When you are the largest school in the conference you are never better because you have more kids playing.
Curtis Jasper's record at Joplin starting 2015 Season
- Thread starter MoSoEagle
- Start date
There is definitely an advantage to having twice the number of kids and Webb City enjoys that same advantage, they have twice as many kids playing football as other schools their size. That's part of how their "down" years they are still better than almost everyone in the state and how you see them just carrying on with that whole "next man up" stuff and winning games no matter how many injuries they seem to sustain.
Carl Junction can definitely make that argument that Joplin 'should' beat them and they could make that argument about half or more of the COC. Joplin is quite a bit larger than everyone even Nixa. In terms of how many kids they get playing football they are right in line with Webb City, Nixa, and Republic. Maybe Ozark I am not sure about their numbers.
Sorry, when I said last bite at the apple I meant with this current group on V. I think they'll be darned good next year as well.
Yep, that's what I meant. I didn't word very well in my other comment.
We'll agree to disagree there. They're not bad, I just don't think they're all that good. Just kinda ok.
I kind of see a shift over the next 5 years where the Springfield area is getting a much bigger share of the COC football pie, like they do in many other sports, if they tap into their size, growth, and resources. Webb City will be an exception because they will likely continue to enjoy giant numbers and lots of the right kind of move-in families. Will they own the COC like they did in the past maybe, but probably not but they will be right there. Most of my friends that moved to Webb City will have kids coming up in the ranks over the next 2-10 years so I am interested to see how many of them are a factor. Most of these families are the exact types you want for sustaining a sports program. At some point Roderique will retire and I am not sure how much of an effect that will have. Depending on how long that is I could see the Lamar guy taking the reins at least for a time since by then he'll know "their" system. And that's important because if they hire a coach that wants to run his own system the whole thing will collapse.
I hear mixed but mostly negative things about Neosho, Carl, and Joplin in youth and jr high. I have heard NOTHING good about Carthage in youth or Jr High. Some of my friends with kids in WC youth describe playing Carthage as "painful to watch" sounds like they just don't have enough kids.
Joplin should at minimum be competitive just based on their size and having a solid coaching staff that is bringing out good participation and solid performance.
It's a little hard to predict Carthage being bad because they have been good literally every year since Guidie was hired even in years without many or any D2+ college level kids. Luke Gall is a rarity for Carthage so in theory losing him should not be a game changer. But man I keep hearing nothing encouraging about upcoming teams starting next year. Sometimes the right coach can combine 2 or 3 bad jr high teams into a really competetive varsity team. May not be deep and thus very susceptible to injury and second half fatigue (sounds familiar) but they can win a lot of games.
I agree with you all that Joplin is probably only going to be good for a couple more years. I just hope they don't back to what the were before Jasper.
I don't think either of Joplin's junior high teams won a game this year. Carthage may have just beat Joplin.
CJs 7th grade team is really good. The only team they didn't turbo this year is Webb but they still won by double digits. The CJ 8th grade is average probably but they did beat Joplin and Carthage.
Springfield is booming and there is a lot of excitement in the Nixa and Republic football programs. I said something to a friend earlier in the season in which I said watch Republic or Ozark beat Nixa.. seems Nixa has trouble with flexbone offenses. They did last year with both teams but that's off the subject.
I think Carthage will be fine. My wife is from Carthage (which was fun the other night) but anyways she said Carthage kids have a different and confident attitude. That's what makes them good. And that's called tradition. Webb City is the definition of tradition. Joplin is still earning their keep so to speak but it is nice to see them competitive after so many years being down.
Just looked up Nixa JV scores, it looks like they lost to Carthage JV at home. Otherwise, they have been rolling everyone!
I've got a friend in Nixa and he is bursting at the seams with excitement over football after several head scratching seasons wondering why are we not better than this. According to him they are absolutely loaded for at least the next 3-4 years.
This is a true statement. Their only bad group is their current 7th grade. And make no mistake, they are B-A-D. But every other group is pretty stacked, so I doubt it even matters.
That is what CJ always heard in the Big 8. They are now at the bottom of that ladder. When you have the largest enrollment, no excuses ... just win baby. If you don't like that, move somewhere that you don't have the largest enrollment like CJ did. Then the parents will cry because they don't win enough.
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