Another recruiting video question

Your production skills put mine to shame -- I may have to go back and do some work (that camera is higher quality/better resolution than the ones my son's club or HS teams use, too).

My expertise is zero, but there were back-to-back clips starting at about 1:45 you might consider dropping (the first is the sequence near the end line). Beyond that, you might think about cutting clips from the end of each section, things that begin to duplicate what you've already shown.

For the reel covering the year that just ended we left off some things that were just as good as what we included because they were a bit repetitive. Even then, his comes in at 4:12 (and he has a guest spot in one more tournament, so who knows if I'll need to add something).

FWIW, and this hits my own son pretty hard, I was part of a conversation not long ago among a handful of parents, one of whom is a college coach, about how he views players who don't specialize in a single position or a couple of closely related ones and how to highlight those players. It left me thinking that kids in that situation might be best served by focusing on one or two roles. Other coaches may not agree, though. No idea.

 

The club my son plays for uses Trace, the service that provides clips using tracking devices worn by each player and (I think) some kind of AI to sort out their clips. The video quality isn't amazing and the clip selection misses quite a bit -- I tend to download full games and we pull his clips on our own. His HS team uses a camera on a boom that was purchased before we were involved and one of the dads uploads to Hudl and/or Youtube, so no idea what it is (it's pretty poor quality and you have to download separate software to pull the clips from the uploaded video).

I took your suggestion from a while back and use Lightworks to edit. It's free and fine for my purposes, but probably a lot more limited than what you're using.

Good luck to your son -- I hope he lands a spot in a place he likes. We learned over the weekend that one of my son's older friends (not a teammate but someone he's played pickup with quite a bit and a great kid) will walk on at a school near here and seems to have a decent shot at some playing time. I had wondered if he might not get his shot after putting in a lot of time and effort.

 

Clarifying something in my earlier response re players who are used in a lot of different roles, i meant focusing on one or two in a highlight reel. As my son has learned the past couple of years, you generally play where they put you (or, at least on the club side, look around for another place to play, I guess).

I'm curious if others out there have had kids in similar situations who successfully suggested or requested different roles for themselves (I've known a parent or two who've lobbied for their kids on this front, but I wouldn't do it unless things were really dire). I have a hard time imagining it working for my son.

 

My son has talked to his HS coach to work on convincing him to have him play center mid this upcoming season instead of his usual center back role. His logic is that he can be more instrumental in the team's offense, which lacked a lot last year, as long as he can work with a couple kids to groom them for center back.

Even as a Junior, he's probably the best player on his team (he's a captain this year) and his thinking is that being at center back will be somewhat wasting him on the field this year. We'll see how this goes.

 

He probably would help the offense, but the trade off of losing a good center back would be worse. You can't just groom someone at HS age to be a CB. That is why you see some kids pushed to the back early and stay there. It's not because they can't play offense. It's because finding a good center defender is really hard. Many kids, who may have skill, just don't have the mindset, toughness, or decision making skills to play back there.

 

He looks taller than 6'0" in the videos. If he's a shade over 6'0, list him at 6'1. He runs very upright, so that may be why. He looks to have good touch and a good one one one defender. My only two critiques would be I would like to have seen more usage of his left foot. Also would like to see more highlights of physicality. Saw one instance of him fighting off another kid in the corner. A couple more of those would be good.

 

Yeah, I know. They did move a kid back in the middle of last season in a stopper role (they usually played stopper/sweeper) and he did ok, with my son behind him pretty much "joystick coaching" him in positioning. I think the coach is hoping he'll be able to continue in that role this season without my son's guidance and adding the JV center back from last year. Fortunately, this year we'll have showcases and preseason games to try to see if some of these changes can work. Last year, all preseason stuff was cancelled with Covid (fortunately, we did get a complete season in, however).

 

My gut tells me a brief section at the end couldn't hurt. FWIW, and I could well be wrong, I'd skip the coin toss but maybe include a brief clip of the pep talk, the best of the two situations in which he pulled teammates away from trouble and maybe one clip of him directing traffic if it's really obvious.

My son does a lot of that last one in particular and at the games you hear it loud and clear, but it just doesn't come across in his clips. The mic the club team uses only picks up the sideline (you can hear coaches and teammates giving him attaboys on nice plays, which I like) and the HS team video doesn't include audio once it's loaded up to Hudl. Visually, you can just sort of see him pointing.

I hope it works -- I'd be curious to see what you wind up with.

 

To back up a bit... I agree with the Kraken on physicality. If he's wanting to play CB for a college they will want physicality. I might even make that a section in the video. (You could call it Physicality/Dispossessing or combine it with tackling)

Also, I might re-categorize some things. I would probably have a "dribbling" section.
I would probably combine Clearances and Heading since his headers are all clearances. When I saw headers I thought there'd be some offensive ones since CB's often get involved in set pieces.

There was a clip where he made a good interception. You could have a section on "anticipation/reading the opposition/intercepting" which is crucial for a CB.

Instead of Avoiding Pressure... I would probably split that up... put some into Dribbling, and some into Passing... OR rename it Build up Play / Playing out of Pressure / Playing out of the Back.

Anyways, these are just ideas. It's probably also fine as is. His size and physicality alone will get him looks by some colleges.
Also, you said he's fast so you might want to add his speed in the initial stats section as well as vertical if it's good.
I would probably have him bulk up a bit too if he really wants to play CB in college (not that he's scrawny at all, but a bigger build will help).