How does it work with colleges that have JV teams? Is playing on JV like being redshirted? Or does playing on JV count against your 4 years of eligibility?
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This may help....it's from a few years ago, but it does mention eligibility
Thx @Buckeye 2015
Son was pitching and recruiting coach at D2 Florida Southern in the Sunshine State Conference. They have Varsity and JV and it's run similar to HS. I believe practice is separate play their own schedule, have their own coaches and share assistants and call up players as needed.
While I am sure there are exceptions out there, my understanding is that JV college teams should be avoided at all costs. Unless you're 100% fine staying put on a JV college team and not playing much baseball.
There is a powerhouse Juco about 15 minutes from here. They have a JV team but you'd only know it exists if you were a part of it. Their roster, schedule, results, etc is nowhere to be found online. If that doesn't scream "the JV squad only exists to help fund the actual baseball program" I don't know what does. Their current "varsity" roster has about 10 guys (of 51) from our area on it that are either former teammates and/or close acquaintances of my 2021 son. Guess how many are on their JV squad? Zero. Despite being that close to the program, we can't name a single kid on their JV roster. It's as if it doesn't exist, yet we know it does.
I've been told that - at least for Jucos - the varsity HC must coach the JV squad as well as varsity. That it can't simply be something you staff with anyone. That a HC must be around the JV program in good faith (or at least appear as good faith). Under that premise, I was told the JV team doesn't practice very much and that their schedule is very short. Like 12-18 games. To be fair, this is not information I've verified, so all of it might be wrong. But it lines up pretty well with what we DO know.
I just went and looked at the website of the Juco I referenced above. I found they actually added a button for Reserve Schedule and Reserve Roster. That's new and a surprise. What is not a surprise, is that I got a 404 error - Page Not Found when I clicked on each of them. The varsity team has been playing for a month now, so if nothing else, it's an indication that their JV/Reserve squad is not super important. Beware of any delusions of being pulled up to the varsity team. Understand that their varsity squad has way more than enough players to do what they want to do. And more show up every fall.
I concur with @DanJ except the part about HC involvement. The HC is not very involved with the JV programs that I’m familiar with. If you read the thread in the link posted above by @Buckeye 2015 the comment by @RJM is spot on.
I always heard the same. JV squads were a way to get more tuition dollars. Know a kid that thought he's get on the V squad at Barton. Didn't seem like anyone gets on the V squad if you start on JV.