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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2008 10:36:33 GMT -6
I am not familiar with this, but where I'm coaching at, apparently this is the norm. Around here it seems there will be 5-6 bad years, followed by the same amount of good years. My buddy got the job last spring following a guy who'd been here 25 years and that's what he was telling us. He got out when it was good I can tell you that. What causes this? We are a small town w/a pop. under 5000, so I can understand maybe low numbers, but man "waves of talent" is a bit strange to me. How do you deal with that? Where I was at last, it was pretty much standard, we were small and slow, year in and year out, but we had physical, gritty kids. I was just wondering if any of you had ever dealt with this. I guess it's like hurricane season, ride out the bad one's and be thankful for all the sunny days you get!  Duece |
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Post by CVBears on Oct 7, 2008 11:14:46 GMT -6
We definitely have waves of talent. Four years ago, we had probably the most talent in the area by a large margin. The class that graduated 3yrs ago had less talent, 2yrs ago even less talent, 1 yr ago not the greatest, the seniors now are about even with the class above them, the juniors this year are talented at the skill positions and not talented at the line, the soph's this year are the least talented team our school has ever seen and our frosh this year has the most talent we've seen in five years.
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Post by ajreaper on Oct 7, 2008 20:29:45 GMT -6
I am a firm believer that programs are built on how far you can take your average kid from the time he enters high school to his senior season. How much football can you teach him and how much can you get him to physically reach his potential. The further you take those average guys the more consistant your program will be over the years- if you count on waves of talent you'll have roller coaster years. Great athletes come in waves the average guys are pretty consistant- focus on growing those guys and you'll be in pretty good shape year in and out.
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Post by outlawjoseywales on Oct 7, 2008 20:40:53 GMT -6
Deuce,
that is very familiar to me with the "waves of talent."
Being from the panhandle of Florida we are just "eat up" with small towns and that is the norm. While coaching does make a difference, the talent varies greatly from class to class.
When my kids were small I decided to coach Middle School because of the time issue.
I had a group of kids that the starting defense was unscored on the entire year. I mean they were tough and big.
Although I was gone from the area these same kids went to the high school and in their first year they had a winning record for the first time in many years.
The next year they went to the state playoff, when this group were Seniors they reached the state championship and lost by 6 points.
I heard that the next few Middle school teams were terrible and the high school team was just that for 5-6 years.
Then a few years ago I heard that the Middle School had won all their games again.
Sure enough now the high school has posted back to back winning season and this year they are 5-0.
In a small town you don't have what you have, and unless you are in one of those legendary steel mill towns, things change widely.
Good to hear from you Deuce, hope things are going well for you.
OJW
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2008 7:05:29 GMT -6
Well I wish I could say all is going well but it is not. I've never been in this situation before in my coaching career. As most of you know I was booted from my last job and now I'm back helping a buddy of mine at our alma mater. We were good when we were here, and even had a team go to the state championship game, but for the most part around here winning has never happened consistently. I always wondered why, and thought it was lack of coaching for the most part, but in some strange way the people of this town are not football people. What I mean is we are NEVER big, I mean NEVER. We had one of the biggest lines in school history when I played and we averaged around 200 lbs. For that time in history was actually a pretty decent sized line. Here lately they've averaged around 230 lbs. on the line and that was considered average for the area. Now we average 210 lbs. on the oline which is pitifully small for the area and we average 190 lbs. on the d line, which is unheard of around here. It will be that way for at least 4 more years by looking down the line and seeing what we have. Put it this way, the middle school coach came to us in Aug. and got our large and XL pants b/c we weren' t using them! He needed every one of them, b/c the 8th grade line is actually as big as our varsity line! I guess that's good news, but the 6th grade class and behind is a dark and gloomy place right now.
The crazy thing is, we don't have big people in our high school right now. Last year, when I got hired I walked in to our meeting with the kids interested in playing football and saw 2 kids that were what I would call big out of probably 120 kids. Both were 280-300 lbs., but 5'10" tall. My first few weeks at the school I got a real wake up call doing lunch duty. I can honestly say there is only 1 kid I see, as far as linemen go, that should be out there playing. He is 6'3" tall and 250 lbs. and solid. He's a big ol' country boy that does nothing but go to school and work on his dad's ranch after school. There isn't any other big kids out there. I've looked and can tell you our lunches look like a middle school with how small the kids are. I wish I could video it and show you what it looks like, it is almost pitiful how small our school population is.
What keeps ringing in my ear is I had a good coach once tell me "don't go where you can't win". If you have waves of talent, there is no way you can win consistently IMO. You have got to have at least SOME talent, right? I know, take the average kid and make him better, so on so on, but what if you are consumed by less than average kids? I guess the 0-4 season is wearing on me as I've coached now for 10 years and never, ever had this bad of a record. My worst record in coaching was 5-3 as a youth coach, so I'm not used to where we are right now. Don't get me wrong, I've taken my fair share of butt whoopins', but we are taking them weekly simply b/c we are getting manhandled. Last week we saw our 165 lb DE execute the block down step down and wrong arm a guard darn near behind the center on the buck sweep. The opposing guard crushed him, stepped over him and then turned up and picked off the backside LB all in one block (OG was 6'2" 230 lbs). What do you do? The kid used his tech. perfect, up until he got crushed. He didn't even make the back hesitate, that's how fast it happened. Seeing this week in and week out is getting to me, and that is why I was asking. I guess I'm more venting than asking, but I cannot stay here if this is the norm. It makes me feel like a loser, and a loser I am not. I will not make losing a habit, and I feel if I stay, then losing will become easier and easier. It will also get easier to blame it on the fact that this is just a trough in the talent level. Anyhow, I've got some soul searching to do as to how long I want to keep doing this, but it is my old alma mater and that will make it more difficult for me to leave. I just wanted any input on people from similar places. OJW we are a small town too, with a pop. of 4800, but we play in class 3A, go figure! Anyhow, I got to go to class, thanks for all the input guys and good luck Friday, Lord knows I need it!
Duece
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Post by jgordon1 on Oct 8, 2008 10:04:03 GMT -6
last year 3-7, this year 5-0.......so far... same coaches, same plays, same practices.....different seniors. to me, senior leadership and players are everything. YOU NEED BOTH we were about just as talented last year but these seniors are great people
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2008 6:51:51 GMT -6
last year 3-7, this year 5-0.......so far... same coaches, same plays, same practices.....different seniors. to me, senior leadership and players are everything. YOU NEED BOTH we were about just as talented last year but these seniors are great people You hit the nail on the head there. Our seniors are good as far as that is concerned, but they look lost right now, I don't think they know what to do with the coaching change. What is strange is my buddy was here last year as an oline coach, and has been here for the past 4 seasons (he's the hc now) so they are at least familiar with him. Also out of the 9 coaches that were here last year, 4 of them stayed including the h.c., so that should still be familiar. Actually there are only 3 new coaches right now, so I don't know what's different. I will say this, my buddy, ol spreadbone, is a disciplinarian and he's had to run a few of the "non-believers" off in the beginning. What was here before him was totally opposite, but the inmates were running the asylum if you get what I mean. I like his style of accountability and discipline, but I guess the kids are having a tough time with it. We've gotten comments back saying we take the game too serious and we're not fired up as much as coaches etc., but we are yet to have any discipline problems in school or on the field, so I think that has been a plus. I guess that's the biggest difference is that before kids, especially those w/talent, got away with murder and now they don't. I know that got off topic, but that is also what we are dealing with at the same time as not being real talented to begin with. I just wonder how long it will last and how long to hang around to wait and see if we'll turn the corner or not. Anyhow, gotta go, thanks for the input. Duece |
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Post by macwomac on Oct 9, 2008 7:25:31 GMT -6
I feel your pain duece! We are in a smaller district as well and have seen the peaks and troughs. We are consistently smaller and slower than our competition, but have made up for it in grit and toughness. We're not world-beaters (the district has only ever been to the playoffs twice in its history and there hasn't ever been much community support) but we've always held our own and won our fair share of games.
The previous HC left the year before I came as he saw the end of the talent coming and was sick of dealing with a few terrible kids. The hang-over from those kids lasted 4 years....4 long, hard years. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and are improving steadily, but some parents are now pushing for the HC to resign. I think the major problem is that we had a pretty decent year last year and just missing the playoffs after not winning a game the previous year. Expectations were pretty high for this year and then we got bitten by the injury bug (we had 23 kids able to practice on Weds. due to injury and school-wide illness). We have 1 win with 3 games left and should pick up another 1 maybe 2.
Being young, this would be my first regime change and I'm not sure what to expect or how to handle it. I hate to see this HC go as I think he is one of those guys that truly has the best interest of the kids as priority #1 and has weathered what could have been a major $h!t storm from the previous HC to get the program back on track. He has also been a good mentor for me giving me my first shot at OC. I guess we'll see how this plays out, just nice to vent a bit!!
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