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Post by fshamrock on Aug 7, 2009 17:55:25 GMT -6
Coaches, I have been looking for suggestions to this problem, and in desperation actually started browsing the web to see what I could find, I had no idea this site existed, what an unbelievable resource for coaches all over the country, you guys are doing our profession a great service. Now, on to my question
I'm at a smaller school and we have a problem at our sub varsity levels, our freshman team last year was gawdawful, very few natural athletes and the ones they had were more interested in video games, I've never seen anything like it. As a result, as of the start of practice this season, we only had 9 kids in the whole sophomore class come out for football, combine that with the Juniors we've got that don't play varsity, and it totals to a whopping 15 players to make a JV team.
The good news is, we have a fantastic freshman class coming in, that we are looking to be the future of our program.
As we see it, there a few possible scenarios:
Play JV games with 15 kids and get the crapped kicked out of us, not to mention having kids playing offense/defense and every special team
Combine the teams: the problem with this is that we have now taken that good freshman class and made them compete against other teams sophomores and juniors, when the could be playing against other freshman and having success
Move up only the best freshman to the JV squad: problem here is, we have not diluted the freshman team, we stand a chance of having two bad teams at the sub varsity level instead of just one
Move the JV up to the Varsity squad and only have two teams Freshman, and Varsity: we can all see the issue here, we have now taken 15 kids, promoted them to varsity, but what they will really amount to is a practice squad, none of them will play a meaningful snap on Friday night all year.
We are looking for the best possible solution for our kids and community
I'm open to suggestions
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Post by coachbdud on Aug 7, 2009 18:26:06 GMT -6
scrap the JV season
only play varsity and freshman
all the would be JV kids will move up to varsity and at least get the chance to learn from varsity coaches and get better
If you are about rebuilding then dont screw your freshman class out of it. Let them have some success at their own level and build from there. Having them play JV will hurt their confidence some if they lose. and you might not get as many kids out from that team the next year. I have seen this happen, the staff that was here before our current staff did this and only 1 kid ended up playing all 4 years of HS. When we took over we canceled JV and only had freshman and var. I think doing it my way paid off, we had our best season in 15 years last year, and if things go well we will be in the playoffs for the first time in 20 years this year. I think keeping that freshman class together is the key to rebuilding your program
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Post by wingtol on Aug 7, 2009 18:41:01 GMT -6
Move em all up to JV. If they are that good of a class then who knows they might have to play varsity next season. Might help them to go from JV to Varsity than frosh to Varsity. Might help some of those older kids work harder if they get beat out by a frosh.
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Post by mariner42 on Aug 7, 2009 19:14:31 GMT -6
I would imagine your league has some kind of bylaws regarding needing to field a JV team, it's been my experience that most leagues do.
If so, I'd say combine frosh + JV into frosh/soph and have a go like that.
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Post by onthemarkfootball on Aug 7, 2009 19:33:59 GMT -6
It seems like we face a cycle like this every 3-4 years and it is always tough.
What we do is scrap the JV program and keep the frosh group together. They are still growing and no need to move them up sooner than they are ready. Let them play as group, they are your future. With the JV team, we move them up and work with them and hope to develop them through reps and exposure. Then we get on the phone and ask the other schools in our area if they have either a similar situation or if they have an abundance of JV players. We then schedule what basically a 1 hour scrimmage to get them some experience against similarly talented teams. We may get 1 or 2 teams that can put something together with us which is better than nothing.
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Post by coachd5085 on Aug 7, 2009 21:05:36 GMT -6
This is a good question. My first instinct was NOT to move them up, because as other posters mentioned, you want to start breeding that WINNING attitude. However, thinking more about it, Wingtol does bring up a good point. If this soph class is as pathetic as you make it, chances are they will not be able to play varsity as jr's (and you be successful). Therefore, your varsity NEXT year will probably be the Jr.'s that play this year...the 6 jr's that DON'T play this year, and selected sophs. So that is something you need to consider.
Lots of questions..how is your program structured? Completely different staffs/teams....or is it more than likely (based on the way you phrased it) that your coaching staff coaches all the teams (or at least the jv/varsity) but they players play additional games.
I don't see any value at all (based on the info I have) in scrapping the JV program. If it was a case of not having a JV team without the freshman, then i could see that idea entering the discussion. But in this case, how does eliminating a JV schedule improve the program? I can't find an argument for taking away games from both the really bad kids who need it, AS WELL AS from the Jr's who DEFINITELY need it because they will be Sr's next year. If they can't go, then you are going to have to ask those FROSH (next year's sophs) to step up anyway.
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Post by blb on Aug 7, 2009 21:12:19 GMT -6
As Lou Holtz once said, "When you start a 'youth movement,' all you are doing is getting them ready for the next coach."
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Post by coachbdud on Aug 8, 2009 3:18:11 GMT -6
if you only have JV you will lose at least 10 kids
10 kids who would have played if they were freshman, but since their only option is JV they feel a little intimidated and dont wanna play. These kids might not be good but they could be developed into something good by their junior or senior year
Also you will lose at least 5 kids who do play JV but get a little beat up or saddened from losing and dont wanna play the next year. I honestly think a decent sized school will lose at least 15 kids overall by not having a freshman team
I have seen it happen first hand.
I think having frosh football is 10x more important than having Jv football. And in your case i would scrap the Jv team 100 times out of 100
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Post by touchdownmaker on Aug 8, 2009 3:27:46 GMT -6
Heres the best solution in my opinion.
keep jv keep freshmen
offer freshmen kids opportunity to CHOOSE to move up to jv, sell it as "youll be one step ahead of anyone who chooses to stay back" and sell it as " theres going to be playing time, longer games, longers season, practice with varsity and get in varsity games ".
dont force them to move up, kids will quit. then youll have issues getting freshmen to play the following year. (we had to scrap jv last year and we are having a time of it getting freshmen to come out , they know they have to play varsity if they come out unless we get a jv squad up).
when i was a freshman coach, coaches with poor varsity teams always wanted to rape our team and the kids always said "ill quit" because they want to stay down and play ball with their friends and also stay with the coaches they know. in some cases parents intervene. in the rare case where a kid wants to move up, and that is rare, they are rarely the impact that the varsity guys think ....let em play 14 year olds.
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Post by shortpunter on Aug 8, 2009 4:20:15 GMT -6
I faced a similar issue my first year. I had to cancel the JV because their just were not enough backs to play. we had like 13 kids but only 2 backs. I cancelled the JV moved them up and two years later they were pretty good at the Varsity level as Juniors and seniors
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Post by coachjd on Aug 8, 2009 5:22:12 GMT -6
we had a simular situation last year. Due to only 7 seniors on the varsity team, we ended up playing 8 sophs on varsity. That left 9 sophs and 4 juniors to play JV. We scrapped the JV schedule. What we did was call some conference schools to see if they would be interested in playing any 9/10 games. we found 2 games. So our 9th graders played their 7 game schedule and we played 2 9/10 gaImes along the season. We tried to create some scrimmages for the remaining kids during the season in our practices just to get them some live action.
I truly believe we made the right decision. All of the sophs from last year are coming back out, we kept our 9th grade group together, in fact are gaining 3-4 kids in that group.
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Post by blb on Aug 8, 2009 5:25:03 GMT -6
Don't "punish" your freshmen, or hurt program's future, because sophomores are a bad class. Either bring latter up to Varsity (also there's a lot less difference between sophomores and juniors-seniors than between freshmen and sophomores) or play a JV schedule with the Fab 15 as long as you can.
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Post by wingtol on Aug 8, 2009 8:07:31 GMT -6
Maybe we do JV's different around here but few of the schools in the area have frosh teams. Usually the JV team is 9-10 with a some scrub juniors. Is that the norm for you guys or is the JV more of a varsity reserve where you play some juniors who are decent to get them reps?
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Post by champ93 on Aug 8, 2009 8:28:31 GMT -6
Keep the 9th together. Having them get pummeled by JVs in their first year of high school wil do more harm than good. Let them stay together for at least a year.
Assuming you have positions and a few back ups covered, keep the JV team. A few of those juniors may develop enough to be helpful as seniors. I treat JV as a pre-varsity, so if a 3rd teamer isn't going to see the field as a junior, we move him down.
A team in my old league years ago had "the class" come through. They kept them together as 9th graders, and moved most up and started them varsity as 10th graders. They took some lumps, but didn't get annihilated. They were very good as juniors and seniors.
Our former baseball coach moved up 6 9th graders to varsity 2 years back. They weren't ready despite being our "baseball class". Some quit this year before the season started due to getting pummeled the year before. Notice I said former baseball coach.
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Post by coachd5085 on Aug 8, 2009 8:39:29 GMT -6
I think having frosh football is 10x more important than having Jv football. This, I agree with. This, I see no value in (based on the situation described) Is that JV probably going to get crushed? yep. But not because of low numbers. They are going to get crushed because they don't have good players. If it was 15 players who were going to all sign schollies, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So it isnt the quantity, it is the quality. Scrapping the JV takes away from those Jr's who will be seniors next year, further weakening the varsity. Play the games, work to get better.
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Post by touchdownmaker on Aug 8, 2009 9:37:21 GMT -6
Another thought on this, can you play some juniors and even really bad seniors on jv in order to ensure you dont have to cancel jv games? some coaches will whine about it but the option is DONT PLAY THEM. we had to play some upper classmen in a jv game last year in order to ge tthe game in, ...its the way it is.
with only 5-6 linemen some linemen have to play both varsity and jv, 10th grade or 12th grade, its what we have.
with you all, see if you can talk to your ad and he can talk to others, most ads just want to keep the schedule to fulfill their commitment to the jv league.
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Post by phantom on Aug 8, 2009 10:39:50 GMT -6
I think having frosh football is 10x more important than having Jv football. This, I agree with. This, I see no value in (based on the situation described) Is that JV probably going to get crushed? yep. But not because of low numbers. They are going to get crushed because they don't have good players. If it was 15 players who were going to all sign schollies, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So it isnt the quantity, it is the quality. Scrapping the JV takes away from those Jr's who will be seniors next year, further weakening the varsity. Play the games, work to get better. I agree with this. Let the kids play. If they lose they lose. What would you hate more if you were a player? Losing or never getting to play?
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Post by poweriguy on Aug 8, 2009 11:19:47 GMT -6
Beat the bushes and get more sophomores out for football. Just don't give up on them.
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Post by coachorr on Aug 8, 2009 12:19:01 GMT -6
Get as many kids playing football as possible. JV means Just for Varsity, meaning you are creating an environment where kids can get ready for the Varsity squad. IMHO, if you keep the Frosh together they will win, if you create a JV team, you might create an opportunity for someone (possibly 4-5 players) to actually be contributors to the Varsity program at some point.
Don't bring any freshman up, unless he will start on Varsity this year or next. Two great rules of thumb once again: Just for varsity and create as many opportunities as possible for kids to play and gain experience.
If your JV squad goes o'fer, so what, perhaps you will have a few out of that experience who might help you at some point. If not, well you tried, which is better than not trying and scrapping it all together.
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Post by touchdownmaker on Aug 8, 2009 12:19:13 GMT -6
Thats good advice. We sent letters out to ever soph/freshman in our district.
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Post by jgordon1 on Aug 8, 2009 12:28:47 GMT -6
Heres the best solution in my opinion. keep jv keep freshmen offer freshmen kids opportunity to CHOOSE to move up to jv, sell it as "youll be one step ahead of anyone who chooses to stay back" and sell it as " theres going to be playing time, longer games, longers season, practice with varsity and get in varsity games ". dont force them to move up, kids will quit. then youll have issues getting freshmen to play the following year. (we had to scrap jv last year and we are having a time of it getting freshmen to come out , they know they have to play varsity if they come out unless we get a jv squad up). when i was a freshman coach, coaches with poor varsity teams always wanted to rape our team and the kids always said "ill quit" because they want to stay down and play ball with their friends and also stay with the coaches they know. in some cases parents intervene. in the rare case where a kid wants to move up, and that is rare, they are rarely the impact that the varsity guys think ....let em play 14 year olds. Same thing happened to us last year..we had a great frosh team and we wanted to move up some kids..the parents raised holy he11...this year we have those now sophs and they are doing a good job w/ a winning attitude
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Post by coachorr on Aug 8, 2009 12:29:06 GMT -6
Keep both and secure more game reps for more kids. Make certain that each lower level program is instructing those items, which will improve your program.
Another thought. Have your Freshman coach run summer youth clinics and get to know the youth coaches in a non-threatening environment to help foster relationships with coaches and players of the lower levels with the HS coaching staff.
This year we will have somewhere between 15 and 20 Freshmen, but we will have over 50 8th graders and 50 7th graders playing right now. So, the summer program has been huge as well as the involvement of the youth coaches.
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Post by coachbdud on Aug 8, 2009 12:51:36 GMT -6
I think having frosh football is 10x more important than having Jv football. This, I agree with. This, I see no value in (based on the situation described) Is that JV probably going to get crushed? yep. But not because of low numbers. They are going to get crushed because they don't have good players. If it was 15 players who were going to all sign schollies, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So it isnt the quantity, it is the quality. Scrapping the JV takes away from those Jr's who will be seniors next year, further weakening the varsity. Play the games, work to get better. I said that because i thought he didnt have the numbers to also have a JV program, if you can have all 3 levels, then do it, no matter how bad the JV team might be
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Post by coachorr on Aug 8, 2009 12:54:04 GMT -6
And to your point coachbdud, what if after a couple of losses, those 15 kids quit? It could be a risk.
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Post by coachd5085 on Aug 8, 2009 13:00:16 GMT -6
And to your point coachbdud, what if after a couple of losses, those 15 kids quit? It could be a risk. Well, if they quit, then aren't you helping your varsity out by eliminating dead weight in a safe environment? Is that the guy you want on your varsity next year...the guy with the "we stink, i quit" mentality?
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Post by coachorr on Aug 8, 2009 13:04:55 GMT -6
Collect your hammer coach5085, well stated. JV= Just for Varsity.
If that happens, would you do? At that point I would consider moving up a few Freshmen, but I am not a proponent of doing so.
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Post by coachbdud on Aug 8, 2009 13:11:37 GMT -6
And to your point coachbdud, what if after a couple of losses, those 15 kids quit? It could be a risk. Well, if they quit, then aren't you helping your varsity out by eliminating dead weight in a safe environment? Is that the guy you want on your varsity next year...the guy with the "we stink, i quit" mentality? 90 % of our kids have never played before. They dont know anything about the game or about being an athlete. They need to have positive things happen to get them hooked onto football. In our area people arent diehard crazy for football, so it takes some positive experience to get a kid hooked on football.
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Post by phantom on Aug 8, 2009 13:58:04 GMT -6
And to your point coachbdud, what if after a couple of losses, those 15 kids quit? It could be a risk. That stuns me. What kind of pu$$ies do you think you're dealing with?
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Post by touchdownmaker on Aug 8, 2009 14:01:08 GMT -6
Try no freshmen, AND no jv...kids go straight from 7th and 8th grade ball to varsity...thats our situation this year and it stinks. Kids who were good as 8th graders have dads who say "will he even get to play this year?" which makes me wonder if they are considering doing something else. we need a jv program and are going to do whatever it takes to make that happen if I have to have 120 lb runningbacks playing guard and tackle. we will make it happen.
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Post by phantom on Aug 8, 2009 14:06:04 GMT -6
And to your point coachbdud, what if after a couple of losses, those 15 kids quit? It could be a risk. That stuns me. What kind of pu$$ies do you think you're dealing with? Let me clarify that. I think that Coach is selling his kids short. I do not believe that there will be wholesale defections.
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