Playing football at Valley College, there’s an app for that

Second-year Head Coach Matt White uses technology to help keep his players yards ahead of the competition.

By Joseph Gonzalez, Staff Writer

Successful football teams feature solid offenses, defenses, and special teams. The Valley College football team added QR codes and Kahoot! to their recipe for success.

In the past three years, the Monarchs have compiled a 24-8 record with back-to-back championships in 2015 and 2016. However, last year, the Monarchs stumbled to a 4-6 mark and missed the playoffs. Second-year head coach Matt White is looking to rebound this season, hoping that technology will improve the team’s performance.

White requires his players to download the QR scanner app and Kahoot!, a learning app that is used in the classroom and on the field. White uses this technology to provide motivational quotes, administer weekly quizzes and reinforce the playbook.

“It helps with hitting the kids at different angles,” White said. “Everyone learns differently and processes information differently from one another. I discovered it while being a fifth grade teacher. I would use these things to help my students so naturally, it carried over into coaching.”

The players seem to appreciate the way White communicates with his players in order to help them prepare.

“The QR codes is helpful especially for the coaches to know how their players are doing that week,” sophomore Brenden Cotilla-Delgado said. “We use it as an attendance taker and as a questionnaire that consists of daily practice challenges for the team and some motivational quotes.”

Valley football players have to take a Kahoot! quiz once a week to review what they learned. These weekly quizzes can include trivia about the other team, weather predictions, new plays, short films from previous years’ games against opposing teams and lessons learned from practices.

“Kahoot! is super fun for the team. The coaches put some cool questions for the players to answer and compete with each other. It’s a fun method we use to compete with each other off the field,” said freshman Nate Sutton.

Getting his team prepared through technology does not benefit his coaching staff for this year but helps the player be ready for their future.

“When we send guys to the next level we want to help them be ready and have no drop off from here to there,” White said. “We send our players to play and them knowing how this technology works and keeps them dialed up will make it one less thing to worry about.”

Monarch players see the potential in this technology. Most four-year schools use tech to get ready for game day, so starting now gives the monarch players a little head start.

“The technology we use now can help us a lot in the next level,” Delgado said. “They prepare us for what we’re going to expect at a bigger program. And I think the coaches are doing a great job of preparing us for the future.”

Valley has seen their physical and mental hard work pay off for them already, as they got their first win of the season 22-14 against Victory Valley College last weekend.

“We made fewer mistakes than they did. We will see the biggest jump of the season from week one to week two,” White said.

The Monarch’s next game will be played against Allen Hancock College on campus on Sept. 8 at 7 p.m.