Team Roster Sizes?

[FBAddict]

After seeing that the St. Louis Crusaders of Honolulu, HI reported a roster of 140 players according to MaxPreps, it got me thinking about rosters sizes and success. I believe I remember several teams at the State Bowls Games bringing over 100 players suited up to play.

What the normal size for most successful programs?
Is there a correlation between roster size and success?
Do programs cut players or have a standing policy that all can play that turn out?

 

[Renegade4Life]

depends on school, privates don't need numbers, publics do, more numbers is more chance of gettin athletes, dont kid ya'lls self great programs got athletes fo sho

 

[berdooman]

Any school suiting up 100 probably has the entire JV team on the sideline. Fontana used to do that when it was good. I've heard Salinas has had some large rosters in recent years, though.

 

[Rmbr26]

Depends on which state you're looking at & yes it does lend towards the better programs out there [ie: there are more good teams with big rosters than good teams with small rosters].

Simply go to any state and look up the top teams for last season. I took Florida & Texas since they're both big football states. I found from last season’s top teams St. Thomas Aquinas, FL with roster of 126 and then Allen, TX with roster of 123. I looked up others and found more often than not they had good size JV rosters as well.

 

[jordan24]

I would consider a NorCal high school varsity football roster of 55+ a pretty healthy number. The simple fact is that football takes a physical toll on teams with, god forbid, season-ending injuries, concussion protocols and your typical injuries (I.e. ankle/knee sprains, hamstring, shoulders/arms). Having that number should at least have the team remain competitive to finish out the season and any post season run.

 

[Sanbenito dad]

I know San Benito runs about 65 for varsity as well as field a jv and freshman team, they even still make cuts at the varsity level to get to that number

 

[ncscalfootball]

55 is a Good number...some teams cud barely suit up 30...it

 

[NorCalSportsFan]

I remember some DLS teams just north of 30 to 40 I believe at some point numbers become counter productive as far as coaching. Numbers can halp as far as depth but I would take 40-50 highly motivated hard working players.

 

[larry legend33]

Ideally between 40-45 healthy bodies. The big schools in the SFL like Folsom, Granite Bay, DO, OR, etc will put 50-55 usually. Anything else is just the intimidation thing of filling up a sidelines. Cardinal Newman suits 30-35 or so year in and out and is one of the better D2-D3 programs in Norcal. Kids just play more and some go both ways. What a luxury in HS to have your best players on the field all game.
At the end of the day there are a lot kids holding clipboards for some of these teams.

 

[Prepwisdom]

San Benito is a very, very large public school. Take a look around this fall and I would venture to say that overall ( every school out there) will be dressing out between 25-40 players.

 

[larry legend33]

Yeah especially with participation going down. What you really need to do is look at jv/fresh. That is where you will get hit hardest. I bet we will see combined teams very soon.

 

[bella123]

Yeah especially with participation going down. What you really need to do is look at jv/fresh. That is where you will get hit hardest. I bet we will see combined teams very soon.

Agreed. JV and Varsity will be the norm down the road. The days of frosh A and B teams are in the rear view mirror.

 

[SpeedCity51]

Agreed. JV and Varsity will be the norm down the road. The days of frosh A and B teams are in the rear view mirror.

I know In the BVAL (super league that all public San Jose schools play in) a lot of schools started dropping their frosh programs a decade ago. It's sad considering the vast majority of them are medium to large schools in terms of enrollment.

 

[larry legend33]

Maybe I've been in the dark but I swore I saw on maxpreps DO has a varsity "flag football" team listed. At that school you were bred into tackle football at an early age. I'm really surprised. Anybody else aware? Are schools starting organized flag football teams.

 

[SpeedCity51]

Yea I've seen that in Vegas as well. Most schools actually have teams out here, and yes I thought it was weird when I first saw it.

Maybe I've been in the dark but I swore I saw on maxpreps DO has a varsity "flag football" team listed. At that school you were bred into tackle football at an early age. I'm really surprised. Anybody else aware? Are schools starting organized flag football teams.

 

[NorCalSportsFan]

Palma has flag football in the junior high school, or at least used to but separate from high school. I do not believe the junior high runs similar offensive passing skeme as high school though. If it did it would be like having passing league. Not sure there is much advantage in flag football. My brother did coached the Youth league football team that fed into both Palma and Salinas High primarily and he would run a combination of Palma base and Salinas High offenses and defenses. I think the value happens in the youth / pop warner level if the schools feeder youth program runs the same offense and defenses so that the players become accustomed to the high school systems. Oak Grove high in its heyday and later Valley Christian when it moved into Oak Groves area had the advantage of drawing from among the top pop warner programs in the nation. You could predict based on the youth program whether there was talent moving up into the high school since many of the talented teams had a core of players that were successful and played together since they were 9 years old.

 

[1315]

Note that anytime looking at previous season's roster it includes the call ups for playoffs, if that school did make playoffs. Many schools get an additional 15-20 from that.

 

[Sanbenito dad]

Palma has flag football in the junior high school, or at least used to but separate from high school. I do not believe the junior high runs similar offensive passing skeme as high school though. If it did it would be like having passing league. Not sure there is much advantage in flag football. My brother did coached the Youth league football team that fed into both Palma and Salinas High primarily and he would run a combination of Palma base and Salinas High offenses and defenses. I think the value happens in the youth / pop warner level if the schools feeder youth program runs the same offense and defenses so that the players become accustomed to the high school systems. Oak Grove high in its heyday and later Valley Christian when it moved into Oak Groves area had the advantage of drawing from among the top pop warner programs in the nation. You could predict based on the youth program whether there was talent moving up into the high school since many of the talented teams had a core of players that were successful and played together since they were 9 years old.

I also believe there is value with having kids as a core group coming up together but I feel that having them get a good all around football education at that level rather then learning a schools system is actually more beneficial. My son played popwarner in salinas before we moved to rio rancho New Mexico when he played there I was blown away . At the age of ten these kids were focused and motivated learning various formations with different assiments based off those formations weither it was spread , I , unbalanced lines , option offenses all sent in by hand signals from the side lines with no huddle it was great for his development and awesome to see these kids work, this was their standard operating procedure all programs worked this way and by high school these kids were all ball players

 

[Ca. Football rules]

Really pointless once you go over 50-55 players. At some point ability to coach everybody takes a hit, extra players become a distraction who don't play and probably won't play. Either cut them to give them motivation to work harder or send them down to motivate them to work harder. Teams that carry 70-80-90 plus players there is a alterior motive because it doesn't benefit the kid or team. I feel it's more of a ego stroke for the coaches or a money grab for the program.

 

[GOTF]

HMB will suit up 27 maybe 28 if he gets cleared in time vs Saratoga Aug 25th

 

[HSfan82]

HMB will suit up 27 maybe 28 if he gets cleared in time vs Saratoga Aug 25th

Optimal as a coach for Varsity 40-50 is solid number. Beyond 50 lot of guys standing around at practice. That allows you to go about 2 deep at each position. To develop your program you need 30-40 Freshman which hopefully translates to 25-30 on JVs. Anything less than that makes it hard to sustain 3 level program.

 

[mybrainhurts]

Palma has flag football in the junior high school, or at least used to but separate from high school. I do not believe the junior high runs similar offensive passing skeme as high school though. If it did it would be like having passing league. Not sure there is much advantage in flag football. My brother did coached the Youth league football team that fed into both Palma and Salinas High primarily and he would run a combination of Palma base and Salinas High offenses and defenses. I think the value happens in the youth / pop warner level if the schools feeder youth program runs the same offense and defenses so that the players become accustomed to the high school systems. Oak Grove high in its heyday and later Valley Christian when it moved into Oak Groves area had the advantage of drawing from among the top pop warner programs in the nation. You could predict based on the youth program whether there was talent moving up into the high school since many of the talented teams had a core of players that were successful and played together since they were 9 years old.

My son played for OGYF in it's heyday, with multiple teams at each level each coach ran whatever offense or defense they wanted. It had nothing to do with what the High School ran. Players from my sons teams feed into pretty much every HS in South San Jose not just OG & VC.

 

[colhenrylives]

In the PAL, numbers appear to be down this season. Terra Nova, Mills and Burlingame all report fewer guys. Several schools have dropped their frosh teams as well. Worries about concussions and competition from other sports, not to mention big demographic changes along the Peninsula, have had an apparent impact.