The best teams are "the best" for two reasons: 1) They recruit from other teams making their team better and the other team worse 2) They get holdbacks - best way to be bigger, stronger, faster.
Coaching is of little importance at this age.
As the Dukes proved, just pull together some great kids and with no practices and they can beat the best regular season team easily.
Couldn't disagree more. Coaching has been huge the past few years and will continue to be this year. Many games were won last year due to in game situational coaching. For as much as these kids practice the coaching they are getting is instrumental in their development. Dukes are no different, yes they had studs all over the field but they were also very well coached. They played a lot together last year with the same coaches. Dukes also lost games last year and this fall.(because they were out coached). It is very clear the teams over the past years that have not progressed and it is due directly to coaching. Kids can only hit the wall so many times and work on their individual game. This is a team sport. Every team is beatable , every team this year is bigger, stronger, faster and have holdbacks. The difference will be the Coaching!
A couple practices and 2 tournaments 3 months apart is not "a lot". Coaching had little to do with it.
