Longtime Observer

Hudl suggests otherwise. Not to mention the fact that the remaining students were also recruited to play sports. Not a real school.

I asked how many were in the football program. I worded it that way precisely to take away the avenue you chose. You chose it anyway, for obvious reasons. Let's try again, except this time avoid the move seen above: How many of the 90 students in high school (grades 9-12) are in the football program?

But who qualifies as top 10, 100, 300 etc is entirely subjective, and what people/computers come up with is often wrong. That's the part people don't like to acknowledge. Is San Juan Hills, 3-7 in 2021 and currently sporting zero recruited players #319- FAR above average- in the country? According to calpreps, yes. Anyone playing San Juan hills gets credit for playing a team with the power rating a top 320 team has. Yet, I doubt we can find anyone sane arguing that 3-7 San Juan hills is an upper-echelon national team. Beating them should be no big deal, and yet it IS a big deal given their relatively high power rating. It's a joke.

A major problem that people don't like to acknowledge is that we aren't nearly as good at evaluating SOS as we wish we were. Both human and computer ratings are based significantly on ASSumptions that may or may not actually be correct. And yet, people still continue to refer to SOS as if it's some sort of objective fact not to be disputed 🤨.

Not just discipline. The quality of game planning (including film prep) and coordination varies wildly as well.

90 students at the high school level. Any relevant national program has at least 90 kids in their football program between varsity and JV/freshman teams. Even if the whole football program only has 60 kids, that's still 2/3 of the entire school playing football 😂

Most ratings stop at 25. Any ratings below about 100 will be computer only.

90 students in the entire "high school". How many are in the football program? It's not a real school. It's just another variation of USAA, Bishop sycamore etc. It's a football academy that recruits international players and provides them free housing, food and other goodies. That's fine by itself. But, it's not at all comparable to actual schools playing football with local student-athletes.

Ah, honesty! Credit for that. The wrangling over schedule strength is all about trying to pressure schools to use Joe's services to schedule games.

So, calpreps computer ratings and the opinions of the handful of people posting on this message board? 🤡

Is 90 a typo? Or an embarrassment for CAI?

Meaning, consults with you to make their schedule. 🤡 One of, if not THE, best teams in Florida is, by definition, a major player nationally. At the moment, Jesuit is MUCH more relevant nationally, having knocked off STA and won a state title. it's quite the struggle to come up with ANY major wins for CAI.

What will be used to determine the quality of the schedule?

This might shock or offend you, but, we can be sure Jesuit has absolutely zero envy of Clearwater Academy International, which has its own dedicated promotional thread here. 😁

I'm sure we'll get a link...to a Twitter account 😂

Ned, this doesn't say anything as to the accuracy of the ratings of teams that never play, have no common opponents, and no common opponents of opponents.

I have never heard of "Football Illustrated". I googled it...and got nothing. Fraudsters love to make up their own fake rankings and then retweet each other. 🤮

Not when you consider that CA, as a default, is rated so much higher than other states by calpreps. And, of course, now the anecdote will be used as irrefutable proof that the assumptions built into the model are right.

using that "reasoning", every time one points out predictions that turned out wildly wrong, you'd be influenced in the other direction. Of course, calpreps offers a valuable service for you, so you'll ignore all such examples.

It's still a crapshoot regionally. BUT, as long as teams in some states are rated higher than teams in other states (despite an absence of real evidence supporting such a claim), and there are (relatively few) OOS games, than having fewer degrees of separation between your school and schools in the preferred states will impact ALL of the ratings. Venice (Fl) starts this season with a power rating of 63.3, higher than most everyone in the state, because of its "connectivity" to CA powers. In recent seasons, they've played IMG, SFA, STA and Columbus. Those teams, either through their schedules or the schedules of their opponents in recent years, greatly reduce the number of links in the chain between them and the CA schools. So, for 2022, they lost a lot of key players, only list a couple of players with recruiting stars, and were beaten decisively in the spring game (which was played for real, and is viewable on NFHS site), but still get a very good starting rating. Teams that play Venice now get points for facing a team rated in the 60s, which gives themselves a chance to boost their rating, which boosts their other opponents ratings, and so on. Those teams, with boosted ratings due to a game against a team in the 60s, now also boost Venice right back, since Venice has teams now rated more highly on its schedule. The "connectivity" to preferred states' top teams is how we end up with a 6-5 team (all 5 losses were by a minimum of three (3) TDs) with no impressive wins starting the season rated #11 in the COUNTRY (Santa Margarita). It's how another team no one has ever heard of can go 3-7, with zero wins over top 2000 teams, and zero rated prospects to spotlight, can end up rated #317 (waayyy above average) NATIONALLY ( San juan Hills). Both of those schools (and plenty of others) have very few links in their schedule chain between themselves and the elite CA teams.

Both Dillard and Lakeland have made massive moves with transfers in the off-season. Of course, both are public schools and thus disfavored on this site. Dillard appears to be the most formidable district opponent for STA since I don't know when.

I'm not alleging that there is a conspiracy involved. I'm stating what should be obvious: human bias (that of one human in this case) shapes how the ratings turn out through how the model is programmed. So do the inherent limitations in trying to evaluate teams who never play each other, never play any common opponents, or even any common opponents of opponents. There are states-primarily CA but I've noticed TX and Ohio in year's past- whose teams are given more of a boost than teams in other states. And that determination is made primarily on subjective terms. I'm not saying I could do any better. But, I'm also not telling states they should use my ratings to seed teams for state playoffs, either.

The "other" poll is the "power" rankings, which is directly from calpreps. That's the one the FHSAA uses to seed for state playoffs! Utter incompetence. Which is to say it is everything we should expect from a governing board.

Unfortunately, many casual observers-some of whom actually influence policy directly (see the FHSAA)- may not realize what's behind these rankings. It wouldn't surprise me to see ESPN (and Flo sports) refer to these rankings as THE rankings. That can lead casual observers to see them as that prima facie. Then, with the maxpreps ratings, which are done by one guy's computer model found at calpreps.com, those ratings ARE used as fact in determining playoff seeding in Florida. Those ratings are HEAVILY influenced by the number of degrees of separation from California teams. Meaning, if you or your opponents have played a CA team in the last couple of years, you get a boost. The fewer the links in the chain between your team and a CA team, the better. This is because the guy running the model has CA rated as by far the top state. Of course, such an assumption should have absolutely nothing to do with how teams within Florida are seeded in the state playoffs.

GSB has such a funny way of trying to impersonate a SFA fan. When you think about it, it's bigoted to assume such people- all 12 of them in existence- wouldn't know how to spell 'weight'.