IAC Schools and MAC Schools for football
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| My son is a rising 9th grader who has applied to several schools in both leagues. He is not a star player, but works hard and LOVES football. I'm looking for any info on the differences in the two leagues when it comes to football. The schools we applied to are the stronger academic schools. |
Anonymous
|
The IAC teams tend to be overall bigger in size and have more numbers.
Episcopal, Geoegetown Prep, and Bullis are probably the best between these two leagues. These schools aggressively recruit for football so playing might be scarce. |
Anonymous
The good news for a 9th grader who wants to play football is that schools are having more and more trouble getting a large turnout from their student bodies for football, so recruiting for football has become more and more of a focus. Make sure you are in touch with the football coach at every school to which you have applied so they know that your son is strongly interested in playing. Being a hard-working roster player will be seen as a contribution and could help admissions chances. The prior poster is accurate that generally the IAC is stronger in football than the MAC. However, if playing in college is of interest (maybe Division III), plenty of players from the MAC also go on to play college football (at both Division I and Division III schools). In the MAC, Maret won the league last year but had a lot of kids graduate; the Sidwell coach is very responsive to interested families and they've had some good success in the past five years (including winning the city championship in their division in 2015); and Potomac School is generally seeming to put more of an emphasis on sports (the head of school was a longtime football coach earlier in his career). In the IAC, Bullis, Episcopal, and Georgetown Prep are at the top right now so agreed that it might be harder to get playing time. Bullis generally brings in a lot of upper class transfers to fill graduated slots; Episcopal has been bringing in players from a Canadian football academy; and Prep probably has the most home-grown program, benefitting from having the largest student body by a large margin. St. Albans struggled for a couple years but had a much better season this year and is seemingly committed to giving resources to the football program to keep it competitive. St. Stephens St. Agnes had a tough year, probably mostly because of a very young team. Landon as a school is very committed to football and always has a solid team but right now cannot compete with the talent of Bullis/Episcopal/Prep, probably because so much of their athletic recruiting is devoted towards lacrosse. Good luck, I'm sure your family will have some great choices. |
Anonymous
|
You may want to take an educated guess on how big, fast and strong your son is likely to be as a Jr or Sr in high school.
That IAC teams are, on balance, composed of bigger, faster and stronger kids. The game is played at a higher level. Getting support from the football coaches in the Admissions process will depend upon the coach's view of how likely your son is to contribute Meaningfully to the team. They have plenty of players, what they need are more good players. The "recruiting" effort that people talk about on here bears little resemblance to the recruiting practiced by colleges and defined by the NCAA. It has two pieces. The first is the encouragement to make first contact with the school which is almost always don by people not directly associated with the school. (Alums, parents, youth coaches, etc). The second is the effort once a boy has made "first contact". The idea here is to get the boy to apply. But there is only so much admissions preference and only so big a slice of the Financial Aid package that any sport will get at these schools. It depends on what the school wants to emphasize and/or support. |
Anonymous
| Prep and perhaps other schools require all freshmen to play on the freshman team. No freshman play on JV or varsity. The freshman team will give your son plenty of time to get to know the coach and for the coaching staff to assess if he will be able to play at higher levels. Everyone who wants to play on the prep freshman team is welcome. It's a great bonding experience for the boys. If he works really hard and takes part in the drills during the summer and the camps, he will probably get a chance to be on the team even if it's not a starter. I mean he will probably get a chance to play on the JV and maybe varsity team as he ages, because the coaching staff takes into account kids motivation although he may not actually play much. It is still fun to be a member of the team |
Anonymous
Does he play any other sports? If so, that should be factored in to the assessment. |
Anonymous
| I would avoid Bullis. The head coach doesn't seem too committed to his own players with the number of junior and senior transfers he brings in on a yearly bases. Georgetown Prep is historically always very good and is the "best"program" between these two leagues by a wide margin. It has a rich history in football and has probably sent more kids to D1 and D3 programs. While Episcopal has certainly had some success in the past 4 years, most of this can be attributed to the schools committed to bringing in several football recruits from Canada. Landon and STA are also solid programs but have struggled in recent years. |
Anonymous
|
With the exception of St. Albans, all of the better academic schools are in the MAC (and there are always rumorumours that STA will drop down to the MAC, if it can't find more boys to play football)
So few MAC school parents will let their kids risk playing football, that it's extremely easy to get on the team and start. Maybe a better chance for your son. Head of course if he ends up not wanting to play, he'll have his choice of other sports and good academics. |
Anonymous
| Several of the IAC schools also offer a very rigorous academic curriculum and at the same time offer a better football experience. Other than Maret, I'm not even sure if any of the MAC schools could really compete with even the Lowe level teams in the IAC. |
Anonymous
| Maret would be a good fit. But the prior poster who asked about other sports made a good point. If your son is also interested in other sports (baseball or lacrosse in the spring, wrestling or basketball or hockey in the winter), you should check out Prep, Landon and STA. Prep is the strongest of the 3 in football, but if you son is not a star and isn't looking to get recruited, then either Landon or STA would be great fits - your son may even make the varsity team in 9th grade and certainly by 10 grade, and if he is interested in other sports, both Landon and STA have sports in their DNA. |
Anonymous
| Maret and Sidwell would be a good fit if you like co-ed and STA if you want single sex. |
Anonymous
Is this a true statement for Prep? Although not common, I had thought a Freshman - if deemed varsity caliber by the coach - could play varsity. Maybe it's just a football requirement due to "satefy" issues. I didn't think this applied for basketball at Prep. Any feedback from Prep parents is welcomed. |
Anonymous
Landon does not have a freshman team. The majority of Freshman would play on jv unless they were needed and able to play Varsity. Very few freshman overall play Varsity football. The size difference and experience level would make it really difficult. |
Anonymous
Other than St. Alban's, what IAC school has academics on par with Sidwell, Maret, or Potomac? |
Anonymous
| Prep parent here. As far as I know its true fro football. My son played on the freshman team with all the juniors who now play with him on varsity. When some of them were sophmores some played on both JV and Varsity. (If you play in a varsity game you can't play on JV for 48 hours or something like that... but as a sophmore if they don't use you on varsity that week you can play JV). Maybe there are exceptions, but I am not aware of them. I do know there are no cuts on the freshman team and many boys play on the freshman team and then decide to do other sports. The freshman team often has 50 or more players and is a Prep tradition. Ofcourse I am biased, but from the perspective of comraderie and developing home grown talent, as well as having great facilities and a well coached and super well organized program, I think Prep has the best program for football. It also has a comprehensive academic program that can accomodate boys who have average academic skills as well as those who take mostly AP classes. I would say their language program is especially good and two years of Latin are required. |