Division I vs. NFL ---- Division III vs. High School

[tigerguy]

Today Steve Spurrier, the head coach for the University of South Carolina, said he thought that Alabama could hang with and/or beat some of the NFL teams today.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8579380/steve-spurrier-says-alabama-crimson-tide-beat-nfl-teams

Personally I think he was mostly kidding, because if he is serious than I question his sanity, but it raised a question that my friends and I have always talked about.

Could the top high schools beat a fairly decent Division III team?

I have to start by saying this isn't the most perfect comparison between Spurriers "Alabama vs. NFL" comment because the range of talent in Division III is much larger and at both ends of the spectrum. I'll start with the Alabama vs. NFL comparison:

Each and every NFL team is composed of (mostly) Division 1 players who were All-Conference or All-Americans during their time in college. Alabama is an amazing college team - they have one of the best defenses we have seen in awhile. That being said, every starting player on both sides of the ball will not be an All-American, or even All-Conference for that matter. You also have to take into account that most NFL teams have very little rookies as their starters, meaning that most players will have several years of NFL experience. While Alabama could have All-Americans matched up with (former) All-Americans (now All-pros) at several positions, at EVER OTHER POSITION they would be at a significant dis-advantage. It wouldn't be close. I think even the worst NFL team this year (Jaquars?) would stomp Alabama.

I've been reading in certain forums that the argument is that "Well it happend in 1963 when the College All-Stars beat the Green Bay Packers, a year after they won the Super Bowl." In itself this was an incredible accomplishment - I will admit that - but there are several huge differences here.

1) In 1963 the gap between College and NFL was MUCH closer. Today the jump is substantial.
2) This was a college All-Star team composed of the best players in the country.

If you took the BEST players in all of Division I and put them on a team and gave them time to mesh for a season, then you of course would have a better game with an NFL team. Would they win? Still probably not, but the chance of an upset is much more conceivable. This is one team we are talking about here, not a team full of all-stars.


I have basically spelled out my entire arguement for the Division III vs. Top High School scenario, but there are a couple of other factors involved.

Could the top high school team beat a Top 5 Division III school? Absolutely not. Could they beat anyone in the top 25? I still say, with certainty, not a chance. 7-10 win teams? Getting closer, but still not a close game, IMO.

For all the teams listed above, I see the top high school teams running into the same problems that Alabama would have against the NFL. While the top high school teams might have 4-5 D1 committs, they will still have holes at certain positions. Division 3 players, while not as big or fast as D1 players, will be more experienced, and will be most likely stocked at each position with at least an 2-3rd team All District Player.

I think things start to get interesting when you get to the .500 and below Division III teams. (And I may have started things still too high. We might have to go to an even lower winning percentage.) As I stated earlier, the range in talent of Division III is far and wide. There are schools who make a focus on football, and therefore will almost certainly have solid recruits year in and year out. There are other schools, however, who will literally take who they can get in order to get numbers. Could the Top High Schools beat these teams? Yes. Would they win every time? I don't think so. I think the gap between a high school senior and a College Senior is huge, enough so that even some of the worst Division III teams would still beat top High School teams most of the time, IMO.

Does anybody know of Division III schools that play/scrimmage high schools?

What does everyone think??



LET THE DISCUSSION BEGIN!!

[02 Warhawk]

Could the top high schools beat a fairly decent Division III team?

I think of it this way. College teams are basically an all-star team of high school players that are now bigger, stronger and faster than their high school days. It doesn't matter if it's DI or DIII.

College teams will beat high school teams 10 out of 10 times. Unless you find a high school teams full of seniors where every single player will be playing at the next level.....but that doesn't happen. At the very best, I would guess that 25% of a starting lineup will go on to play college ball at some level.

My answer: No

[Pat Coleman]

I've seen some pretty bad Division III football teams in my day that I would have to think would lose to DeLaSalle (Calif.) and other perennial powers. But once you get out of the bottom 10-15 D-III teams, I can't see any of them losing to a high school team.

[K-Mack]

Excerpted from this column:
http://www.d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2010/september-to-remember

In reply to this blog post:
http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/sports/varsity-blog/21653-central-catholic-vs-a-div-iii-college-team

Back to school

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked, and I quote, " Who would win a football game between Central Catholic High School and Thiel College, a Division III team that has finished above .500 twice since 1976?."

It's a loaded question when asked that way, but what the heck. There's such a clear answer, ATN will bite. (We'll even overlook that picking on Thiel is in poor taste, after a freshman defensive end died last weekend.)

First, let's address the general question, 'Can a high school team beat a D-III team?' Absolutely, it could happen. But it would have to be a fairly top-notch outfit against someone like Maranatha Baptist, which came ranked 238th of 238 teams in Kickoff '10, largely because only 45 players reported to camp, and that's considered good. The Coast Guard team I saw last week (No. 217 in Kickoff) would put a hurting on 99 percent of the high school teams in country. And here's why:

A college team is basically a high-school all-star team. Every program, from junior college and NAIA throughout the NCAA, plucks the few players from each high school who move on to college football – certainly few if any send all their starters to college football – and then assembles a roster. They repeat the process four times over, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, to assemble a roster of 75 to 100 or more players.

College starters are full-grown men, often 21 or 22. High school juniors and seniors are 16 or 17. Personally, I weighed 165 my last year in high school and 195 my last season in college. Not only have collegiate players been given more time to grow into their frames, but they're also more developed emotionally. I'm not citing any journals of psychology here, but ask yourself if you needed help with an important task, who'd you'd take if given the choice between a group of 17-year-olds and a group of 22-year-olds?

Along the same lines, collegians have practiced the game for four more years than the corresponding high schooler. For redshirts, it can be a five- or six-year difference. A college player's ability to recognize, process and react to game situations is generally better than a player who has had less experience at it.

A football team is often only as strong as its weakest link. Unlike in baseball, where a dominant pitching performance or timely home run can win a game, or in basketball, where a skilled big man or hot three-point shooter can tip the scales, 11-on-11 games give less of an advantage to a single exceptional talent. Depth is rewarded, as all 11 must properly execute for many plays to succeed. Further, a good college football team has between two and three dozen key contributors, including specialists and substitutions in various packages. College players almost never go both ways, though some high schoolers still do. Not that I need to rehash my has-been career anymore, but maybe personalizing the story will help. In my first year at Randolph-Macon, the local high school, Patrick Henry, was in the midst of a state-championship run in Virginia's second-largest classification. That team featured Damien Woody, currently a starting lineman for the New York Jets, Erron Kinney, a Tennessee Titans tight end for several years, and a total of six Division I players. R-MC had lost much of its 1993 ODAC championship team and was in transition, and yet there's zero doubt in my mind PH would have had little chance in a game against those Yellow Jackets. Even if all six Division I talents were better in high school than a Division III starter – no given, but let's assume – that still leaves R-MC with an advantage at 16 of the 22 starting positions. To get the high school team even a slight edge (12-10), all six players would have to go both ways and have the skill and amazing stamina to outplay a full-grown man on each side of the ball. And this is a once-in-a-lifetime high school team against a middling, 4-5 D-III we're talking about.

The college team is running more advanced schemes, with physically more developed men who are devoting more time to the game, through single-sport and single-position specializing, and 7-day-a-week work in longer practices, film sessions and weightlifting workouts.

As for the Post-Gazette's particular question, Central Catholic is a nice program that's had some good years and won a state championship in 2007, but is no De La Salle. This season, Central Catholic is 3-0, outscoring its opponents by an average of 35-7, and is ranked No. 1 by the Post-Gazette. In 2008, it sent 13 of its players to college teams, and while none went to BCS schools, players did end up at Mount Union, John Carroll, Williams and SUNY-Maritime. ATN could ask those players if they're better now than they were in 2008, but I'm pretty sure they'd all give the same answer.

But let's say Central Catholic cast its net all around Pittsburgh and brought in the best high schoolers it could recruit. Thiel, even in its worst year (and at 0-3, it might be on its way), is a Western Pennsylvania all-star team made up of players who are a year or more removed – and improved most likely – from being the best high schoolers a team could recruit.

Put another way, in a good year, the high school team sends 13 players to college. All 111 players on Thiel's roster played in high school.

(The poll ran 393 to 344 in favor of Thiel before @D3football gave the poll a boost on Twitter.  As of this writing, Thiel led the voting 545 to 410, or 57 percent to 43. Polling ended on the 22nd.)

[NCF]

Excerpted from this column:
http://www.d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2010/september-to-remember

In reply to this blog post:
http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/sports/varsity-blog/21653-central-catholic-vs-a-div-iii-college-team

Back to school

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked, and I quote, " Who would win a football game between Central Catholic High School and Thiel College, a Division III team that has finished above .500 twice since 1976?."

It's a loaded question when asked that way, but what the heck. There's such a clear answer, ATN will bite. (We'll even overlook that picking on Thiel is in poor taste, after a freshman defensive end died last weekend.)

First, let's address the general question, 'Can a high school team beat a D-III team?' Absolutely, it could happen. But it would have to be a fairly top-notch outfit against someone like Maranatha Baptist, which came ranked 238th of 238 teams in Kickoff '10, largely because only 45 players reported to camp, and that's considered good. The Coast Guard team I saw last week (No. 217 in Kickoff) would put a hurting on 99 percent of the high school teams in country. And here's why:

A college team is basically a high-school all-star team. Every program, from junior college and NAIA throughout the NCAA, plucks the few players from each high school who move on to college football – certainly few if any send all their starters to college football – and then assembles a roster. They repeat the process four times over, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, to assemble a roster of 75 to 100 or more players.

College starters are full-grown men, often 21 or 22. High school juniors and seniors are 16 or 17. Personally, I weighed 165 my last year in high school and 195 my last season in college. Not only have collegiate players been given more time to grow into their frames, but they're also more developed emotionally. I'm not citing any journals of psychology here, but ask yourself if you needed help with an important task, who'd you'd take if given the choice between a group of 17-year-olds and a group of 22-year-olds?

Along the same lines, collegians have practiced the game for four more years than the corresponding high schooler. For redshirts, it can be a five- or six-year difference. A college player's ability to recognize, process and react to game situations is generally better than a player who has had less experience at it.

A football team is often only as strong as its weakest link. Unlike in baseball, where a dominant pitching performance or timely home run can win a game, or in basketball, where a skilled big man or hot three-point shooter can tip the scales, 11-on-11 games give less of an advantage to a single exceptional talent. Depth is rewarded, as all 11 must properly execute for many plays to succeed. Further, a good college football team has between two and three dozen key contributors, including specialists and substitutions in various packages. College players almost never go both ways, though some high schoolers still do. Not that I need to rehash my has-been career anymore, but maybe personalizing the story will help. In my first year at Randolph-Macon, the local high school, Patrick Henry, was in the midst of a state-championship run in Virginia's second-largest classification. That team featured Damien Woody, currently a starting lineman for the New York Jets, Erron Kinney, a Tennessee Titans tight end for several years, and a total of six Division I players. R-MC had lost much of its 1993 ODAC championship team and was in transition, and yet there's zero doubt in my mind PH would have had little chance in a game against those Yellow Jackets. Even if all six Division I talents were better in high school than a Division III starter – no given, but let's assume – that still leaves R-MC with an advantage at 16 of the 22 starting positions. To get the high school team even a slight edge (12-10), all six players would have to go both ways and have the skill and amazing stamina to outplay a full-grown man on each side of the ball. And this is a once-in-a-lifetime high school team against a middling, 4-5 D-III we're talking about.

The college team is running more advanced schemes, with physically more developed men who are devoting more time to the game, through single-sport and single-position specializing, and 7-day-a-week work in longer practices, film sessions and weightlifting workouts.

As for the Post-Gazette's particular question, Central Catholic is a nice program that's had some good years and won a state championship in 2007, but is no De La Salle. This season, Central Catholic is 3-0, outscoring its opponents by an average of 35-7, and is ranked No. 1 by the Post-Gazette. In 2008, it sent 13 of its players to college teams, and while none went to BCS schools, players did end up at Mount Union, John Carroll, Williams and SUNY-Maritime. ATN could ask those players if they're better now than they were in 2008, but I'm pretty sure they'd all give the same answer.

But let's say Central Catholic cast its net all around Pittsburgh and brought in the best high schoolers it could recruit. Thiel, even in its worst year (and at 0-3, it might be on its way), is a Western Pennsylvania all-star team made up of players who are a year or more removed – and improved most likely – from being the best high schoolers a team could recruit.

Put another way, in a good year, the high school team sends 13 players to college. All 111 players on Thiel's roster played in high school.

(The poll ran 393 to 344 in favor of Thiel before @D3football gave the poll a boost on Twitter.  As of this writing, Thiel led the voting 545 to 410, or 57 percent to 43. Polling ended on the 22nd.)

I would have to say No. The college game is faster and the players have gotten stronger and more experienced. A team of 18-22/23 year olds would have an advantage over a team of 15-18 year olds.

[tigerguy]

Never saw that Around the Nation, K-Mack. Thanks so much!


I mainly started the thread because I have two close buddies that played football at Katy and Southlake Carrol (Two Texas/National football powerhouses) They say that the system they have there is "so perfect" that they could overcome the size/maturity differences of high school vs college. I obviously disagreed.

[jknezek]

Living in AL I seem to be surrounded by people who think Alabama could beat the Jacksonville Jaguars. I get so tired of logically explaining why that wouldn't happen 99 out of 100 games. And that is basically comparing grown ups to grown ups. There is no way a high school team, unless it was an all-star team made up of completely senior 5 star prospects, could compete with a moderate D3 team. There is no way a run of the mill top 25 h.s. team in the country could compete with 99% of D3 teams.

Size, speed, knowledge... how many freshman actually make impacts? Less than 5 per team? Probably. Less than 3 per team? Most likely. 1 or 2? Probably about average for college programs. It's a ridiculous argument made by people who are trying to demean D3. It's an easy statement to make, easy to deny common sense, and completely unprovable. So for someone who wants to demean a "next level" team or group (D3 vs h.s., Jacksonville vs Alabama), it is a no brainer to get under someone's skin.

[smedindy]

Even teams like Hiram have high school all-conference or all-district players up and down its roster.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I've seen some pretty bad Division III football teams in my day that I would have to think would lose to DeLaSalle (Calif.) and other perennial powers. But once you get out of the bottom 10-15 D-III teams, I can't see any of them losing to a high school team.

This.

Also, being a CMU alum who played with several Pitt Central Catholic alums in college, I recall that column.  Two PCC alums in my recruiting class went on to be very, very good starting players for Carnegie Mellon (one at LG and one at SS).  Both were among the best players on the PCC team as seniors in high school.  Neither cracked the lineup at CMU until their sophomore season, and both were of the opinion that even their very-good high school team would not win a game against CMU.  We bandied this about for awhile and essentially agreed that if you could magically erase the age difference, it might be a game, but the extra few years' worth of experience, maturity, and the more advanced schemes in college football would negate the SLIGHT advantage that a high school team might gain by having a few Division I prospects who MIGHT be faster than anyone on your Division III team.

Another way to look at this: watch a few plays of a high school game on film and watch a few plays of a decent Division III game.  Not just a few highlight-reel TD runs where a guy breaks away, or a big-time interception return, but 10 or 12 consecutive "regular" plays.  The difference in offensive execution and defensive speed is pretty striking.  I remember thinking that my high school was really something special, then popping in a HS game film after a few seasons of playing in college, and being SHOCKED at how slowly the offensive plays developed compared to our college offense.

Check out some HS box scores and look how many more LONG touchdowns there are than in your usual Division III game (which is 12 minutes longer, remember, and has more overall plays).  Those 70-yard touchdown runs in HS are often 12-yard gains in college because the defenses are generally faster and tackle better than HS (exceptiing the occasional Division I prospect).  Deep balls that go for TD's in high school are often broken up in college because the DB's are generally sounder in technique and faster.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I mainly started the thread because I have two close buddies that played football at Katy and Southlake Carrol (Two Texas/National football powerhouses). They say that the system they have there is "so perfect" that they could overcome the size/maturity differences of high school vs college.

Hahahaha.  Glad you disagreed, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't convince those guys no matter what you said.

[tigerguy]

Hahahaha.  Glad you disagreed, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't convince those guys no matter what you said.

Exactly. As Jknezek said people who usually say this are uneducated in the actual game of football, haven' t been around/seen a Divisioin III program, or are just too darn proud of their high school glory days. When I would go back to visit high school during my college days I was always shocked by how much smaller and immature the players looked. I thought we were so big...

[jknezek]

My sophomore year of h.s. our football was the "press consensus" state champion of NJ. The senior QB, best player on the team, went to Delaware on scholarship, was an excellent return man and wide receiver (too short at 5-9 in cleats on springy carpet to play and higher), and played in NFL Europe briefly. The second best player on the team was the center who went to TCNJ and didn't start his freshman year. Not sure after that. Several other seniors on both sides went on to D3 programs.

That year, the "consensus" state champion would have gotten slaughtered by any D3 school I've ever seen. Now, why do I keep using quotes? Because while we were the "consensus" champion, we were also the only school that entire year to go undefeated in the state. We would have been hammered by some of the bigger schools that played up a group or two, in my opinion, but since they all choked at the end we got the votes. That being said, those bigger teams generally send 1, 2, maybe 3 guys to D1 schools max. The rest of the seniors, probably more than half never play another down and another 3-5 total play at D2 or D3 schools.

I actually played soccer in h.s. My senior year we were state champions. 9 starting seniors. 4 went to D1 schools on partials. The other 5 of us could have played (eventually) at lower levels, some did, some didn't. That year we scrimmaged Monmouth University in pre-season. Local D1 school where the coaches had ties. In 45 minutes we were down 3-0, hadn't had a shot and probably not a completely pass on their side of midfield. We were bunkered completely inside our 18 to keep it that close. We mixed the teams at that point to make it more fun. Considering 9 of 11 starters were seniors, that's about as close to a full "senior" h.s. team as you are going to get.

[K-Mack]

Another way to look at this: watch a few plays of a high school game on film and watch a few plays of a decent Division III game.  Not just a few highlight-reel TD runs where a guy breaks away, or a big-time interception return, but 10 or 12 consecutive "regular" plays.  The difference in offensive execution and defensive speed is pretty striking.  I remember thinking that my high school was really something special, then popping in a HS game film after a few seasons of playing in college, and being SHOCKED at how slowly the offensive plays developed compared to our college offense.

Great point.

For a few years of my life, I covered high school on Fridays, college on Saturdays and NFL on Sundays, and the difference in how fast things develop was very clear to the naked eye.

Even just by watching, I could pick up on things that were about to happen in a high school game because it moves so much more slowly. I'd find myself muttering "get rid of the ball" or "that pass has to be out when the receiver makes his break" or "here comes the fade."

Another example:
I always thought, as a college athlete, I could have played for our basketball team. And perhaps I could have if I had dedicated myself to it. Because our seasons partially overlap, and because football coaches don't want you getting hurt playing other sports, I never really got a chance to run against the basketball team until after I had exhausted my eligibility.

And let me tell you ... even in a pickup game, those guys would set screens, rub shoulders when coming off of them and get their shots off before you could even get a hand up. They would switch defensively, rotate to help and trap us ... in a PICKUP game. Why? Because it was all they did for the past four years, and it became habit. If they played any other way, they wouldn't have gotten any run on the college team.

So basically, football or any other sport, you have to pick your level of play up from high school or else be gone. And not to mention if you don't get any better in four years of practice, there's a pretty good chance the guy behind you will.

(and all the other stuff I mentioned in the old ATN)

[wabndy]

Per wikipedia (groan) Alabama has nine starters who were on its 2011 national championship roster currently on an NFL roster.  This includes 5 out of 7 seniors and 2 out of 9 juniors.  Darn impressive by any mesure - but it still shows the vast disparity between the college and pro game.  If spurrier had wanted to make an accurate tribute - I think he could have basically said that, on a good day against the worst team in the NFL, alabama might just be able to get on the scoreboard.

I remember a few years back watching a very good wabash team scrimmage against the Purdue JV squad.  It wasn't pretty.  (Guess who gave them the name 'boilermakers').

If you still have any doubts - compare De La Salle's roster with (sorry Terriers) Hiram:
http://www.maxpreps.com/high-schools/de-la-salle-spartans-(concord,ca)/football/roster.htm
http://www.hiramterriers.com/sports/fball/2012-13/roster
Now just focus on jersey numbers 50-79 (typically O-line).  Both rosters show players' heights generally falling around the 5-11 to 6-2 mark.  Now look at the weights.  For Hiram, I count 6 out of 24 with a weight lower than 250 and 4 with a weight greater than 300.  For the high schoolers, only 5 out of the 26 have a weight greater than 250 and none weigh over 300.  And thats just counting players occupying a roster spot.  You can talk execution and drive all you want, but in such a hypothetical game, even the most skilled HS team is going to get crushed on the line by any D3 team out there.

[tigerguy]

Wabndy I think you bring up a great point about the Offensive (and defensive line). At Trinity University in San Antonio I know they play 7 on 7 against UTSA (Division I) and Incarnate Word (Division II moving to DI) and routinely do quite well and sometimes win. If it was just skill positions versus skill positions I think this whole article might be a completely different story. Not saying Alabama would beat an NFL or a Top High School team would beat a D3 team in a 7 on 7 game but I think it would make the games much closer.

The real difference comes in the offensive and defensive lines where "the games are won."