How do you break the cycle?

2005.10.24
This is the final week of regular season high school football. We mercifully end the season this Friday evening with a home game. The question is, how do you break the cycle?

The Rams have not had a winning season since 1996. The team has endiured 4 head coaches in 4 seasons. The team has not posted more than 1 win per season in the past 5 or 6 years.

When we started the season, we had 34 players. We had only 6 seniors. Of those 6 seniors, only 4 had previous football experience. The seniors played for a different coach with a different system evey year. Our team makeup looked like this...

6 seniors (2 players had 0 previous experience)
5 juniors (3 players have 0 previous experience)
10 sophomores
13 freshmen

After a bad homecoming loss, all six seniors were either kicked off the team or quit. At the same time, a junior was suspended, a sophomore was kicked off of the team, and 2 freshmen were declared ineligible. We dropped from 34 players to 24 players in the span of a few days. At this point, our team makeup looked like this...

4 juniors (3 players have 0 previous experience)
9 sophomores
11 freshmen

The junior has served his suspension and rejoined the team. We are now back up to 25 active players. However, the downside to playing 14-year-old freshmen against 18-year-old seniors on Friday night is injuries. We lost one freshman (defensive line) to a concussion. We lost another freshman (defensive line) to a knee injury. We lost one sophomore (offensive/defensive line) to a serious neck injury.

We are down to 22 kids that can take the field. Many of those 22 players are dinged up. We have only 1 or 2 reserve linemen. Our backup QB had never practiced at the position until 2 weeks ago. Our varsity QB is a lanky 140 pound freshman.

How do you break the cycle? Some kids will not return to the team in 2006 whether it be because of lack of desire, job, girls, etc. So, the roster will likely look like this in 2006...

3 seniors
7 juniors
10 sophomores
12 freshmen

This will still be a very young team in 2006. There will still be 30 to 35 kids on the team. Assuming the same level of attrition occurs headed into 2007, the could very easily look like this...

5 seniors
8 juniors
10 sophomores
12 freshmen
This will still be a very young team in 2007. There will still be 30 to 35 kids on the team with the majority being underclassmen. How do you break the cycle?