Concordia College Alabama is considering starting a junior varsity football team this upcoming season, which would allow some of the Hornets’ younger players to get on the field.

During the early days of fall practice, the Hornets have an estimated 150 players, according to head coach Stanley Conner. With so many players, Conner is trying to find a way to keep some of the younger players interested while also giving them a way to continue improving.

Last year, Concordia ended the regular season with 70 players on its roster.

“You use it as a feeder program basically,” Conner said.

Concordia athletic director Don Jefferson said he and Conner are hoping to make a decision in the upcoming weeks about whether the Hornets will have a junior varsity program in 2015.

Conner said one of the biggest obstacles is whether Concordia has enough offensive and defensive linemen to have a second team.

“Whenever you do that, the O-line, D-line is the question mark,” Conner said. “It looks as if the numbers might be up in that area. This would give the kids a chance to play and grow and help us in recruiting because now you can do some different things when you look at a kid and you see where he’s progressing.”

Conner said the junior varsity team would be for freshman and sophomores, but would not include all freshmen and sophomores. If a first or second year player was good enough to start at the varsity level, then he’d play on varsity, Conner said.

Other factors include finding room in the budget to purchase extra playing equipment and keeping the team’s travel to a minimum.

“As soon as coach Conner can outfit all of his guys that he is going to use and we can see equipment wise what we’ve got to order, what we’ve got to buy helmet wise shoulder pads and those types of things, that’s when we can make our final decision,” Jefferson said.

Conner said he’s had discussions with numerous teams — including one in Florida — about playing a junior varsity game. He said he’d like to play three to five this season, but the majority of those would need to be in or around Selma.

“If we could get it within a radius of 50 to 100 miles, then we will go and play whomever, but if we have to travel out of state or something like that, that would be very unlikely,” Jefferson said.

Another factor might be whether or not Concordia has a place to play.

The Hornets’ varsity team plays its home football games at Selma’s Memorial Stadium, which always has a loaded schedule during the fall.

The stadium generally hosts middle school and high school games during the week and then youth games throughout the day on Saturday.

Interim recreation director Lebo Jones said no official start date has been set for the first day of the youth football regular season, but it will probably start in mid September and run through the first days of November.

In past years, youth games aren’t typically played on the same day as Concordia home football games. The Hornets schedule includes three home games on Sept. 5, Oct. 17 and Oct. 31.

Most, if not all, other Saturdays during the fall are expected to be used for youth football games. The only night during the week when Memorial Stadium doesn’t traditionally host games is Wednesday night.

If the stadium’s schedule conflicts with Concordia’s schedule, the school might have to find somewhere else to play its junior varsity contests.

At this point, Jefferson said there have been no discussions about whether junior varsity games could be played at Concordia’s on-campus soccer field, which is yet to host an American football game.

“At this point, we haven’t discussed it,” Jefferson said.