St. Xavier Bombers, OH - Case Study

Cincinnati’s very own Steve Specht, head football coach at St. Xavier High School, is a legend in the state of Ohio. Coach Specht began as the head coach of the Bombers varsity football team in 2003. In that span, Coach Specht has led his team to a 180-74 record, won four Ohio big school championships (2005, 2007, 2016, 2020), earning Ohio Division I Coach of the Year honors in 2005 and 2007, as well as receiving the NFL Don Shula High School Coach of the Year Award in 2013. 

Accolades aren’t far & few for Coach Specht, earning the respect of his peers not only as a football coach, but as a positive leader in the community. Over two decades, Steve has built a standard of excellence for his team and fostered a culture of continuous improvement. 

In 2022, the St. Xavier coaching staff felt that is exactly what they needed. An improvement. They were tired of having issues with their previous sideline replay system. That is when they found GameStrat and decided to make the switch from Hudl Sideline.

With our previous system, we had a lot of issues on the sidelines. Not being able to get the replay immediately, there would be delays, sometimes the system would go down. It was very frustrating as you can imagine, but we've had a very very positive experience with GameStrat.

Assistant Head Coach Jeff Neal was in charge of comparing potential alternatives to Hudl Sideline ahead of the 2022 season and identified GameStrat as the #1 option among the top sideline replay providers. 

We asked Steve to look back on their experience going from Hudl Sideline to GameStrat. Here’s what he had to say about making the transition:

It was seamless. We just wanted a program that was going to be consistent. It was going to give immediate results. And we weren't going to have to bend over backwards to set it up and tear it down. That’s exactly what we got and I know my staff has been very pleased with it.

Coach Specht highlighted some of the key differences he & his staff have noticed using GameStrat as opposed to Hudl Sideline.

It's been much easier on my staff to operate. It was cost effective for us relative to our previous system. Customer service has been a major differentiator for us, whether it be phone calls, texts, or emails. Then also just the results of the product, it’s been great.

Coach Steve has been around the high school football coaching scene for many years & we wanted to get some insight from him on the importance of having a fast & reliable sideline replay system in today's day & age.

In our profession you need that sideline replay fast. In order to make good adjustments you need that immediate picture. And that was the number one issue that we fought with our last system.

We concluded our interview by asking Coach Steve what he would say to any coaches looking for sideline replay alternatives. 

The sideline replay system we were using before was miserable. We decided to make the switch to GameStrat and it's been great for us.