Deion Sanders’s Practice Film Debate Has One End Result, and It’s Not Good For Players

A recent mass exodus of Colorado players raised questions about whether coach Deion Sanders chose to hold back their films. Here’s why that is a lose-lose scenario.

Deion Sanders is doing what he said he would do when he was hired as Colorado’s head football coach, by radically turning over the Buffaloes’ roster with 60 new players and counting heading into the upcoming season.

There has been a recent mass exodus of players out of the program, as more than 40 athletes have entered the transfer portal since the window opened April 15 and at least another 25 more since CU’s spring game April 22. One of those players, freshman tight end Zach Courtney, sent a message telling interested coaches that Sanders was withholding practice film.

Courtney did not respond to a request for comment from Sports Illustrated, but told ESPN that Colorado staff would not provide film from fall 2022 practices even when players asked. Outside linebacker Kaden Ludwick told ESPN the same. A day later, Colorado then backtracked with a statement, saying:

“Colorado is happy to provide all game film and any practice film prior to spring 2023 to any student-athlete and institution upon request.”

The topic of how portaling players obtain film is something college football teams are thinking about more and more as the portal swells in every window with players. Reactions from multiple corners of the CFB world were puzzled by Sanders’s move.

“You can’t kick a kid off your team against their will and then not give them tape to aid in them finding a new home,” a Power 5 personnel director says. “You are the worst among us if you do that.”

Speaking with multiple coaches and personnel people, many responded to SI with a version of this sentiment. A Power 5 assistant questioned how much of a disadvantage it was to not give out practice clips of base plays, like inside zone that the vast majority of football teams at all levels run. UConn coach Jim Mora was also quick to give his take.

Any coach that won’t allow a transfer to access film is operating from a place of complete paranoia. You really believe an opponent can gather info from random clips? @Realrclark25. Part of the job of a COLLEGE Coach is to advocate for your student-athletes…current and past! https://t.co/E2FlR3DP6w

— Jim Mora (@CoachJimMoraFB) April 26, 2023

Courtney specifically was in an interesting position. He played 11 snaps across two games in the 2022 season before getting injured during the season. The injury also kept him out of 2023 spring practice, so the only film he has to show would be from the fall of ’22. The film he would be obtaining would show him running plays for coaches who aren’t there anymore against multiple players who also aren’t there anymore—so the film wouldn’t be giving anything away about personnel skill sets.

At least one of the bevy of Colorado transfers did get practice film—although it’s unclear when the clips were filmed and how they were obtained. Former CU tight end Austin Smith tweeted out a video of his plays from games and practices (which, when strung together, is referred to as a “cutup” in the football world) when he entered the portal April 15.

Some teams have a defined plan in place for how to handle this scenario. Obtaining game film is seamless, and we’re not talking about the shots you see on broadcasts. What is shared is referred to as “all-22,” an all-encompassing term that includes a more zoomed-out view of all 22 players than what you may be used to seeing on broadcasts and doesn’t zoom in on who has the ball at the snap. Another is shot from a camera behind the end zone, which shows the intricacies of what’s happening in the trenches with offensive and defensive linemen.

Every game from every level has been filmed that way for decades. In the old days, coaches would have to physically meet to exchange literal reels of film. Now, with the click of a button, any game from the past few years from any Division I team can be cued up in seconds following the pandemic by coaches or players. Back in 2020, college video coordinators across the country came together to agree upon a universal open exchange for film between all of FBS and FCS. Previously, it was common to only trade film within a conference and with specific nonconference opponents. Platforms like Catapult Thunder, Hudl and Pro Football Focus host the film via the cloud and video coordinators can rip every game and put it in their in-house systems.

“We can type the kid’s name in and, as long as he is a Division I football player, coaches can pull his [game] film in a matter of seconds,” a Power 5 video coordinator says.

But the internal politics around practice film can vary at many places—one video coordinator says he has never worked for a head coach who allows players to take practice film besides rare exceptions. At most FBS programs, players are able to access films of practice and games through the apps mentioned above with a catch: The team controls your login credentials. Players are often immediately locked out of the apps by a team’s video staff at the behest of coaches who are famously paranoid—assistant coaches also get locked out when they leave for a new job.

Other teams have a different tact with practice film.

“If a guy is going in the portal, he first needs to get approval from the head coach and position coach to take film with them, then the players are scheduling a time to come into our office to make their own cutup,” Kansas assistant director of football video John Lintner says. “This gives them the most control over what plays they want out there. Usually they pick 15–20 plays from spring ball or practice last season, then we make an .mp4 file for them and email them a simple download link, and they can send it to whomever they’d like.”

Coaches can help a player pick out the plays that showcase a broad skill set in addition to the highlights while making sure they are not inadvertently divulging something specific the team is working on or how a teammate is performing. That’s how it works if everything is O.K. between the player and the program he’s leaving. But if a player is leaving a team on bad terms, things can go differently. One FCS assistant says after a player “motherf---ed me on the practice field and transferred during the Wednesday of a game week,” the staff was not so inclined to help him out.

There are ways players get around being digitally or physically locked out (key cards to team facilities go dead when a player transfers). One former player who got injured told SI he cozied up to the video team and helped out while sidelined, and they did him a solid when he decided to transfer. Some players will call a teammate and ask them to go in and put the film up on a projector screen and videotape it with their phone, or they’ll grab a teammate’s iPad and film it themselves.

What spooks coaches in those instances is, depending on the way the video system is set up, information around exact play calls and formation names of units on the field and the ones they are going against are overlaid at the top of the screen. When that happens, opposing coaches and video coordinators are waiting to pounce to try to gain any small advantage.

If a player is forward-thinking, he may be collecting his clips throughout the season, as UTSA safety Pig Cage apparently did upon his transfer from LSU. iPad screen captures taken from multiple dates, including the day he entered the portal, are stitched together to form a cutup of his film. (The date captured is in the top left corner of the screen.)

🦍 pic.twitter.com/7JQHb83pDD

— PIG CAGE (@ThePigEra) March 30, 2022

But it’s not just players who do this. Every second of every practice is filmed, which means valuable drills are also on tape. If a coach is with a new team and giving a talk at a coaches clinic, it’s common to see him using a drill or practice tape from his previous school. Here is Oregon coach Dan Lanning using Georgia film at a clinic (he was previously the defensive coordinator for the Bulldogs) because he had yet to coach a game at Oregon. It’s also what Lanning would use to coach his Ducks in spring practice or training camp.

It goes to show that the film trade is yet another way the transfer portal has changed college football.