[walterwhite]

Lots of great points here.

It's interesting that some have mentioned the Middle School program being more of a hinderance than does good. Highlands obviously never bought into the one middle school team belief.

I don't know if any of you know people in Lincoln County or not, but some there will tell you that their middle school program has done more harm than good over the years. Why? Back in the 80's and up through the mid-late 90's, Lincoln County was hell on wheels..as much as a very rural, county school could be anyway. Up until the mid 90's, all of the small communities out in the county had schools that went K-8 (I want to say 6-7 total elementary schools), each of those schools has 1st/2nd all the way through their own 7th/8th teams. The result? You had freshmen classes rolling in 30-40 kids deep.

..now, enter the creating of Lincoln County Middle School and away goes the 6 or so MS teams throughout the county and in comes just ONE 7th and 8th grade team. I think Lincoln's Middle School came along in 94-95...outside of their 2007 season with Larry French, go back and look at their success since the 2000's came about. Compare it to that of the 80's and 90's and it's not even in the same ball park.

If I'm the next Clay County coach, I don't know how realistic it is doing away with the middle school program in terms of one team, but I'd sure look into seeing if you had 50-60 7th and 8th graders interested in playing, and if so....split those jokers up into 12-15 kids per team and rotate playing amongst your 4 'in house' teams & go play a couple of games outside of Clay County.

If not, keep the one 7th and 8th grade teams. No problem. BUT...two platoon come hell or high water and roll with it. Have kids practice both sides of the ball, heck maybe they flip flop sides every other game. Whatever you do...get 22 starters per grade level. 44 different kids starting in your middle school program; and, that's just the starters.

Attrition is going to happen...kids will eventually quit playing football just like they always have, that's fine. It's not for everybody. Just like running track wasn't exactly my ideal of fun, but if kids are going to quit let it be when they are sophomores, juniors, seniors..not when they are 6-14 years old.

As far as seniors on the team, I'm of the belief that you only need 10-12 max...at the MAX and that's if they can all play. If you have more seniors on the team than positions, and half or more of those aren't playing...it usually does more damage than good because of them not playing, running to Momma and Daddy, being locker room issues, etc.

Just my two cents.

Great post. Losing elementary football should NOT devastate the high school program, if the middle school does things that will be beneficial to building the high school program. One thing that most have stated is the high school coach should have control over the middle school program. We shall see.