No JV

The first thing I might do is reach out to the parents either by email or have them come up to the school for an informal meeting and just talk to them. Explain what their perceived roles might be and gauge their interest.

If they balk at the idea of limited PT, you might be able to sell them on their future roles.

Tell the kids that the small roster is often something you can't control (fully). But you'd still like them to be a part of the program.

If nothing else, you can say that you did your due diligence in the area of communication and didn't sell any pipe dreams to them.

A school I coached at a few years ago had this same issue. The sophomore class was small and not very many of them played football. Originally they wanted to cancel the JV season, but after pressure from the conference and school board it was decided to go ahead and play. We ended up having to play a bunch of freshman up and it was kind of a mess, but we muddled through.

The other option that would at least give those guys some game like playing time would be to what we call Civil War. Take your 10 JV guys and all of the freshmen and divided them up into teams and play games on whatever night you normally play your JV games. Do it on your game field, invite the parents out, and make it as close to the real thing as possible.

Don't worry about it and get them in when you can. Just make an effort to get the ones that can function on the field on special teams and in mop up duty.

We had this issues for several years and we found other schools in the same boat and played an 8-man JV schedule while the varsity played 11 man. It wasn't to hard and the kids go to play a ton and developed a ton.

Only a varsity team. This will be my 10th year at this school. We started a 9th and 10th grade team my first year and have been able to compete at a very high level. Last season our numbers dropped big time and are not getting any better. We were a very good team last season with only 22 varsity kids. This year we should be OK but the future doesn't look so good. Three sets of brothers move because of jobs, two moved because of custody issues, and two brothers moved after a family member pasted away. Ten kids moving will kill a small program.

Anyone ever had a scrimmage game each week with the kids that will not play much? If so, some of the guys will need to play later in the week. Looking for ways to keep them interested because we need a JV the following season.

Do the these kids need a full season's worth of work to be able to help you in the future? What if you just had a mini 4 week season of practice followed by a glorified scrimmage and the let the ones that wanted to stay for the season, stay and the ones who were done, be done? Could at least 4 (or whatever number) weeks of practice be enough to keep them in the program and ready for next year? What if they only practiced twice a week on Monday and Wednesday? Or some combination of whatever?

I think that if you could get more out or at least keep the ones that you have by reducing their number of days, hours, or weeks would prevent them from having a wasted year or no year at all. They could probably as a group get 90% (totally made up number) of what they needed football wise done.

I have a couple of examples:

In 2012 we won state, but we only had 21 10th-12th graders. We were able to keep 6 9th graders out after their JV season by only requiring them to come to practice on Tue and Thu. That meant they missed the heavy conditioning day of Monday. We needed them to be able to scrimmage, a few for special teams, and as backups for our blowouts. I didn't need my starters or first backups in most games during the 4th quarter. But these kids also had JV basketball practice to go to. So the Tue, Thu deal was ideal. I think we even let them go early on those days when we could.

In spring of 2014 we were in danger of not having a JV team. I knew we would have enough, but just had to get them out there. We reduced spring training to 3 days for those guys and kept them out there and then ended up going undefeated this past Fall with them. The kids easily got 90% out of spring training in 3 days as opposed to 2 weeks. They were 7th and 8th graders at the time.

I looked at it throught the eyes of two 7th grades 3 sport athletes. They just finished basketball and then baseball season. Have a summer baseball season to play. Exams coming up. They have no idea that the JV will be good or not. They are worried about doing August football practice. Just a lot to commit to. Change spring training to 3 days and they come out. Have a great undefeated football season and now love football! They are upcoming 9th graders now. One will start both ways on the VARSITY this year and the other will help a lot and is kicking 45 yard field goals in practice. They are hooked on football, but maybe if I was a hard a$$ to a 7th grader, they would have been lost forever.

Find a way to be flexible.

In Michigan you can do a total of 4 scrimmages so we did this during the season so the 9th and 10th graders who weren't playing much could play, and the still suit up for the game on Friday. In MI we can only do 1 game a week. Which is why I like the quarter rule in some states, but would hate to keep track of that stuff. 

I'd be wary of this as well. Last season we let our starting varsity slot receiver (Who was also our backup varsity QB) play quarterback in JV games just to get him some reps at that position. It seemed to be working and was valuable to his development, until he got sacked and broke his collarbone and was out for the rest of the season.

Agreed Dubber, let the walk-ons play JV

You can only dress for only one game a week. Of the 10 freshman at least four will play some. Around 4 sophomores will not get on the field. That leaves 9 that will not get to play and other kids can't play up and down. Good ideas about letting them come out late but I'm not going to go that route. Our first game is played The week we start back to school. We start back to school. I guess I'm looking for ways to keep them engaged.

Why not take those 10 frown & 4 Sophs and play JV?

1 out of 4 kids is normal in a public school in our area. We have had some issues in the last two years that are out of my control. Three different sets of brothers moved out of state. If we put our best guys on the field that leaves 6 freshman and 4 sophomores. We have a chance to make the playoffs if we stay healthy.