team uses to record the game on Friday night and sends a feed directly to coaches in the press box with iPads. Between series breaks, coaches can select specific plays to watch from different angles, pause them or put the feed in slow motion.
SkyCoach isn't the only product making its debut at Texas high schools: Allen and Lockhart are using a data system called ANSRS to automate the video analysis process.
Developed by former SEC defensive quality control assistant Jon Shalala, who was tired of manually charting drives, ANSRS learns a team's lingo using a preloaded package of 500 different formations and personnel. Coaches then feed back sets, formations, and play calls into the algorithm. From there, ANSRS runs dozens of micro-reports, like where tight ends line up, whether running backs are heading down the field or to the boundary, run/pass percentages, and more. This information enables instant trend reports (this team ran the ball on 2nd-and-short 70% of the time, our team lined up in a trip formation on 3rd-and-long 90% of the time) and hit charts.
“Just like people use that technology to watch NFL games on Sunday afternoon, we'll be able to do the same thing,” Alexander said.
But schools aren't just limiting their use of the technology to Friday nights. Lockhart High School head coach Todd Moebes calls ANSRS a tool that can be used 365 days a year. For example, self-scouting for the postseason involves offensive coordinators recording every play throughout the year and looking for trends that could break them heading into the next season.
“The old-fashioned way would be to write everything down on pen and paper, and it would take a month, sometimes six weeks, to get to that stage,” Mobus said. “With ANSRS, everything goes into the software, so you can self-scout 10-16 games in just a few minutes.”
Allen head coach Lee Wigginton believes ANSRS will help his coaches win weekends during the season. Last year, coaches would enter the footage they exchanged with opponents into HUDL and organize all the reports they wanted to run. Only then could they understand their opponent and begin game planning. This meant tweaking all week and sometimes only adjusting their game plan on Wednesday.
ANSRS allows you to copy and paste all of your automated data directly into HUDL.
“Our hope is that the process can be made more efficient and we can play games a couple of days earlier,” Wigginton said. “We feel like we can get our analytical answers a lot sooner and potentially have a full understanding of our opponent on Monday because we've had more time to analyze and study.”
All those benefits were enough for Wigginton to buy the product in January. Wigginton became the service's first high school customer, joining the NFL's Washington Commanders and college football's Texas Tech. But a UIL ruling meant schools like Lockhart and Allen could offer the product to coaches in the press box. No longer would they have to draw other teams' various formations on a piece of paper with 22 Xs and Os. Coaches could present the ANSRS analysis and instantly spot some plays their teams needed to watch on video.
“The coaches that come down to the press box at halftime can just press a button and have everything loaded onto that device,” Mobus said. “They don't have to go looking for the 17th play they ran on the third series at the end of the first quarter so the head coach can see it during halftime.”
Schools like Allen, Lockhart and Marx know there are kinks to work out in the first few weeks of the season, but the burden of being on the forefront of what football can do comes with it. They're working with companies like ANSRS and Skycoach to provide feedback and continually improve their products so the sport works smarter, not harder, than ever before.
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