Sophomores

[calebloco]

There is a wealth of knowledge on this board and you guys probably have forgotten more than I'll ever know.  

 

My question is, in your vast experiences, how often do you see big jumps from sparingly used freshman to very good sophomores?  Can a team rely heavily on sophomore skill players to win games and compete for a state championship?

[LoneRanger]

An honest answer:

I will say there really is no blanket statement for development.  As for your scenario I’ve seen freshman make incredible gains in a years time if they have put in the work in their strength and conditioning programs over the off season and hit a growth/puberty spurt to go along with it.  I’ve also seen situations where that increase didn’t come until after the sophomore year and sometimes seen cases where a young man pretty well tops out physically going into Freshman year. 
So many variables and so many factors. 

[Unrivaled97]

In short, I agree with @LoneRanger.  There are a lot of variables and factors that play a part.  Overall, I would say no, you can't really rely on sophomores to compete for state championships.  There have been examples where sophomores have helped lead their teams to state titles, but they're mostly role players during those years and / or have a great supporting cast that made it happen.  As far as seeing kids who are rarely used freshmen to being very good sophomores, again, that depends on a lot of factors, one of which is how good is the program the kid is currently playing for?  I've seen plenty of kids get few to no snaps as a freshman, then have a great sophomore year, but the reason they had few snaps as a freshman is b/c they play for a dominant program and have seniors ahead of them.  They were probably good enough to start and play varsity for 75-80% of the teams in Kentucky as a freshman, but didn't b/c of the older talent in front of them.

[tackle trap]

Back in the day there was a saying for every sophomore starting count that as a loss. I don’t think that holds true today. Numbers are different than they were back in the 70’s & 80’s..