Highest achieving teams with the least amount of athletes

[CrushBlock]

What are some teams you have seen have the highest success with the least going for them personnel wise? And why do you believe they were able to achieve great success despite having lower than expected athletic ability given their level of success?

Can be individual years of a particular team or programs at large, year in and year out.

 

[Phoebus Fan]

That 5-5 Blacksburg team that won states years ago. Just got hot at the right time and road their running back to the state title.

 

[Bfootball08]

That 5-5 Blacksburg team that won states years ago. Just got hot at the right time and road their running back to the state title.

Great example there. Less than a handful of high caliber athletes and won a state title.

 

[OnlyVA]

What are some teams you have seen have the highest success with the least going for them personnel wise? And why do you believe they were able to achieve great success despite having lower than expected athletic ability given their level of success?

Can be individual years of a particular team or programs at large, year in and year out.

In 6A, 2010 Battlefield. They've never really had a superstar four/five-star recruit but are always well coached and play fundamentally sound. This was especially true for their 2010 team that won state.

If I had to provide an example of what it looks like to hit your peak in the playoffs, it was this team. They went 8-2 in the regular season, but in the second round of the playoffs they got a revenge blow out win against their unbeaten rival. (The loss to this team earlier in the year snapped a regular season win streak Battlefield had at the time). Battlefield ended up taking down three undefeated teams in the playoffs to earn the title.

They had this success because they played well in all three phases, the coaches made timely play calls in the post season, and they were also able to stretch the field with their play action pass attack.

They actually won the championship with a two-quarterback system that they used all year and rotated in multiple RBs. In the state championship, I remember them inserting their kicker at wideout to take advantage of his speed, and he ended up scoring one of their TDs on a long pass reception downfield. I'm not sure if he had even played wideout prior to that game. Just examples of the coaches getting the most out of their personnel to put their team in the best position for success.

Battlefield has been the most consistent football program in Prince William County since opening in 2004. They've gone 51-6 since 2020 and I think they've just been missing a little bit of that explosiveness on offense to get them back into the 6A state championship.

2010 State Championship

 

[DinwiddieProud]

A small private school in Blackstone Va, Kenston Forest, beat Roanoke Catholic for the Div 3 Championship with 13 1/2 players total. The 1/2 was a kid with a broken arm in a cast.

In 1965, Dinwiddie was playing their first year of football. Their last game was over on the Eastern Shore against Cape Charles High School. A first hand account from one of the players was that they were super excited because Cape Charles had only 13 total players. The long bus ride over was filled with predictions about how bad they would beat them. Well, as you can guess, it didn’t go the way the kids expected. The official score was 57-0 Cape Charles, but it was actually 63-0. (They didn’t even count the last touchdown). Needless to say, that was just about the longest bus ride home any high school kid ever had to endure. Coach Rapp used that game as part of his coaching philosophy for the rest of his career.

 

[Virginia HS Football Fan]

A small private school in Blackstone Va, Kenston Forest, beat Roanoke Catholic for the Div 3 Championship with 13 1/2 players total. The 1/2 was a kid with a broken arm in a cast.

In 1965, Dinwiddie was playing their first year of football. Their last game was over on the Eastern Shore against Cape Charles High School. A first hand account from one of the players was that they were super excited because Cape Charles had only 13 total players. The long bus ride over was filled with predictions about how bad they would beat them. Well, as you can guess, it didn’t go the way the kids expected. The official score was 57-0 Cape Charles, but it was actually 63-0. (They didn’t even count the last touchdown). Needless to say, that was just about the longest bus ride home any high school kid ever had to endure. Coach Rapp used that game as part of his coaching philosophy for the rest of his career.

These are the types of stories I like to hear as it relates to this thread.

Teams with barely enough players to field a side. I think sometimes, people like to "sell their books" to inflate why certain teams should be included (probably showing their own bias as well). But if you have 50, 60 players for a 6A side or 30, 40 players for a 4A side, that's not exactly doing more with less.

 

[DinwiddieProud]

I don’t remember which year it was, but Lake Taylor dominated their opponents with only about 28 active players. There are things about Coach Sawyer that I don’t care for, but I’ll give him credit. He could get the best out of what he had to work with during their glory years.