Baca's Mailbag: Lessons from Galveston?

Don wants to know--at least he wanted to know last week--if the Galveston pro game videos might be useful as film study for either the pro teams or divisional teams. (At the time he asked I hadn't watched any of the videos. I have now seen a fairly large representative sample.) The answer is an equivocating maybe. More definitively, and equally disappointing, there really isn't enough of the right kind of material to serve as useful film study.

But before I get into the details I have a request: Hey, Matty, how 'bout mixing up your booth partners in order to get reps from all the teams involved? There's nothing wrong with Matty & His All-Star Friends but maybe a little love for the rest of us? (Assuming the league is going to continue with the event videos.) I know, it's out there ... but it might work. Just saying.

The matches, or as I prefer to call them, the kinetic motive activities too often focused on elements of the action, even on the breakouts where a single team was featured or the split screen and camera angles couldn't keep all ten players in sight. The elevated camera view that encompassed most of the field was the most useful angle for film study. With film study I'm focusing on one of two s. Either I'm confirming my guys were attempting the play called and analyzing their execution and following thru to success or failure or I'm observing an opponent for patterns that may occur over the length of a match or things like tendencies exhibited by specific players. The patterns reflect either intentional or unintentional actions or routines that may be predicted beyond the patterns that are a nearly universal element of playing the format. For example, you don't need film study to know that if an opponent loses a corner player they are likely to try and re-fill the spot quickly. But film study (or live study for that matter) can tell you that #34 always goes to a particular prop OTB or that Team X shows a strong tendency to fill a particular prop on the delay or as a secondary move. Unfortunately, the way the match videos are edited they don't provide enough consistent info to make those sorts of determinations.

What the Galveston videos may provide is some how-to (or even some how-not-to) info for developing players on playing specific positions on the field. There is quite a lot of snake play in the videos as well as lots of shots of individuals playing particular props that might be useful to some players.

For any teams interested in film study let me suggest you focus the majority of your efforts on filming and analyzing your own team first. Knowledge of an opponent may provide useful information but the advantages gained are seldom the difference between winning and losing--though they can be. Breaking your own team down will deliver larger rewards, faster. The first priority is a team's ability to go out and execute their game plan. And while it's nearly impossible in practice to keep track of every detail and every player the capability of going back and reviewing film over and over can reveal weaknesses and mistakes that are easily missed otherwise but just as easily addressed when you become aware of them.