[ArmChairHC]

A statement was made in the Pikeville thread regarding if Pikevilles JV team could be the 3rd or even 2nd best team in class A. Honestly…they probably could be. But to me that’s more so a deriving factor of how watered down football is in the smallest class in the state. 

This thread isn’t to argue this point one way or another. I was just interested in seeing how not only the JV schedules, but Freshman, and Jr High schedules seem to affect (or not affect) the development of a program. 

Personally, coming from Raceland, I have seen a complete turnaround in our program since we began competing in the KYMSFA. Granted, I can definitely see where it’s looked at as a money racket deal, but I do see the benefit as well. If you look at that, there’s definitely something to it. Most of the teams competing at a high level in that post season playoff, are the same programs competing at the HS level in late November and the first week of December. Obviously it gets a little tougher for the small school division bc there’s a huge difference between a D3 Raceland playing a D3 CAL. 

I know Raceland plays a pretty tough MS schedule. The JV schedule is tough too. I know Pikeville does the same thing. Thoughts?

[Cardinalfootballguy]

We play an 8-9 game JV schedule every year, it's valuable reps for those kids.

[Patriot1]

I believe that if some of these young men use it to get better it’s a big help. Sometimes these teams have a player that plays some snaps on the defensive side of the ball so maybe the coaches want to see how he can perform on the offensive side of the ball or the other way around. For example if your team has a talented stable of upper class running backs or receivers and that team plays an young man on the defensive corner or safety some snaps on varsity so they let him play some offensive snaps at running back or receiver. Again the young man needs to use that time to learn the system and get better so when his time comes he will know his responsibilities on that side of the ball but some take it as a downgrade instead of having a positive outlook

[DukeBoy]

I would say very very very important .

[TheRampageRooster]

Not only are JV games beneficial for the experience and helping prep the younger players for varsity play ... it's also a good way to keep the players engaged that may not see much of the field on Friday nights. It's a hard pill to swallow when you have a player that never steps off the field up to high school then all of the sudden they have to ride the pine for a year. It's like shell-shock to them. Without JV games during this transition I feel like the players are losing a year of football. Also - I'll add that I've been to some pretty exciting JV games :)