Relative Strength of 3A in 2012

[Matthew328]

We had a great debate about this in our chat on TheOldCoach.com last night.

In my opinion, I feel overall this is one of the strongest years in Class 3A in the past 15 years or so across the board. When look at the quality of teams remaining its really interesting to me to see how deep 3A is with strong teams. Now that being said I dont see historically speaking a great 3A team ie I dont see any 1980 Pittsburg's, 1983 Daingerfield's, 1992 Southlake's etc...now maybe when its all said and done we do wind up with a team who gets that historical view....

My reasoning behind the depth in 3A is simple, the 4A drop downs have really added to the depth of 3A this year, if you take those 4 out it was already going to be a pretty solid year but adding those 4 has made it an incredibly deep year IMO. I can't recall a year where we had 4 teams of the quality of Stephenville, Kilgore, LaMarque and El Campo all dropping in the same cycle...

Now we had some on the other side of the debate as well...so where do you fall?

[Pendragon13]

I've seen more parity the past couple seasons. The traditional powers still field teams every year that are mediocre to very good (but rarely bad) and some programs that have struggled in the 21st century seem to be back on the way up. We really haven't seen one single dominant team from beginning to end since Gilmer in 09 and maybe Carthage in 10. As far as the 4A drop-downs....you can debate the competition level between 3A/4A till you're blue in the face, but the fact remains that it's about number of kids enrolled and the resulting talent pool. The former 4A's are playing with the same numbers as the larger 3A's.

[Matthew328]

I've seen more parity the past couple seasons. The traditional powers still field teams every year that are mediocre to very good (but rarely bad) and some programs that have struggled in the 21st century seem to be back on the way up. We really haven't seen one single dominant team from beginning to end since Gilmer in 09 and maybe Carthage in 10. As far as the 4A drop-downs....you can debate the competition level between 3A/4A till you're blue in the face, but the fact remains that it's about number of kids enrolled and the resulting talent pool. The former 4A's are playing with the same numbers as the larger 3A's.

They are playing with the same #'s but the fact remains 4 REALLY good programs dropped in the same year, adding to what was an already deep group of 3A vets

[Pendragon13]

They are playing with the same #'s but the fact remains 4 REALLY good programs dropped in the same year, adding to what was an already deep group of 3A vetsThat's why I mentioned the debate about competition level between 3A-4A. The top 4A programs could probably beat the top 3A programs 4 out of 5 times simply due to having a larger talent pool to draw from. If you level the playing field with numbers then it basically comes down to coaching and the quality of players available to any given team. For example, Abilene Wylie is the only team in our district that has never played in 4A outside of non-district...not even the largest school this year and would be third largest if Brownwood hadn't moved south.

[Farmersfan]

It is true some really good programs dropped but didn't some really good programs also move up? I know 2 teams that my now 2A Farmers competed with last season have done extremely well this season in 4A. Prosper is still playing and Lovejoy went 11-1 and didn't lose until last week against Lancaster. BTW: the enrollment snapshot that placed Lovejoy in 4A and Farmersville in 2A this season was taken before the two teams played each other in district last season. That seems a bit screwed up. (Even though Lovejoy only beat my Farmers by 7 points).................

[oldtownag]

We had a great debate about this in our chat on TheOldCoach.com last night.

In my opinion, I feel overall this is one of the strongest years in Class 3A in the past 15 years or so across the board. When look at the quality of teams remaining its really interesting to me to see how deep 3A is with strong teams. Now that being said I dont see historically speaking a great 3A team ie I dont see any 1980 Pittsburg's, 1983 Daingerfield's, 1992 Southlake's etc...now maybe when its all said and done we do wind up with a team who gets that historical view....

My reasoning behind the depth in 3A is simple, the 4A drop downs have really added to the depth of 3A this year, if you take those 4 out it was already going to be a pretty solid year but adding those 4 has made it an incredibly deep year IMO. I can't recall a year where we had 4 teams of the quality of Stephenville, Kilgore, LaMarque and El Campo all dropping in the same cycle...

Now we had some on the other side of the debate as well...so where do you fall?

Agreed. The competition is not better just more of the better teams.

[Matthew328]

It is true some really good programs dropped but didn't some really good programs also move up? I know 2 teams that my now 2A Farmers competed with last season have done extremely well this season in 4A. Prosper is still playing and Lovejoy went 11-1 and didn't lose until last week against Lancaster. BTW: the enrollment snapshot that placed Lovejoy in 4A and Farmersville in 2A this season was taken before the two teams played each other in district last season. That seems a bit screwed up. (Even though Lovejoy only beat my Farmers by 7 points).................

Prosper and Lovejoy are the two that moved up...IMO Prosper is stronger this year than they were in 3A because of the QB who moved in..he's better than anyone they've ever had....Lovejoy was a huge surprise for me

[Leopard4Life]

It is true some really good programs dropped but didn't some really good programs also move up? I know 2 teams that my now 2A Farmers competed with last season have done extremely well this season in 4A. Prosper is still playing and Lovejoy went 11-1 and didn't lose until last week against Lancaster. BTW: the enrollment snapshot that placed Lovejoy in 4A and Farmersville in 2A this season was taken before the two teams played each other in district last season. That seems a bit screwed up. (Even though Lovejoy only beat my Farmers by 7 points).................

Dude, let it go. Lovejoy and Prosper are bigger than Farmersville. Everyone Lovejoy played this year was bigger. Prosper has open enrollment and is already a mid-sized 4A program. Plenty of schools do more with less. Celina and Argyle don't have huge 3A numbers and they do fine. Melissa moved up from 2A into 3A and had a great season. If any school has the right to whine about numbers it's McKinney. They are a small 5A program with 2121 at the last realignment. Four of the schools they play are right at or above 5000...

Top programs can compete. If you have 3A numbers then play 3A if you have 4A then play 4A. They have divisions (D1/D2) for a reason. The very top 3A teams could compete in 4A. Depth and overall team size and speed would become and issue the deeper you get into the playoffs.

[Farmersfan]

Dude, let it go. Lovejoy and Prosper are bigger than Farmersville. Everyone Lovejoy played this year was bigger. Prosper has open enrollment and is already a mid-sized 4A program. Plenty of schools do more with less. Celina and Argyle don't have huge 3A numbers and they do fine. Melissa moved up from 2A into 3A and had a great season. If any school has the right to whine about numbers it's McKinney. They are a small 5A program with 2121 at the last realignment. Four of the schools they play are right at or above 5000...

Top programs can compete. If you have 3A numbers then play 3A if you have 4A then play 4A. They have divisions (D1/D2) for a reason. The very top 3A teams could compete in 4A. Depth and overall team size and speed would become and issue the deeper you get into the playoffs.



Having a problem taking a compliment there Leapard4life? I was talking your team up for their success this season in 4A. Like Mathew328 said, it took me by surprise too. I have always felt Lovejoy's success was primarily a direct result of them playing smaller teams and having a huge enrollment advantage. I think they proved me wrong this season. Great job by the Leopards by the way.

[vtskneb]

I have only followed 3A since the potential to move down was there in 2008. I would say this is probably the second or maybe 3rd best Stephenville team in the last 10 years. No offense to this bunch but 2005 was a bad pass away from cruising the next week against Marshall. The difference was that team went big school in 4A and there was nearly a 2:1 ratio in every game we played in the playoffs. This one has a chance to finish unlike the others were unable to.

[vtskneb]

It won't let me edit my prior post. The Everman, Aledo, Rider, HP, Plainview teams from those years were pretty dang salty too. I am not sure how those teams compare to what we have faced up until now. I would imagine at this point it is merely a matter of depth and various breaks that either go your way or not. The rest of the schedule is expected to be tough sledding from here out. The region that is eye popping to me is Region III Division 2.

[Weebe]

I personally think El Campo would have had similar success in Region IV 4-A. Region IV is just generally weak because of all of the RGV teams. They just had the misfortune of matching up with the La Marque/Manvel/Dawson district in the first round for years.

However, we will have our work cut out for us next week against Carthage.

[buckeyebob]

Dude, let it go. Lovejoy and Prosper are bigger than Farmersville. Everyone Lovejoy played this year was bigger. Prosper has open enrollment and is already a mid-sized 4A program. Plenty of schools do more with less. Celina and Argyle don't have huge 3A numbers and they do fine. Melissa moved up from 2A into 3A and had a great season. If any school has the right to whine about numbers it's McKinney. They are a small 5A program with 2121 at the last realignment. Four of the schools they play are right at or above 5000...

Top programs can compete. If you have 3A numbers then play 3A if you have 4A then play 4A. They have divisions (D1/D2) for a reason. The very top 3A teams could compete in 4A. Depth and overall team size and speed would become and issue the deeper you get into the playoffs.

The divisions don't mean a lot...2004 we were Div 2 (where we should have been)...2009 Div 1...we are not a Div 1 school...need to devide up Div 1/2 at the front @ alignment time...numbers mean depth, depth means "W", we are fortunate that we have a lot of youngens that want to be a Buckeye & they feed the pool...a lot of schools do not have that "feed" happening. Size does matter.

[Farmersfan]

The divisions don't mean a lot...2004 we were Div 2 (where we should have been)...2009 Div 1...we are not a Div 1 school...need to devide up Div 1/2 at the front @ alignment time...numbers mean depth, depth means "W", we are fortunate that we have a lot of youngens that want to be a Buckeye & they feed the pool...a lot of schools do not have that "feed" happening. Size does matter.



This is a good point. It also brings up a kind of Chicken or Egg question: In the case of Celina, Gilmer and several other teams that have a similar enrollment as other schools but a far, far higher participation level is it the past success that causes the participation or is it the participation that causes the success? Probably a combination of both............

[waterboy]

This is a good point. It also brings up a kind of Chicken or Egg question: In the case of Celina, Gilmer and several other teams that have a similar enrollment as other schools but a far, far higher participation level is it the past success that causes the participation or is it the participation that causes the success? Probably a combination of both............
Yes, a combination of both..........and the chicken definitely came before the egg.:D