Aliquippa Youth Football booted
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
My God yes. It is easy to see too. Today's kids are way more athletic then my generation (I was in HS in the mid to late 90s), but they are not as good. They practice way more then we did yet they are less skilled.
In my day Lavar Arrington was the only freshman to start Varsity as a freshman. Despite what this board thinks of him because of him being a nitter, there was and is no denying his ability. The facts support that too. National Player of the year, HS All American by everyone, #1 overall recruit, College All American, #2 overall NFL pick, All pro, ect.
Today, how many kids who will not even play college football start their freshman year? Most 5A schools struggle to field a JV team let alone a freshman team. I'm talking 60 kids in the whole HS program. My day at a AA school, 58 kids were on the Varsity team those who didnt see varsity time played JV, and probably 30 kids on the Freshman team.
So yes I do believe that not only HS but college and pro football is worse today. The numbers just aren't there, and the focus on fundamentals are not there either. It's all 7 on 7 crap.
It makes sense they work the club circuit since its a thing. If your a recruiter do want to go see South Fayette vs CV at 10am then drive to Mt Lebo vs USC at 12pm and cap the day w/ Bethel Park at Peters for 2pm if the schedule even worked out like that. Or you could show up to some sports complex at 9am and watch Beadling play Century and 20 other games and be out of there at noon.
For wrestling you never see college coaches at a normal dual. But at tournaments or multi team Duals you see them as it's the best bang for the buck.
Football is the only sport where you still see coaches at normal games because the structure does not allow these multiple contest at 1 time in 1 location.
Norwin and Hempfield were both 5A in football in the cycle previous to the one we are in now. And now they are back up to being the 4th and 5th largest schools. Not because they have more kids, because they have to account for the kids who don't actually go there differently.
It's been a while, at least a decade, maybe close to two at this point, but there was a time when the list of the top five fastest growing school districts in Western PA included Norwin, Hempfield, Penn Trafford and Franklin Regional. Not coincidentally, three school districts that border Allegheny County and one the next district in.
In the next cycle coming up Trinity is the largest 4A school in the WPIAL playing football by enrollment. South Fayette is the smallest 5A school. They have 6 more boys. So they just missed having enough males to be 5A as it is.
It looks like in the next cycle York Suburban will be the only football playing school in 4A with more boys than Trinity. And that's by one boy. So they are already really close to 5A.
I believe Woody High will be moving up to 6A next year and in the near future I’d expect Mars to be 5A.
No. In the cycle starting next year there are six 6A football schools by enrollment. NA, Seneca, Norwin, Canon-Mac, Hempfield and Mt. Lebanon. Central Catholic is playing up to make seven. Woodland Hills was originally going to be in 6A, but they somehow managed to screw up their counting (what does it say about the quality of the education when the people running the school can't even count correctly?). So they appealed to the PIAA to put them in 5A where they actually belonged, and the PIAA agreed.
Also, it should be noted that Butler would make it eight, but they are still playing as an independent.
I dont think any WPIAL teams have freshmen teams anymore, do they? Some of the bigger ones have 2 JV teams, sort of like an A and B team. Primarily freshmen and lesser-talented sophomores on the one and then the other would have the better sophomores (but who dont play much varsity) plus the juniors who dont play much varsity.
