So, I was curious on the quality of football of these other leagues. I went onto the "Oklahoma Youth Football" Facebook page, and watched a handful of highlight films. There are clearly athletes on those teams, and they would give teams in the INFC a solid challenge. However, when I see most of those teams D-lineman all in 2 points stances pre-snap, that is pretty indicative of the quality of coaching and caliber of teams in those leagues. Not trying to stir the pot and cause problems, and maybe I was watching the wrong teams? But I saw roughly 5 different teams, and all of them had all their D-lineman standing up. Terrible technique to be instilling in Youth, IMO. I would love to watch BA Black play a team with a D-line that is in a 2 point stance pre snap. Good freakin' luck with that!! With my older sons team, I used to scrimmage every couple of weeks with a team called "West Mabee", or something like that? Same story there, great athletes, solid FB players, but their D-lineman were all in a 2 point stance on every play. I thought that was an anomaly until I watched this Facebook group film this week! Who's teaching all these teams to do this, am I missing something?! lol
I would say in general it appears that the INFC league prepares their players better for actual football (assuming my sample size of ~5 teams is a fair generalization, which it may not be representative of these other leagues). In general, I bet the "school ball" coaches are delivered a better product, with fewer bad habits, when the players have come through the INFC. Of course I'm generalizing, but I'm sorry, when I see D-lineman all in 2 point stances, you sorta lose some credibility with the quality of coaching and the league. Could these teams line up and beat INFC teams? I'm sure they could. But, I care less about wins and losses (and highlight tapes), and more about developing solid fundamentals, and building kids' confidence.
Regarding weight limits, I also think that these constraints are generally good for the youth level. Nationally, youth FB numbers are down dramatically, because everyone is afraid of the dirty word of, "concussions". Keeping RB's under a certain size, I'm sure could be statistically proven to reduce the risk of concussions. Or, if not, it at least reduces the "perceived" risk in the eyes of the parents, who are the decision makers when registering their kids for Youth FB. We have to think about the long term vision of Football. I'm really curious to see where the game is in 10-20 years, given that the number of kids playing at the Youth level has fallen off so dramatically. It's already bad in a state like Oklahoma, where FB is the "state religion". On the coasts, my friends/family tell me the fallout in youth tackle FB is exponentially worse. As a loyal fan of the game, and a believer that it is the greatest team sport in the world, I am really curious to see how it develops. Look at the NFL, they "get it" and are modifying rules to change the game. Old school guys push back on it, but it's with the right long term vision that those changes are being instilled. We also have to remember that the people making the changes at the top (NFL) have access to the best information, which, none of us on this message board do, regardless of how we were raised to play the game.
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