2 minutes ago, Ram said:

How does the largest schools compare to the smallest schools in basketball? 

 

The fine print:  This is normally where people start saying that football is different because the more students you have, the more opportunity you have to have great talent.  Which is horse crap. 

You just said that the difference was that one kid could make a difference in basketball but not football. 

If that is horse crap then why is there zero chance the smallest teams in the state can beat Trinity, St. X or the other big boys in football. If the size of enrollment didn't matter, then why not just have 1 class in football?

5 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

You just said that the difference was that one kid could make a difference in basketball but not football. 

If that is horse crap then why is there zero chance the smallest teams in the state can beat Trinity, St. X or the other big boys in football. If the size of enrollment didn't matter, then why not just have 1 class in football?

Noooo.  I said "one good player could score on a good basketball team".  Scoring does not equate to changing who wins.  

There is a zero chance of a small, or most large, schools beating Trinity or St. X.  But, that has zero to do with school enrollment.  Zero.  

Exactly, why not have one class is football?  We have one class in basketball, does one team dominate that sport? 

6 minutes ago, Ram said:

Noooo.  I said "one good player could score on a good basketball team".  Scoring does not equate to changing who wins.  

There is a zero chance of a small, or most large, schools beating Trinity or St. X.  But, that has zero to do with school enrollment.  Zero.  

Exactly, why not have one class is football?  We have one class in basketball, does one team dominate that sport? 

Scoring in basketball can equate to winning. You put LeBron in high school on any team in KY and they would have a legit shot to win title. One guy couldn't carry the worst football team to a title shot.

How often in the last 20 years has a public small school won the sweet 16? Size matters, it just matters much more in football. If you can't understand that a roster of 70, 80, 90 kids has a distinct advantage over rosters with 20 or 30...then I'm not sure we can have a fruitful discussion on this matter. I love you @Ram, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

6 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

Scoring in basketball can equate to winning. You put LeBron in high school on any team in KY and they would have a legit shot to win title. One guy couldn't carry the worst football team to a title shot.

How often in the last 20 years has a public small school won the sweet 16? Size matters, it just matters much more in football. If you can't understand that a roster of 70, 80, 90 kids has a distinct advantage over rosters with 20 or 30...then I'm not sure we can have a fruitful discussion on this matter. I love you @Ram, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

You hit my nail on the head - a roster of 70, 80 or 90 kids does have a distinct advantage over a roster of 20 or 30.  But, a school with 1,000 boys in the halls does not equate to an advantage over a school that has 200 boys in in the halls.  If it did, you would never see a smaller school beat a larger school.  The roster size makes a difference, the enrollment of the school does not.  

That is exactly why we see 1A schools having teams as big as a 4A team with some of those 1A teams beating the 4A teams.  That is why Beechwood dominated 1A before moving up to 2A.  They dressed 90 players and many 1A teams dressed 30.   That is why Highlands was 4A in size, but dominated 5A.  

The more players you have, the better chance of having better talent you have.  The more enrollment you have does not really matter.  The team size matters.  

25 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

Scoring in basketball can equate to winning. You put LeBron in high school on any team in KY and they would have a legit shot to win title. One guy couldn't carry the worst football team to a title shot.

How often in the last 20 years has a public small school won the sweet 16? Size matters, it just matters much more in football. If you can't understand that a roster of 70, 80, 90 kids has a distinct advantage over rosters with 20 or 30...then I'm not sure we can have a fruitful discussion on this matter. I love you @Ram, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

Michael Mayer.

1 hour ago, Ram said:

You hit my nail on the head - a roster of 70, 80 or 90 kids does have a distinct advantage over a roster of 20 or 30.  But, a school with 1,000 boys in the halls does not equate to an advantage over a school that has 200 boys in in the halls.  If it did, you would never see a smaller school beat a larger school.  The roster size makes a difference, the enrollment of the school does not.  

That is exactly why we see 1A schools having teams as big as a 4A team with some of those 1A teams beating the 4A teams.  That is why Beechwood dominated 1A before moving up to 2A.  They dressed 90 players and many 1A teams dressed 30.   That is why Highlands was 4A in size, but dominated 5A.  

The more players you have, the better chance of having better talent you have.  The more enrollment you have does not really matter.  The team size matters.  

True,but Beechwood and a few other small school power houses are outliers. They get a much larger percentage of boys coming out for football than the vast majority of small schools do. Most larger schools are lucky to get 10% of the boys to play football. Small schools need a minimum 15 to 20% to even field a team. The bigger the enrollment the better chance you have to get the needed numbers to compete. The more boys you have the better chance that you have to find great athletes. 

41 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

True,but Beechwood and a few other small school power houses are outliers. They get a much larger percentage of boys coming out for football than the vast majority of small schools do. Most larger schools are lucky to get 10% of the boys to play football. Small schools need a minimum 15 to 20% to even field a team. The bigger the enrollment the better chance you have to get the needed numbers to compete. The more boys you have the better chance that you have to find great athletes. 

I think that is the common belief, but it is a conclusion without supporting evidence.  For example:  You have a school with 1,000 boys in the building.  950 of them can't walk and chew gum at the same time, it's some kind of geographical oddity.  So, you have 50 players that come out and play football.   This school down the road had 300 boys in the building and 92 of them come out for football.  Who wins in the annual rivalry game?  

I know some would say this is an absurd example.   But, it's not that far fetched.  In my area, Raceland is a 1A school that is supported by two small towns, Raceland and Worthington.  Raceland has a population of 2,000 and Worthington has a population of 1,500.  They have about 80-90 kids per class.  They dress 50-65 football players.  These players are not the kids of olympic athletes.  Down the road, Greenup County High School sits, it's enrollment is four times that of Raceland and they dress 50 players, or so.  Raceland normally beats Greenup County.  

Is this rare?  No.  Next door, Boyd County is the same.  Next door, Carter County's two schools are bigger, no different result.  It happens all over the state. 

Pikeville is the same.  NCC is the same, Campbelsville is the same, Williamsburge same.

Are there really small 1A schools?  Yes, there are.  But, what obstacles do those school face?  Is it purely due to enrollment?  I would say sometimes, but not most of the time.  

This is true for every class.  For example:  for years, Henderson County was the largest high school in the state.  Did they ever challenge Trinity and St. X for the 6A title?  Nope.  Why not, they were a lot bigger.   

30 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

True,but Beechwood and a few other small school power houses are outliers. They get a much larger percentage of boys coming out for football than the vast majority of small schools do. Most larger schools are lucky to get 10% of the boys to play football. Small schools need a minimum 15 to 20% to even field a team. The bigger the enrollment the better chance you have to get the needed numbers to compete. The more boys you have the better chance that you have to find great athletes. 

By the way, I am a football nerd, but I am really enjoying this debate.  Loving it. 

1 hour ago, Jumper_Dad said:

True,but Beechwood and a few other small school power houses are outliers. They get a much larger percentage of boys coming out for football than the vast majority of small schools do. Most larger schools are lucky to get 10% of the boys to play football. Small schools need a minimum 15 to 20% to even field a team. The bigger the enrollment the better chance you have to get the needed numbers to compete. The more boys you have the better chance that you have to find great athletes. 

Since we are talking Beechwood.  Let's consider their old districtmates:  Ludlow and Bellevue.  Both used to be strong Class 1A programs.  With Beechwood gone from their district, why are they not dominating Class 1A now?  Did their enrollment change dramatically?  Did their level of athletes change?  I know the reason, and it didn't come from my brain, it came from one of those school's coaches.  And, it wasn't enrollment. 

One of those teams showed up to play my Rams and had about 30 players on the sidelines.  I asked the coach why they had so few players, he said, "we started a soccer program, and we lost half our football players".  Same school, same tradition, same location, similar enrollment, similar talent level, less players on the team.  

2 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

True,but Beechwood and a few other small school power houses are outliers. They get a much larger percentage of boys coming out for football than the vast majority of small schools do. Most larger schools are lucky to get 10% of the boys to play football. Small schools need a minimum 15 to 20% to even field a team. The bigger the enrollment the better chance you have to get the needed numbers to compete. The more boys you have the better chance that you have to find great athletes. 

One more story, then I will stop and move on to the next thing I think is wrong lol

So, I'm talking to a coach from Trinity, I asked him why Trinity was so much better then everyone else, at the time.  He said, "You know how you have your backs practicing over there, and your linemen practicing over there and your receivers practicing over there?".  I said, "yea".  He said, "I have my right guards practicing over there, my right tackles practicing over there, my left guards practicing over there, and my left tackles practicing over there".  

The point being, his right guards are practicing playing right guard four days a week, against his left defensive tackles.  Not practicing right guard one day a week, and defensive tackle one day a week and special teams one day a week.  

Further, I asked him how they got so much talent.  He said, "we don't have a lot of great players.  But, if my average player practices one position, say right guard, four days a week against my best left defensive tackle, he will get pretty good at that position".  

Was it about how many boys were in the hall?  No, it was about how many players were on the field.  

@Ram  @Jumper_Dad  question for you both:

Should KHSAA consider recent roster size when redistricting? I'm thinking that if you used a rolling 4 year average of players on the roster in addition to the current system of using a 4 year average of boys in the school that could help smooth out some of these anomalies that have been mentioned. I think team size is a huge advantage. I don't know specific numbers but I would guess that teams who routinely compete for state championships have more players on their team than the average team in their class. If you could balance that out then maybe you'd see better football in the first couple rounds of the current playoff system. 

9 minutes ago, burreaux said:

@Ram  @Jumper_Dad  question for you both:

Should KHSAA consider recent roster size when redistricting? I'm thinking that if you used a rolling 4 year average of players on the roster in addition to the current system of using a 4 year average of boys in the school that could help smooth out some of these anomalies that have been mentioned. I think team size is a huge advantage. I don't know specific numbers but I would guess that teams who routinely compete for state championships have more players on their team than the average team in their class. If you could balance that out then maybe you'd see better football in the first couple rounds of the current playoff system. 

Theoretically, I would say roster size is more important than enrollment size.  I think that would be the perfect way to determine what teams went into what class.  After all, I have stated above that is what makes the biggest difference.  You don't see a Class 1A team with 20 on the roster making it past the first round in the playoffs.  

But, this is a number that is easily manipulated.  Say, the the cut off for Class 1A and Class 2A is 40 on the roster.  A school would purposefully keep their roster at 39, maybe cutting players to keep the roster below 40.  As much as I would think this is the most appropriate way to classify teams, it would hurt my soul to see kids prevented from playing the sport of football just to allow a team to play in a lower class.  

Now, I'm not saying that schools don't purposely keep enrollment below a certain number to stay in a particular class, which I know they do.  Don't even argue with me on this point, because I know it to be true. 

Simply put, I'm not sure what the best answer is in application, but in a perfect world it would be based on roster size.

5 hours ago, Ram said:

Theoretically, I would say roster size is more important than enrollment size.  I think that would be the perfect way to determine what teams went into what class.  After all, I have stated above that is what makes the biggest difference.  You don't see a Class 1A team with 20 on the roster making it past the first round in the playoffs.  

But, this is a number that is easily manipulated.  Say, the the cut off for Class 1A and Class 2A is 40 on the roster.  A school would purposefully keep their roster at 39, maybe cutting players to keep the roster below 40.  As much as I would think this is the most appropriate way to classify teams, it would hurt my soul to see kids prevented from playing the sport of football just to allow a team to play in a lower class.  

Now, I'm not saying that schools don't purposely keep enrollment below a certain number to stay in a particular class, which I know they do.  Don't even argue with me on this point, because I know it to be true. 

Simply put, I'm not sure what the best answer is in application, but in a perfect world it would be based on roster size.

This!

On 11/5/2022 at 10:08 PM, Ram said:

It's not about "blowouts", it's about why are adults making teenagers who went 0-10 play another team that is going to beat them by 50?  Stop and think about that for a minute, it's basically saying, "hey I know you are embarrassed about the fact your team isn't good, but we want you to show us again". 

Why reward a team with 0 wins or a last place in the district the priviledge of playing in the playoffs?  I think in round 1 10 teams won on the road.  Blow outs will  happen, I would like to see the playoffs mean more, be more competitive, and stop the good job you finished the season, now let's play a playoff game when we have no business being in th epost season.   

 

On 11/6/2022 at 1:02 AM, Jumper_Dad said:

Where would you be ok with it, 1-9, 2-8, 3-7, 4-6, 5-5m

I know you've talked to kids that were embarrassed and wish no one made them play. But unlike every other sport, 99% of kids will never play tackle football in pads after the last game of their senior season. Most everyone I know that played HS football would have loved to line up one more time and it would have killed them to have that one last chance pulled away by adults who think they know what's best for them.

I know a guy that has a framed photo of himself sacking Tim Couch, Leslie County killed them but he has a memory forever. There are kids in every game that you wish didn't exist, that make a life long lasting memory against the "best team" they played all year. 

Maybe the answer IS a minimum number of wins against teams in your class or larger, but under the current system I say let them all play regardless of record. If the PLAYERS choose not to, then let them opt out, but I feel it should be decided at the teams level by each team and not mandated by admin or KHSAA.

500 Record to make the playoffs.  Up to 3 teams per district.  1 seeds get a buy.  Bowl Eligible teams have to win 6.....