Coaches and players often get frustrated when they don’t see the same things on the field. However, the Desert Edge Scorpions football team has been able to limit this problem with the Sky Coach system.

The Sky Coach, which cost the team about $1,000, sends the game film from an iPad camera in the press box and an end zone camera almost instantly to an app that all the coaches have downloaded on various electronic devices.

“It’s such a huge advantage for us to be able to see every single play and make those corrections on the sideline right then and there,” coach Jose Lucero said.

This change not only helps the coaches make adjustments, but it allows them to show players the film on a sideline TV by connecting the TV to an iPad on the field.

“The kids are very visual,” coach Jess Wilhite said. “I mean look at them in school, you try to show them visually rather than just preaching to them. It’s different when I tell a kid when he comes off the field, ‘hey I need you to take A-gap,’ but yet I can show him on the replay, ‘hey this is why I need you to take the A-gap,’ and he can see it with his own eyes because that’s where he needs to be. So it helps us and it helps him.”

Before the team bought the system, the coaches sometimes had issues communicating what they were seeing to the players.

“Most players today are visual learners,” coach Daniel Black said. “Trying to verbally communicate what the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator were seeing up in the press box did not always go over well on the field.”

The quick speed of the Sky Coach is another aspect of the system the coaches rave about.

Within seven seconds of the play finishing, coaches can view the replay on their phones, iPads or computers.

“It gives us the opportunity not to wait till halftime to make adjustments,” Wilhite said. “We just made it in the middle of a series.”

The players are noticing the benefits with the new system as well.

“It’s great,” freshman Brandon Roy Jr. said. “As soon as you come of the drive you’re wondering what happened, what went wrong, what went right. And seeing that you get to make the adjustments in real time and almost immediately.”

The ability to make fast-paced adjustments would be helpful to any team, but it is especially significant to the Scorpions’ style of offense.

“We run a unique offense right now,” Lucero said. “So it’s big for us to see how teams are playing us after that first series so we can make our adjustments. Without it, it would be very difficult to be successful.”

The Sky Coach is a drastic change from how coaches used to make corrections a few years ago and when they were players themselves.

“It’s huge,” Lucero said. “Back in the day on Saturdays you would go in and go, ‘oh I wish we would have seen this’ or ‘I wish I would have known this.’ Well now we get a chance to see it immediately.”