How to increase your chances of starting on varsity in high school

One of the toughest things to go through is to be in high school have this wantingness to play college football, but then lacking the playing time or the film to actually do it. And so I'm going to talk about some things you can do to improve your chances of playing varsity in high school to impress the coaches. That way you can get more film and achieve that goal playing college football. And so if you don't know who I am, I'm trying to learn. A former college quarterback, I also played at the NA and the JUCO level. I now run your first scholarship where we help families get their first scholarship and more. And so I have a good ability to kind of know on this, this, this topic of getting playing time in high school because quick background on myself. I7 essentially you play football at a very early age through the schools, high school wise. I started as a freshman, started on JV my sophomore year. That sophomore year I actually had a kid that was also a sophomore that was a starting varsity quarterback. So I am essentially the backup for my year. I mean it's pretty much set in stone at this point, or at least it felt like it to me a little bit. And despite that, I overcame a lot of odds. I pushed him a little bit more my junior year. Still didn't get the starting spot until about. It was probably game seven or eight where I actually got my first start. Might even been nine I think was the first start that I got. He ended up transferring schools before our first playoff game. And then I was the senior, my, the starter my senior year. Even though my senior year I still got benched a few times. And so this is just the comment on how I went about that process to push that guy. How I believe like a lot of younger kids have misconceptions about why they're not playing and just how to not get caught up in that and how to actually do things that will improve your chances of starting. And now the first thing I should go into is you are at the whims of one person. Ultimately your head coach is going to make probably all the decisions to start and not start people. So you have to realize that everybody has biases, everybody has impressions on people or thinks things of certain people and you can't necessarily control what they do. I mean, I think is, again, I'm not going to go into it too much, but like my senior year situation, I had 10 total touchdowns and one interception after four games of playing. We were 4 0, which was like the best record that we'd ever had. In probably a couple of years because we went like 2 and 9 and 2 and 8 the past two years. This is a brand new head coach too. And the offense coordinator ended up pulling me aside and said, hey, we don't think you're playing well enough. And so to hear that when I had those kind of stats, I was throwing a, you know, 68% completion percentage. I think I, I definitely was not playing bad. But again, that's what they thought. So there wasn't really much I could do about it. I was definitely pissed. I will, I will not lie about that. I was not happy and then ended up getting benched the next game still. So it is what it is. But, you know, I couldn't do much in that situation. And so you have to, I think it's the number one thing you have to realize is like, you can't control what people are going to think about you or what is going to happen, whether they're going to bench or start you. It's not in your control. You can only. I just talked about this in the last video that I just did a second ago. You can only control the controllables. And so the biggest thing, the number one takeaway is like, don't get too caught up in what they're thinking. You can do that to an extent, but like, realize that you're at the wave of one person. Like, there's, there's not a whole lot you can do. And so it is what it is to an extent. And you have to just deal with the circumstances and try to find ways. No matter what, though, the biggest things, I will say, and this is just from my perspective, that will allow you to start or increase your chances of starting. First off, you just have to hit the minimums as far as, like, you have to do the bare minimum stuff. You have to be attentive to detail in high school, like, the bar is relatively low in high school unless you go to the top high school, like, if you pay attention, if you're running all your routes right, if you're running the plays correctly, if you're doing all that stuff right, which you're never gonna be perfect. But if you're continuing to learn and you're continuing to pick up stuff, coaches pay attention to that because there's not a lot of cool kids that do. Secondly, hard work, you gotta put in the effort. That means every single thing you do, you have to do 100%. You have to look back at each day and say, hey, did I do everything I could 100%. If you didn't, then you can't really blame yourself for not starting because the coaches may see that 1% that you're missing and go, is he going to give the 1% when we need the most during game time? And you may say like, oh, person A, B and C also don't have that. But you never know when they were looking at you versus when they were looking at them. They can't. They're not omniscient. Like, they can't see everything. So you can't hold them to that super high expectation as well. So why don't you just be 100% that way whenever they're looking, they always know that you're putting in the effort. And so those two things will really, like, focus and effort. If a coach sees a guy that's super focused and putting in 100, like, if you're 100% focused, 100% effort. First off, imagine how amazing of a football player you would be. I mean, just. I'm just even internally looking at that. Like, man, if I was 100% focused on 100% effort when I played my career, I mean, who knows how good of a player I would have been? Probably would have been way better for sure. I can't. I can't say that I was 100% focused, 100% effort all the time. Definitely strive to be, but I wish I was. And that goes for the same for you. You've got time. So biggest thing, if you can do that, you'll be a better player and you'll also have a much better pace of starting because people will pick up on that. They'll see that and they'll take you seriously because of it. After that, you have to realize, like, how big things, like impressions are. I think that's one of the craziest things about my story, and I look back at it very gratefully, is like, I was not deemed the guy for the sophomore class. Like, I was just never set to be the starter and. And I broke that expectation because I essentially just sought out to do it. I was like, I have to do this. I have to go all into this. And I did. I switched from essentially went from baseball focused to football focused, put a ton of time into football, and was able to really come out of my sophomore year into that junior year just a completely different player as a quarterback. Started to hit a lot my stride. And so you have to, like, recognize where you are again. This is. This is me talking from a perspective. Like, I was behind that kind of expectation. Of what they were looking for, and I had to break that mold. And so you have to realize if you're in that. If you're in that spot, if you're not a starter right now, and it's because they don't see you as the kind of guy that's worth being a starter at the moment. It's because they. They're seeing that you're missing something or that you're just behind where they expecting you to be. And that deficit is rather large. Like, they may even say it's close. But you have to do more than what they're expecting, essentially, to break that mold, to break their beliefs. And you can't. You can't rely on them to do so. You just have to put in crazy amount of action, crazy amount of results to just show them that you're the. You're the guy. You're the guy that they. They should be starting. You have to do everything right in practice. You have to just be so impressive, because one day is enough, one week isn't enough. It's multiple weeks. It's stacking results on top of results until it's like, holy crap, this Trenton kid is just. He can. He can play. Like, we've been seeing it now for weeks. Like, let's give him a chance. And then, boom, you're ready. You take advantage of the opportunity. I really just believe. And part of the things that I think really help with that is like, act every day like you are the starter. Like, don't pretend you're the backup. Act like you're the starter. Prepare like you're the starter, but still have that chip on your shoulder of that you're not. And so that. That will help you out a ton. And so that's more pertaining to that particular situation where you're not the starter, you're the backup. Maybe on varsity, you're the backup on jv, or you're kind of set to be the backup in the future. If you have the awareness to realize that, then that's kind of your playbook. Now, if you're more younger or your son's younger and you're just like, shoot, he's not even a varsity. He's not even a jv. He's not. He's a freshman, he's eighth grade, whatever, what can you do to get on that fast track? First off, just being big is the. You know, your growth is obviously big, and back to that. So it's DNA. Can't really control too much of that. Second thing is big, big Impressions, it seems. And I can't distill this down, I mean because I'm just kind of. This is just a thought that popped in my head is like, it seems that people are often along the lines of a track to get to that point. Like going through my own high school, there was very much, certain kids that seemed very much on the track to. For me like the, for us the big milestone was like if you were a sophomore on varsity, then you're, you're pretty good. If you're starting on varsity as a sophomore, like you're a stud for other schools it's like if you're starting on freshman, if you're starting freshman as a, on varsity as a freshman, like then you're a stud. And so it just kind of varies depending on that. And so like you can put yourself on the fast track by being an excellent kid. 7th and 8th grade year. That's not always going to translate. Like those guys that were sophomores starting on varsity, I think one of them ended up playing at a four year. Again, our high school wasn't super good. So it kind of makes sense. But that doesn't always translate to, you know, you're a, you're going to play the next level. It does give you a leg up. And so I think it is, it is important to take a look at that and see how you can do that. And I think the biggest thing is like again measurables is going to be a big point if you happen to be a freshman, a sophomore that is six foot four, like awesome man. Like you're probably, probably going to be a pretty good position. But also it just, it's just big in early development. If you can. The more polished you are the earlier like the more apt you are to be. That I can honestly say. Like if I started on varsity as a, as a sophomore, freshman, I just, I wouldn't have been good enough. Like I just wasn't there talent wise, I wasn't there mental wise it would have been borderline embarrassing. So my timeline was fine and I think that's perfectly fine timeline to follow if you're going to start on varsity as a junior. But most of the time it comes down to impressions. It's like what does a coach think of you? Do they think of you as someone that is going to be a guy for them? And how do you do that? Again, it comes down to results. It comes down to showing them every single day you can. That you're just an absolute beast. Showing your strengths to the fullest, showing that you have a lack of weaknesses, showing that you're willing to put in the work and that you pay attention, you can handle the load. Being on varsity, all that stuff is super important, and so that is really some stuff that you can do to set yourself up and be a varsity guy again. It's most of the time just out of control, so you can't focus on it a ton. But if you can do that stuff, I believe you put yourself in a really good position, and that's really the best you can ask for at that kind of point. I won't talk on transferring high schools or what should you do on that? Maybe I'll record that in a different video, but for now I'll leave it at that. Appreciate the time. If you like this, if you got something from it, be sure to like and subscribe. See you next one. Peace.