Is Freshman Football Dying?

[GreggBlair1111]

I'm hearing that more and more schools are going away from Thursday freshman games, and are playing more 'freshmore' games in place of JV. Is this true? Is freshman football on its way out?

[W.E. Raider]

We can only hope. FR football is brutal and unrealistic for 95% of schools in KY. In the vast majority of cases, FR football becomes a hodgepodge of kids thrown in at positions they don't practice or play, and essentially becomes a middle school game where whoever has the fastest kid at tailback, wins.

 

Great in theory, terrible in practice.

[thehotsnakes]

We can only hope. FR football is brutal and unrealistic for 95% of schools in KY. In the vast majority of cases, FR football becomes a hodgepodge of kids thrown in at positions they don't practice or play, and essentially becomes a middle school game where whoever has the fastest kid at tailback, wins.

 

Great in theory, terrible in practice.

 

This is 100% accurate for a vast majority of teams in the state.

 

 

 

The additional game reps are indeed great, in theory. But, the ability of freshmen football to mimic legitimate games isn't great. And many times has the feel of more of a pick-up game than anything else.

 

A major issue, however, with freshmen games becoming JV games becomes level of competition. If you have a legitimate frosh team playing in JV games, that isn't an issue until a team has a fair amount of varsity players who play JV. Then, you end up having one team of kids with little to know varsity experience who are in 9th grade, playing a team of juniors who see significant reps on Friday night.

 

 

 

There isn't any possible way to regulate sub-varsity games, but that would be a great start to issues like this.

[HedgeHog8]

When your freshman class is between 10-15 players, it is hard to put together a squad that has a kid in each position unless you play him out of position. We don't have a freshman team, nor will we in the near future, because we want our kids playing confident in their position, not over thinking a position they have never played (or putting themselves in a position to get hurt). Our freshman play jv (mostly freshman and sophomores) when they are able to protect themselves at that level of competition; some even excel. Its great for us to identify those really young kids who are ready for varsity.

 

I don't see how without a class of 20-25 freshman, subscribing to the way we do things, that you would be able to have a freshman team. So that would limit it to larger schools only and make it harder to schedule freshman only games.

[bulldog77]

You're also seeing more and more school districts going away from what many of us knew as "Junior High" schools (7th, 8th and 9th together) and the more recently traditional "Middle School" format where 6th thru 8th are together (often in separate buildings) and the Freshmen are in with the rest of the high school. Simple logistics also means fewer smaller schools can sustain the freshman level without a few younger kids, and thereby depleting the middle school teams, so thusly it makes more sense for the Froshmore scenario. At least, that's how I am seeing it.

[Pioneer.Pride]

Why is it so difficult to move sophomores down to play freshman ball, or , even move up an elite 8th grader or 2? Game reps, even out of position, are valuable.

[Harry Doyle]

I'm hearing that more and more schools are going away from Thursday freshman games, and are playing more 'freshmore' games in place of JV. Is this true? Is freshman football on its way out?

 

Pretty common practice these days at places 3A and below, even 4A.

[gridiron guy]

Hard for many small "rural" schools to put together a TRUE freshman team together. Harry Doyle yes it very common practice. Not only does it have to do with player numbers, I think it also has to do with the number of coaches.

[BigTiger55]

For larger schools we have to keep a freshman schedule. JV is for the guys that are on the borderline of being a varsity player. I'm not taking 30 extra kids to a JV game to pad the sidelines and give me a larger headache nor am I dressing these kids on Friday night. Freshman games teach these kids how to perform in game like situations with out going against kids that've been in a high school weight program for three years.

[jericho]

Lots of schools are playing a 9/10 grade game and not letting JRs play JV. Theory being if your a JR and cant contribute to varsity, then you cant when your a SR either. Not always the case but mostly true in most schools.

 

Plus the KHSAA rule for quarters being allowed to play for kids factor into this.

[All the Right Moves]

Hard for many small "rural" schools to put together a TRUE freshman team together. Harry Doyle yes it very common practice. Not only does it have to do with player numbers, I think it also has to do with the number of coaches.

 

The number of players, the number of coaches, KHSAA rules on quarters, field availability based on HS soccer and even MS football using the same facilities in many small schools. All of these are factors that you will begin to see only JV and varsity teams at most locations especially 3A down.

[BigTiger55]

Lots of schools are playing a 9/10 grade game and not letting JRs play JV. Theory being if your a JR and cant contribute to varsity, then you cant when your a SR either. Not always the case but mostly true in most schools.

 

Plus the KHSAA rule for quarters being allowed to play for kids factor into this.

 

Yeah I don't agree with this theory because if that's the case then why are they on the team? But imo it's like the spring practice argument. Teams that have the numbers do it and teams that don't have the number don't. But I don't think freshman football is dying. After all the state is not only comprised of small school football. Especially with more rural teams considering consolidating with other schools.

[ChiefSmoke]

We always try to play a freshman schedule. It can be tough to do, but my experience is that if you don't have a freshman team, your numbers begin to decrease.

 

When I was at Paris, I had no choice. We had to keep all 4 grades together because our roster was so small.

 

At Mason and now at Mercer we are in a Frosh/JV conference. We play Frosh/JV doubleheaders every Monday but quarters are only 6 minutes long. That keeps everyone available for Friday night and they play against the most similar competition.

 

It was an adjustment at Mercer when I wanted non starting juniors to play JV. But, over the years, most of my juniors that played JV contributed or started as seniors. The junior JV QB at Mason one season never threw an interception in 7 varsity starts as a senior.

 

In our program, everyone in grades 9-11 should be playing games, and of course the seniors that play a lot. Playing the freshmen games is an important part of our overall plan to develop players.

 

Since going to Mason, I have let my freshmen practice separately with their own staff and it has worked very well. There is a big difference in a freshman and an upperclassmen. I don't want my young kids getting beat up and discouraged.

 

Some day I may have no choice, but I will fight as hard as I can to play a separate freshman schedule as long as possible.

[frankdracman23]

It is becoming a reality even for small schools (mostly 3A and under) who really want to and can field a Frosh team with 15-18 players but are finding the only Frosh teams left to play are mostly in 4A, 5A, 6A where there are likely 3 or more times that many kids on a Frosh team.

 

So now maybe you can find 2 or 3 games against like-sized teams if you are lucky and then have to play 5 or 6 games against much larger teams. Then two years from now it will be 1 or 2 games and 6 or 7 games against larger teams.

 

So eventually you might have to give up on having an all-Frosh team.

[UK#1fanisback]

Isn't Beechwood a 1A school and they usually have a big Freshman team? Coaches need to get out and talk to kids so they have more kids on their roster. Perfect example. Dixie has struggled getting kids to play Fresham football. I seen a flyer on a middle school website for Dixie Freshman football. Probably only a few kids seen it. Show up at their lunch during school and talk to kids. You have to talk to the kids.