winbypin
Well-known member
Most HS players never play after HS. Those few that are good enough to play at the next level find a way.
Spring Football
- Thread starter ELKSONE
- Start date
I am not in favor of having school sanctioned spring football. I do feel OHSAA should allow noninterscholastic 7 on 7 club teams. I know of teams in Kentucky that basically go on tour playing in 7 on 7 tournaments. OHSAA does not permit an Ohio player join one of these teams. What purpose does that prohibition serve? The other team sports allow club participation with restrictions based on the number of athletes from a single school on a team. This could certainly work for 7 on 7 clubs. The choice should be left to the students and their parents without undue oversight by OHSAA.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Not questioning your football knowledge but I think Meyer may know a little more about what it takes to make an individual a better football player and after watching the OHSAA playoffs a lot of teams could use spring football to improve their QB play. Practice does make better.
Practice would absolutely make kids better, but at what cost? We could hold year-round practices - imagine how good they’d be then? Give the kids a break. My point about Meyer is that when it comes to moral compasses, if his says north I’ll choose south.
No, it isn't. A democracy usually decides what is best for the many.
By the state finals QB's have had summer camps followed by almost 19 consecutive weeks of practice. You really think a couple more weeks last spring would have made any significant difference?
reganaustinjames
Well-known member
Stop trying to make spring football and 7 on 7's in Ohio happen. They're not going to happen.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Won't hurt, why do some kids play (practice baseball, volleyball, bball, other sports year-round) if it did not help, they wouldn't do it. I am a big believer in practice and repetition. Like another poster posted I do believe Ohio will have some form of spring football in 5 years.
cincifbfan
Well-known member
Those sports are year round because they are cash cows.
BirdDog10
Well-known member
Those are 2 very different things. Year round baseball, volleyball, and basketball aren't run by the school programs. No one is stopping an AAU-like 7 on 7 from starting, those already exist. What we're talking about is having school-sponsored football for 2 weeks, most likely at the peak activity time of track and baseball.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
My point is spring football would make players better if not why do they have spring football in other states just for the heck of it I doubt it. Some posters say it wouldn't make for a better "product" I disagree.
BirdDog10
Well-known member
How much better and at what cost? Go ask Coldwater if they would sacrifice 2 weeks in the middle of their spring baseball season so that their players could maybe be marginally better (if at all) at football in the fall, I'm sure they'd be on board with that.
Also, 2 weeks of "practice" in the spring is not going to be the difference whatsoever in a kids performance in October.
BirdDog10
Well-known member
Your own conference constantly credits coaches for letting their kids focus on other sports while they're outside of football season. I see it on the MAC thread every year that football teams in the league don't have anything football related outside of conditioning until track and acme baseball are done in the summer. Maybe they've got something figured out?
queencitybuckeye
Well-known member
I'm not sure it would. To some degree, those who decide it's too much and stop playing would offset the gains made. It certainly wouldn't offset the other negatives IMO.
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Crimson and Black
Well-known member
In Ohio, participation levels are down significantly over the past 25-30 years. I have to think adding a month of practice in April or May would create even less participation.
Maybe if they had the 7v7 on Sundays.
I don’t see spring football happening in Ohio. Especially when you got a multitude of other schools that rely on some football players to fill spring rosters. It’s too much of a butt-kicking to turn around and do it again in april. There’s already a participation problem as is. Spring ball will make it worse. Lastly, I find the main people pushing for this are not the ones suiting up and taking those hits.
BirdDog10
Well-known member
The people pushing for this aren’t the players taking the hits, or the coaches taking weeks out of their spring for it
FballFan91
Active member
I think it is a bad thing in general. Most coaches, in all sports, think their sport is the most important. Kids are told that they should be multi-sport athletes, but the second that the other sport starts, kids get criticized for not being with their "team". This causes kids to burnout because they never get a break. And, if you have a kid that plays Baseball, Lacrosse, or runs Track, the majority of your football kids SHOULD be doing one of these sports, then what is the product you are putting out there for your Spring Football?
I can also see parent problem here. Kid A is the best RB on the football team. Kid A also runs track and is really good at that. Spring football comes around and he decides to focus on Track, as he should. Kid B, the back up RB, is a starter for Lacrosse and wont be able to attend Spring football. Kid C is not going to be on the field much, maybe 3rd string RB. He is the "starting" RB for Spring football. A lot of great chances for this kid to learn and be seen. Now, his parents expect him to start the season as the starter because he "started" in the Spring. Really crappy situation.
I can also see parent problem here. Kid A is the best RB on the football team. Kid A also runs track and is really good at that. Spring football comes around and he decides to focus on Track, as he should. Kid B, the back up RB, is a starter for Lacrosse and wont be able to attend Spring football. Kid C is not going to be on the field much, maybe 3rd string RB. He is the "starting" RB for Spring football. A lot of great chances for this kid to learn and be seen. Now, his parents expect him to start the season as the starter because he "started" in the Spring. Really crappy situation.
I am in the allow 7 on 7 clubs camp. I found an interesting statement in the tweet you linked. It was said that OHSAA is in favor of 7 on 7 clubs but the Ohio HS Football Coaches Association is against these clubs. Does the coaches association have that much pull over OHSAA? If OHSAA is really in favor couldn't they just vote to remove the restrictions? Could this be because coaches want more control over the kids and their out of season workouts?
BirdDog10
Well-known member
The OHSFCA doesn’t have nearly the pull with the OHSAA that yapsters think. Almost every football decision made in the last 3 years relating to football was the opposite of what the coaches wanted
reganaustinjames
Well-known member
As has been insinuated earlier in this thread, Ohio is VERY slow-moving when it comes to changes such as these. Additionally, Ohio has a very frosty relationship with the AAU compared to states such as Florida. Because of weather and coaches' rightful trepidation, I'd bet my 401(k) that spring football will NEVER happen in Ohio. If it were, it needed to be started 40 years ago. And 7 on 7 only opens up cans of worms that would only accelerate the decline in interest in high school football in Ohio, something the sport really can't afford given other issues (some of its making, some truly outside factors).
CC Track Fan
Well-known member
Money is now the thing with big pull with the OHSAA. So if OHSAA could find a way to make money off of it likely they would allow it to happen.
I don’t know if some of you know who Kirby Smart is, but he is on record as saying kids who come from schools that have spring ball are a year to a year and a half ahead of kids whose schools don’t.
We know this is true because you hear HS coaches whose teams make the playoffs in OH talking about how valuable that extra practice time is for the development of their players.
We know this is true because you hear HS coaches whose teams make the playoffs in OH talking about how valuable that extra practice time is for the development of their players.
A few thoughts here:
1) Correlation does not equal causation. States that offer spring practices are often warm-weather states where spring practice is more feasible. If Minnesota allowed spring football practice, would it really put their kids a year ahead of where they are now?
2) This applies to maybe the top 1% of all high school football players. Do the benefits of ‘getting better at football’ outweigh the decreased spring sports participation for the other 99%?
3) Spring practice benefits people in Kirby Smart’s position, thus I doubt you’d see him arguing against it.
1. Yes, more reps means more opportunities to improve. It’s cold in the late season and in the playoffs in Ohio, do teams stop practicing then?
2. That is a valid concern, but I would look to other states to see how they make it work. Baseball is huge in the south and they have spring ball.
3. That’s a specious argument; he wasn’t arguing for or against, just stating a fact.