I will just say that yes, there was an opportunity for this freshman game with DeMatha to happen and it looked like it would. Now that is not an option. The game would have been played on Saturday afternoon since playing it on a school night would have put the visiting team back way too late.
This whole debate about whether frosh football makes a difference or not can lean one way or the other. Personally, I try and see it from a kid's perspective. If you have the numbers like FH does, the kids seem to like the fact they can split up and get more playing time. Does it make FH better? I don't know if there is any way to truly measure such a thing. I just like the fact more kids get to see more playing time come game day and hopefully enjoy the experience more. If the numbers are low, then it doesn't matter if 9th and 10th grade kids combine to play JV because they all get about the same amount of playing time either way. There is no freshman football anymore in the Maryland public school system. FH is the exception. It doesn't seem to hurt the better teams down state that don't play frosh ball so who knows. FH is just lucky WV still maintains frosh ball. The entire frosh schedule is always full with WV teams.
I went back and totaled the overall record between the Alco and FH freshmen and JV since 2009. I keep those scores archived on the FH football website. The overall record is 16-15-1 in favor of FH. It could not get any closer. FH has obviously dominated the varsity series in that same time frame. During this stretch Alco had frosh ball up until 2016 and 2017. I could go into much detail as to what separated the teams once kids got to varsity. Let's just say FH has been lucky to keep a successful longtime coaching staff together for starters. That and what the kids do when football is not in season is one of their bigger advantages. But I see other schools catching up big time in that regards. I felt Coach Biser at Keyser had really made huge moves the past few years with their off-season weight room and agility/speed program and really saw Keyser becoming a heated rivalry. It just didn't translate on the field the past two seasons.