A mate of mine used to coach in Exeter’s youth set up. Two things they do differently are that they put players up an age group and out on loan much earlier (as they don’t rate the standard of the youth league) and they tend to give the ones that sign pro contracts longer to prove themselves.
A couple of examples - the age group that Endacott and Halls were part of always beat Exeter at youth level but that was partly because their better players were already out on loan. Argyle have two players (Zak Baker & Will Jenkins Davies) left from that group but Exeter have six or seven. One of them, Sonny Cox, is a first team regular in League 1 having played men’s football on loan for a couple of years at Yeovil, Bath, Weston Super Mare. He might just be a better player than anyone we’ve got (Man U were rumoured to be looking at him) but they seem to have managed him well.
Similarly this year Exeter had a first year scholar (so aged 16/17) scoring freely at youth level so they put him straight out on loan to Tiverton, which is a much higher standard (most of the players in our youth league struggle to reach that level even as grown men - Jack Endacott dropped down a league from Tiverton to Tavistock to get game time). Contrast with Caleb Roberts who is nearly 19 but played three adult games this season and otherwise been playing against children (and as i say, not elite level kids but Forest Green, Cheltenham) etc. It seems crazy that he has to jump straight from that to playing against Leeds in front of 40 thousand people.
