Finding the Raw Footage
First up, I needed actual game videos from last year’s Nebraska championships. Reached out to my buddy coaching at Omaha North since he films every snap. Dude took forever to respond – guess he was busy with offseason drills. Finally got like 28GB of files dumped in my Google Drive last Tuesday.
Sorting Through the Mess
Opened the first file around midnight and damn near fell asleep. Quarterback kneels, timeout huddles… whole drives with zero action. Started scrubbing through key moments: fourth downs, redzone possessions, overtime. Took me three nights just to label clips properly.
Picking Showstoppers
Set rules for what counts as “must see”:
- Game-changing turnovers
- Fourth quarter comebacks
- Freak athletic catches
- Anything that made the crowd lose their minds
That Bellevue West Hail Mary? Almost deleted it ’cause the camera shook when everyone jumped up. Fixed it by syncing the radio call audio.
Editing Nightmares
Tried some fancy transition crap initially. Looked like a bad ESPN parody. Scrapped everything and kept it raw:
- No slow-mo except on two ridiculous touchdown dives
- Added score bugs so people know the situation
- Left coaches screaming in the background
Render crashed twice when adding the thunder sound effect on that game-winning field goal. Almost threw my laptop.
Upload Saga
YouTube slapped it with copyright claims immediately. Those stadium playlist songs man… Had to mute three chunks and overlay generic hype music. Description box took longer than editing – listed every player’s name, jersey number, and future college commitment.
Final Tweak
Watched it with my neighbor’s kid who plays JV ball. When he started mimicking the plays in my living room yelling “HOW’D HE CATCH THAT?!”, knew it was done right.