For high school coaches and players in the area, one application has changed the game of football.

Using the Hudl app on electronic tablets, every coach in the area is able to swap game film with opposing coaches, which all coaches agree beats the old way of doing things.

“I spent a lot of mornings driving to trade game film,” said Adams County Christian School head coach David King. “I would wake up at 5 a.m. and meet a coach halfway on the weekends, but just in the click of a button, we can exchange game film in seconds now. Hudl has changed the game.”

King switched over to the Hudl app this season, uploading game film to the application, which is made available to his team to watch in their spare time. An extra benefit for players is that they can create highlight films to send to college coaches across the country. This takes even less time off of King to provide college coaches with self-made highlight tapes of certain players. Instead, King uploads one clip at a time of each play to allow players to select individual clips to add to their highlight tapes. ACCS football players Torrey Smith, Lester Wells and Trey Fleming each spent 25 minutes compiling those plays and making a full season highlight, which they shared on their Facebook, Twitter and emailed to college coaches.

Division II schools and junior colleges are recruiting Wells and Smith, while Fleming has gained interest from Arkansas State and Southern Miss. As it turns out, the Rebels’ highlight tapes have garnered attention outside of the college realms, as well.

“Not too long ago, girls came up to us and was like, ‘We saw y’all on Hudl. Y’all are so good,’” said Fleming, trying to mimic the girl’s voice.

In disbelief, Smith responded how most football players would.

“We’re like, ‘What are y’all doing watching Hudl?’” Smith said.

Like Wells, Smith and Fleming, other players in the area have sent their highlights to coaches, like Natchez High School’s Sidney Davis, who is being recruited by the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

“I just make a highlight tape and send it to coaches,” Davis said. “It’s a more efficient way over emails, and it’s easy to get to coaches.”

Meanwhile, Cathedral’s Dee Fleming has used his highlight tapes to help get eyes on him from Mississippi State, who is recruiting him. He’s also used it to share his success with far and away family members.

“I have family that are friends with me on Facebook, and minutes after I post it, I’ll get texts from them, saying, ‘Keep up the good work,’” Fleming said.

While the application spares a lot of time for coaches, it usually takes some coaches two to three hours to chop up the game film and provide for their team. Cathedral coach Ron Rushing likes to jump on it immediately after his game finishes on Friday night.

“I’ll get home at night around 11:30, and it usually takes me two hours to cut game film up and download it,” said Rushing, who sent film to 50 college coaches earlier in the week. “I’ll get up the next day and click the button to send it.”

Along with providing game film of both their team and their opponents, coaches use Hudl to post tendencies and statistics, monitor how many hours each player has watched of game film and share group messages with the team.

King will attest that the application surely beats making copies of DVDs and having players run up to the school to pick them up. Even more so, Wells and Fleming are glad they don’t have to get their DVDs through Smith, who was always the first one to get them.

“They would always be trying to get DVDs from me,” Smith said.

“Hey, we’re not running to get those DVDs any more,” Fleming retorted.