mgil wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:04 am
Yeah Saban learning from Belichick’s demise was smart.
Recently I’ve noticed a lot of ex-pros landing in pretty high paying HS jobs and just staying there. That’s wild to me, but seeing how shit coaching has become at these elite levels, at least as a HS coach you might have a little more control over a program?
Weird times.
Its spilling down into HS though.
NOW, since NIL and "the portal", HS kids think if they posture themselves accordingly to take advantage....get the inside lane going into college. Before is was about scholarships, the last year or so the ante seems to have gone up or whatever.
IOW, we have kids transferring high-schools right and left in my state. We have what called 'open enrollment'. You can go to any school, home district doesn't matter .... as long as the receiving school has "room" to take you. The high-school athletic-board only makes them ineligible for half the regular season games. They apply for exemption for that at times: "mom took a job on the other side of town". "my home district school doesn't have a STEM program". Or some other fake rationale for the transfer, so they get to play the full year.
Kids buddy-up to. Recently a starting QB and WR from once school, both transferred to the same school. Last year there was a few big combos of 5 to 6 kids all leaving once place going to another.
There has been a whole rash of HS sophomores and juniors making twitter announcements like lebron: "I have decided to take my talents too [XYZ]" ...or similar language. I shit you not. Coaches and HS FB fans have joked the HS Transfer Portal opening is right around Xmas break (this is after 1st semister is done), and closes once school is back in session. Kids will transfer to mid year, makes sense class-wise, and then they quick intergrate into spring football and 7v7 Season with the new team. Even though they will be required to miss games next year, they can mesh into the team, learn of the off/def schemes, etc. The next "portal opening" (joking again, but not joking) is after spring fball training, is done/early summer of course when daddy-ballers announce their son's "wasn't used correctly" or "slept on"....and then transfer accordingly.
Another point: The better high school coaches in our area, are/were .... lifetime highschool coaches....maybe they played A LITTLE in college.
Typically, the ex-NFL guys are normally trash. I don't think they can relate.
Another downside here is legally dealing with minors.
This year we have had about 40 HS FB HCs quit already ..... there will likely be about 30 more if I had to guess.
Its only the beginning of January.
There are only 242 HS FB programs in my state.
It might be a record year ...like 25% turnover or more.
Only a few of the quitters were "my wife has cancer" or a coach who had done it for 22 years or something understandable.
