We've seen the numbers in football decline over the last three years at nearly every school in the tri-region area.
A lot of that stems from the fear of concussions and long term health concerns. Simply put, parents are telling their kids NO.
So it's not a shock when a program has been forced into the Gabilan Division over the last four years, that its numbers shrink even more -- not to mention the wins.
The one exception was Monte Vista in 2015. But that was short term. And now they are back in the Mission Division.
Carmel has 26 players that will be juniors or seniors next year. It won't be equipped to survive in the Gabilan Division over seven weeks with a roster that size.
What you have to hope for is that players don't have a change of heart about suiting up next year. If you watched Carmel against King's Academy, it was physically outmatched in a 41-14 loss.
That's what you get in the Gabilan.
While Carmel did open the season last year with a win at Salinas, eight players were nicked up after the game.
The Padres also forfeited their junior varsity game, fearing the safety of the 15 freshman playing in a game for the first time.
Remember, there is no youth football program in Carmel.
Now the Padres aren't going to go winless. Embracing the challenge is great. There are some talented skilled players back. But without depth in the trenches, reality will paint a different picture.
John Devine has been writing about high school sports in Monterey County since, well, practically since he was an athlete at King City in the days just after leather helmets. In PrepNation, John has even more in-depth analysis of the latest results and news he's brought to you in The Herald and in his weekly videos.
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4 comments:
The other perplexing issue is the yearly feeding of the Alvarez program to the Gabilan wolves. There also should be less concern about balancing the number of schools in each division. Ex: Take Carmel and Alvarez out of the Gabilan and reconfigure the other three.
This glosses over reality.. MVC didn't go down because they couldn't handle it, the finished above 2 other programs and still went down..
Just a thought, but if a team is going undefeated for the umpteenth time in a row in league play, they clearly are playing the sport of football beyond the abilities of their competition. We would demand any other undefeated team in any other sport be in a stronger league, so the standard should be uniform for football as well. Getting "nicked up" is an unfortunate byproduct of playing at a higher level, but Carmel shouldn't have the best of both worlds (undefeated AND unscathed) at the expense of weaker schools.
Coaching plays a huge roll in a team like Carmel's success. Golden is doing a great job with the hands he's been dealt. Look at what Arthur and his staff has done in Gonzales and Frankie in Soledad. They've all changed cultures in their programs and have benefitted from the buy in from the student athletes. With that said, playing in that big school league with these numbers isn't safe for a number of reasons.
Not safe for the players that absolutely have to go both ways in order to compete. More time on the field equals higher risk of injury.
Not safe for the program's health because kids won't want to join a losing system. Incoming freshmen want to play for winners.
I'm a fan of picking your battles and choosing those battles you'll have a chance at being successful. Golden can't do that now. He's got to play those teams week in and week out. They matched up really well this season and did a great job vs Salinas but that matchup isn't desirable next season and moving forward. Not healthy for a great public school small program.
Good luck in your off season fellas.
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