YOUNG BLOODS

When To Play Freshmen Football Players?

Drew Tyler, Shiloh Christian quarterback, runs to the outside Friday while looking for open receivers in the game against Gravette in Springdale.
Drew Tyler, Shiloh Christian quarterback, runs to the outside Friday while looking for open receivers in the game against Gravette in Springdale.

— Shiloh Christian football coach Josh Floyd heard all the talk about Chandler Smith as he walked through the school’s hallways.

People were curious to know if Smith, who was big for his age and had dominated at times in junior high school as an eighth-grader, would play for the varsity Saints as a ninth-grader.

“I think it’s not the ideal plan ever,” Floyd said of playing freshmen.

Smith, meanwhile, spent the months leading up to the start of the season trying to prove he was worthy of a starting spot right off the bat. He went on a diet, did some extra weightlifting and bulked up to 6-foot-1, 195 pounds.

Smith made his debut in Shiloh’s season opener against Heber Springs in Reynolds Razorback Stadium, and now, nearly two months into the season, he’s one of two freshmen starting for the three-time defending Class 4A champions. Drew Tyler has guided the Saints to back-to-back wins since taking over as their starting quarterback after junior Michael Slone got injured.

“It wasn’t as much nervousness, but more like butterflies, like that feeling of ‘Oh my gosh,’ to play with 18-year-old men out here,” said Smith, one of Shiloh’s starting defensive ends.

Football coaches in the 7A-West Conference don’t need to worry about whether to play freshmen like at Shiloh and other smaller schools. That’s because, unlike other conferences in the state’s largest classification, the 7A-West doesn’t allow ninth-graders to compete in football, basketball, volleyball or track and field.

The rule states that freshmen can’t move up and play for a 7A-West school if their junior high school fields a team in that respective sport. However, since area junior high schools don’t offer baseball, golf and tennis, freshmen can play immediately.

And in some cases, such as Rogers High tennis player Tiffany Tang, they’re proving they can dominate the older competition and win a state championship as a freshman. But there are no immediate plans to change the rule to allow freshmen to play high school football.

“There’s still a big difference between a ninth-grader, a 14- or 15-year-old, and a 17- or even 18-year-old,” Bentonville football coach Barry Lunney said. “I think it’s good that we don’t allow that, I mean I really do, in our sport anyway.”

Lunney said he’d be hesitant to play a freshman even if the 7A-West rule got changed and a freshman came along who showed he was physically mature enough to handle getting hit by players two and three years older than him.

He said he understood that football coaches at smaller classification schools must play ninth-graders at times because there aren’t as many players to choose from. But he’s in favor of players having to wait until their sophomore seasons before they could suit up for their high school teams.

“Me personally, the negatives would outweigh the positives,” said Lunney, who has won six state championships during his lengthy coaching career in Arkansas. “I just think throwing a young kid in with some older kids, you just run the risk of jealousy right off the bat.”

Floyd said he hasn’t seen that type of animosity with starting Tyler at quarterback, a high-profile position that was filled last season by former five-star recruit and current Auburn freshman Kiehl Frazier. Floyd said Tyler has gained the respect of his older teammates, including his brother, senior David Tyler, in practice.

“After the first play, all the nerves go away and it’s hit it strong and play hard,” said Tyler, a 5-11, 170-pound freshman who completed 9 of 18 passes for 118 yards with one interception and had two key punts in Shiloh’s critical 16-14 win over Gravette on Friday.

Still, Floyd said he’s hesitant to bring a freshman up to the varsity team because rules state that a ninth-grader isn’t allowed to move back down to the junior high football level if he sees any action on a Friday night. In essence, the player is giving up his freshman season to play varsity football.

The popular perception is that the rule banning ninth-graders from playing for 7A-West schools was implemented as a way to force a young Corliss Williamson to wait before he could start for Russellville’s basketball team and dominate state competition.

However, unbeknownst to him, Kevin Tiffee — who’s now the wide receivers coach for Fort Smith Southside’s football team — might have helped usher in the rule before Williamson.

As a ninth-grader in the early 1980s, Tiffee began practicing with Southside’s boys basketball team after his season at Chaffin Junior High ended. But after only a few practices, he was told he couldn’t play at the varsity level as expected.

“I just know at the time they were thinking about doing it and they couldn’t,” Tiffee said. “And I don’t really know the reason why they couldn’t.”

There’s not a heated debate as to whether to allow freshmen to play football for 7A-West schools. It’s not a topic that comes up often, but for coaches in the smaller classifications, playing ninth-graders is sometimes a must.

For Shiloh, former stars Samuel Harvill, Zann Jones, Travis Bodenstein and others all started playing for the Saints as freshmen and most were starters.

“If they can play, let them play,” Floyd said. “We’ve done it and it’s helped us win some games and win some championships in the past, I really think that.”

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