A couple of a things-
To answer the question plain and simple yes the teams with more 5th years are better than others. SU, ND and NW and UNC have many of them. With that said, that is the rules that NCAA allowed so who really cares. The interesting part of this comes in coming years when “extra”money as it did this year paid for the over and above scholarship for the 5th years. Many coaches will be taking money from other players to fund the current seniors for their 5th year. Many schools top players are true seniors that need to be funded by 12.6 that was spent on 2021 coming in as 2017 were supposed to be graduating. Should be fun to watch this balancing act. For example is UNC not going to fund JO, SG, AM, TM, ET. They sure will as will other top schools.
As far as stat padding-let’s look at how bad these coaches are that these kids are playing against. My god have you watched any film on the player. Has any of them heard of a Shut off? a early slide? a players tendency? When she pulls way out we are doubling immediately? a player usually goes this way? a player has 2 assist and 200 goals-so they are pretty committed to shooting and not passing? I would
Like to see a scouting report of these coaches. This is u-9 stuff .
Come on. Do your job.
Agree, there are not a lot of good coaches.
