Beginning during the fall 2024 football season, the Augustana football team brings in a new iPad filming system, EDGE Replay from Sport Scope. EDGE Replay allows for players to receive instant feedback from the sidelines.
This past spring, the NCAA made the system available to all D3 schools. This new system has several cameras that stream onto iPads. The filmers categorize the plays before they are sent back to iPads located on the field. This lets players get immediate feedback. The new filming system is used at home and away games but not during practices.
Before the iPad system was provided, Defensive Backs Coach, Brian Krier, said the football team was unable to get instant video feedback from the sidelines. The team was only able to review film from practices and games from their wide and tight shot cameras and a drone that is primarily used in home games.
“We have what we call a wide and a tight shot where we have them filming from the roof of our facility, or in the press box. You get the nice wide angle of the bowl play,” Krier said. “And then we also have a camera that’s up on a pole that’s filming. We’ll call it a tight shot so that we can see basically the front seven from the end zone view.”
Now, players are able to have instant feedback from both the wide and tight shot streamed onto an iPad.
“Then we can take those plays and intercut them, so you can see the same play from two different angles,” Krier said. “And we’ve always had that capability.”
In previous seasons, the cameras used to film had to be backed up using an SD card. Now, with the new filming system, the cameras are streamed onto the iPad. That footage is then downloaded to Huddle, where it is stored by the football team. As a filmer for the football team, sophomore Colleen Chiavola frequently uses the iPad system.
“For us as filmers, it’s so much nicer uploading film. There’s a lot less worry about if clips [are] not going to download using SD cards and bringing that into a computer,” Chiavola said. “So it’s a lot easier in the fact that when the film hooks right to the iPad, you can upload it straight from the iPad.”
With the quick turnaround from the rule being approved in the spring to implementing the system in the fall, the filming staff, coaches and players had to quickly adapt to new technology.
“We didn’t have a whole lot of time to go through and figure out how we’re going to do it,” Krier said. “So it was a big rush, but it’s worked really well.”
With this addition comes a big change to how the team previously ran their games. Instead of having to rely solely on feedback from previous practices or games, players and coaches can now walk through any mistakes or good plays that happened just a minute prior.
“This generation of college players now are visual [learners], so they love it,” David Ragone, associate head coach, said. “The cool thing is, is that before they had to wait for me to get to the bench so I could go over stuff and throw it on the whiteboard. Now, by the time I get there, they’re already on the iPad, looking at things, kind of seeing things that reinforce what they saw or correcting things that they need to fix the next time they go out.”
