PAST TEAMS AGAINST PRESENT TEAMS
This topic comes up frequently on both Stingtalk and The Hive.
There is no doubt the players get bigger, faster, and stronger each year. There is no doubt, the teams of today would beat all of the teams of the distant past if there was no equalization in the time factors of today versus yesteryear.
In fact, the poor Tech team of last year would probably be the national champion of all the teams that have ever played in the distant past.
The facilities and training aids afforded the athletes get better each year. The rules change each year. There was a period in football when there was no free substitution. A player had to play both offense and defense.
The high school coaching of today is far superior to the olden days. In those days one coach was in charge of baseball, football, and basketball in high school. Many high school teams had only one coach. There was a time when the athletes had to work on the farm or at some other job and could only practice spasmodically.
High school athletes, their coaches, and their facilities offer extremely greater advantages today than yesteryear. Many high school athletes come into college today, are extremely skilled, and need much less coaching than kids of yesteryear.
You cannot assume one group of players and their coaches of a present team are better than a team from the past. You can only offer an opinion as I am doing here.
To equalize the situation, you would have to send the players of today back to the past. Their weight, speed, and strength would be reduced to make them equal in time with players of the past.
Take away all their modern training exercise equipment, and all the techinal gains made in the game itself. Remove all the skills the modern day athlete has learned in today's modern day high school programs.
Provide todays players with a coach void of all data the computers and modern technology provides regarding the trends and plays of the opposing teams. Remove all the film studied by the coaches (the few assistants allowed at that time).
No money would be available for air travel to recruit all over the land. The few coaches available would have to use their old cars on unpaved roads to travel and recruit.
Coaches would not have the advantages of fast access to information regarding their opponents, nor more technical information to prepare their own team more effectively. Most coaches would not be aware of recruits very far from their own invironment.
In reverse, you would have to add strength, speed, size, etc. to all the teams of yesteryear if you brought them forward to a future era.
If you took the 1990 team, took away some of the advantages in the above items mentioned, and placed them back in 1952, I would say any of the Tech teams in the early fifties would have beaten the 1990 team. Of course, this is only my opinion.
It would be fun to be able to do this, however, we know it is impossible at this time. We will just have to throw the opinions around as to which teams would be better.
However, there can be no question about today's players being stronger, bigger, faster and equipped with more overall skills.
