Talented Group: Keep 'em together?

Thats a tough question. I would say it depends on what the state of your varsity program is. Don't bring up frosh onto varsity unless they are going to actually contribute to the team and actually help you get a win. If the freshmen is a better player than the senior... hell why not. Thats just something you and your staff will have to evaluate during pre season

Im going into my third year. Our Frosh class my first year is the most talented the school has had. We mainly kept them together for the freshman year, we brought up 3 to JV to fill some spots that year since that soph. class was a thinner. Then brought up 8 to varsity the next year and they were our best players and we went to the playoffs. Since we split them up their sophomore year, we now have quality depth for the next two years with just that class.

Players can jump from freshman to varsity their sophomore year and not be intimidated, this group is fun to coach because they want to be good but they are still immature at times but they are gamers.

Bottom line, what do you think will give you the most depth for the money years of that class, the junior and senior years?

If you have a freshmen team let them start the whole season there be successful and then see if you can use them on varsity.

If you don't have to play them on fridays and can keep them together for 1 year do so.

We did this, the chemistry and belief system in each other was great the Freshmen team went 7-0. This year they went 12-1 as seniors, because that core group knew each others strengths and weaknesses

As said before, what ever the state of the varsity is would determine how much you want to play the 9th graders.

Personally, I would want them to stay together and dominate if at all possible. Let them develop a swagger, an attitude, etc.....

Caveat:
We have 3 levels (Fresh, JV, Var). We have 160 on our wt room roster for this summer (all levels). In SC we can play a kid 8 quarters a week. So we don't have to make a cut and dried decision down here.

I say keep them down as a group. The Freshman we dress on Friday, rarely can do anything more than get mop up time, with a couple of notable exceptions, one being our RB who might end up being the #1 recruit in the nation this year. We let them (some) dress and get to be exposed to the big lights, but feel it is extremely important to let them dominate at their level of competition to gain confidence. There is also a degree of intimidation for our region opponents to know that as they get older, they are facing the same guys that beat the brakes off of them as freshman, again and again and again.

I have worked at a smaller school where we NEEDED those type of freshman to get wins. As a general rule, many of the those kids end up with the 'big head' and can become problems later b/c they start feel a since of entitlement, or the attitude of 'why do I need to work to get better, I started/played in the 9th grade'.

I am however, in agreement with dcO, that would rather have an underclassmen as one of my backups, since he will be returning. At my current situation, I am becoming less inclined to think that way. However, the situation we are in is probably a rarity. I just would rather my #2 FS be a junior/soph instead of freshman for example.

There have been countless threads on here about 'how do we develop leadership?'. Well, unless you have just that exceptional freshman, most of the time he will not be one that will take the lead and set an example if he is surrounded by upper classmen. If they stay with their class, then they can develop and we can foster that leadership much easier. Also by staying together, the class cohesion will grow stronger and stronger as time goes by.

Not knowing the state of your program I really can't give a hard answer.

When my old boss took over this program it was one of the worst AAA programs in the state if not they country. They were stuck in a multi year losing streak and had had one or two winning seasons in their entire history.

He had a very talented group of young players so he made a conscious decision to keep them together on JV to let them feel some success, which was something new to them. It worked.

If you're in a similar situation- new to an historically bad program- then there's something to be said about keeping them together. If not then probably not.