I am left wondering about the o-line. If there is no chance that the starters will be coming off the field during the game, what exactly is pushing them to perform at the top of their abilities?
I'll buy that the starters are the best players available. I find it hard to believe that their backups couldn't play harder and get better results.
I hope that makes sense. My brain to keyboard translator doesn't always synch.
Ok...I'm going to pick on you but don't take it personally. I hear this a lot.
Why the hell should it take the backup behind you to push you harder? How about being motivated to go kick the other teams a$$? Especially one that is supposed to be a lot less talented than you.
The starters should be the leaders on the team showing the guys behind them how brutally hard you have to work to be successful and if you can't keep up then you are going to get your a$$ whooped in practice and look silly.
In a perfect world you would be absolutely correct. However, it's not that way in the world we live in. Competition breeds effort. I'm sure the kids play hard. But if they know there is someone there that the coach will replace them with if they don't hustle they will play a lot harder. That's been my experience while working the sideline anyway.
I'm not doubting you.
I know a school that recently won a championship in hs football. It was won mostly with athletes from two classes. These athletes didn't go to practice and say, oh shot, someone might take my job. They thrived on kicking people's asses on Friday night and the chance to win a championship.
People literally saw those classes coming up through middle school. Nobody else was going to take their jobs. There were actually kids that quit playing football because they knew they weren't going to play. Younger kids in the program learned from them about what it takes.
This is something seriously missing in this program.