Scouting an Opponent – Checklists

By: Joe Trinsey

Originally Published in: The Volleyball Coaching Bible Volume II

Provided by: Human Kinetics

It's a great idea to have a checklist to run down every time you begin to scout an opponent. Splitting this checklist into these four sections is helpful: serve and pass, opponent offense, opponent defense, and lineups and matchups.

Sample Serve and Pass Scouting Checklist

• Who is their overall weakest passer?
• Do any passers have a strong preference to pass float serves with their hands?
• Do any of their passers struggle to pass on their left or right?
• Do they have any rotations with a seam between two weak passers?
• Do any of their outside hitters struggle to pass and hit?
• Do they have any jump spin servers, and what are their tendencies?
• Will any of their servers hit a short serve? Will they do it on their first time up or after they have made a serve?

Sample Opponent Offense Checklist

• What is their general offensive scheme?
  • Do they set quick in the middle? Do they run slides? How much back row do they set? How fast is their tempo to the outside?
• Who is their best hitter, and what is his or her tendency?
• Who are their secondary hitters, and what are their tendencies?
  • Do any hitters like to tip or hit an off-speed shot? In what situations? Do they give it away?
• Does their setter have any tendencies?
  • Will the setter set middle only on perfect passes, or from other locations?
  • Will the setter repeat a set after making an error or getting blocked?
  • Does the setter make the long set backward or forward when running in the other direction?
  • How offensive is the setter in the front row? Does she or he hit or dump the ball?

Sample Opponent Defense Checklist

• What is the best option when our outside hitters have to take a tough swing?
  • Does their line digger cheat up, thereby becoming susceptible to a roll to the deep corner?
  • Does their middle back rotate over, thereby becoming susceptible to the roll to shallow zone 6?
  • Does their line digger play back, or is their off blocker a little lazy on defense, thereby becoming susceptible to tipping short?
  • Are any of their wing blockers susceptible to being tooled on a hard, high swing?
• What do their middle blockers do?
  • Stay neutral and read?
  • Follow the pass or setter?
  • Front the quick hitter?
• Do their wing blockers help in the middle or stay wide and just block the outside attackers?
• Do they have any servers who are weak defenders? Some middles do not play the tip well after serving and can be beat short for an easy point.
• Can this team be beat on a setter tip?

Sample Lineups and Matchups Checklist

• Do they start in the same rotation every time? If so, what is it?
• If they lose a game, will they spin to a new rotation or stick with the same one?
• If they lose a game, will they flip their outsides or middles (or both) to get different matchups?
• What are their most common substitution patterns? Do they substitute only when losing, or will they substitute with a specific goal in mind? (Example: bringing in a defensively minded outside hitter who they will not set as much).
• Based on their trend of rotations they start in, and the rotation I like to start my team in, what will the matchups be for each hitter?
• Are any of these matchups especially good or bad? Should we think about spinning our rotation to get better matchups for our hitters or to neutralize an advantage they have?

These sample checklists are by no means exhaustive. At higher levels of play, checklists will be significantly longer and more detailed, and cover a much wider range of situations. On the flip side, a high school or club coach of a young team probably doesn't need to worry about all or even most of that information.