Longtime Observer

Oscar Smith has the right idea. Freeze them out of games as long as they play by a different set- indeed no set at all- of rules. Eventually, they'll be left playing IMG and a couple of fake schools like Bishop Sycamore and that's it. Of course, as long as they pay the players to come play there, they'll still get kids. But, it'll dry up for them when they have a four game season, with two games against IMG.

Wow, what an epic straw-man. The claim is that the better players they seek to get from other places are being given, ahem, "generous" "need-based aid" which amounts to an upgrade in living conditions for some players. Kids aren't packing up and moving away from home to the slums of Baltimore because they want to win most of their football games. Nor are they moving because the facilities offered by SFA are great; nor are they moving because the resume of the coaches exceeds that of the coaches of best programs wherever they're from. They're moving because the "need-based aid" SFA is offering is a sweet deal for kids that come from poverty. But, sure, I'm willing to believe there are some bench-warmers who pay some tuition.

Any relation to Suwannee and FSU alum Matt Frier?

But, the difference, which you continue to avoid, is what SFA offers the kids. Kids that MOVE from another state to Baltimore are being offered "need-based aid", which we can be sure involves both a place to live, money for food and money for "other" expenses. Nobody, except for the player/family, knows exactly how much money that is. And nobody is monitoring or regulating it since SFA operates outside of any sort of association of schools. One can believe it is A-OK for a school to offer these things to kids. But, you can't pretend such a school is playing by the same rules as the other schools.

When they recruit players nationally, and have them move from other states (Lamar Patterson was from Kissimmee, Fl for example), the "need" is FAR more than any tuition expenses. The "need" now includes rent for a place to live, food and any "other" expenses which don't at all appear monitored or regulated. How much, exactly, will a kid get to move from another state to play for SFA? Of course we will never know. And, because they've already been removed from any chance to compete for league or state titles, there are no governing boards monitoring them. So, what they give kids under the category of "need-based financial aid" often amounts to more than the kid ever had before. It's a smart business decision for some kids. Say what you will about this practice, but it is not at all allowed anywhere in high school football. It is only something that football academies, without any chance of ever playing in a state playoffs series, practice.

Are you suggesting they all pay their way up there, leave whatever accommodations and food they had at home behind so as to pay rent at a place in the ghetto of Baltimore? Or does the school have some paperwork for them to fill out which gives them free rent and food and, ahem, other "perks"? Many of us may appear to be stupid, but, I assure you that's not always the case. Donations from the likes of Biff and Bill Cosby can go a long way...

It's an old school that was nearly defunct until a glory seeking rich guy decided to revive it with a bunch of money, much of which goes to the kids they recruit and their families. I don't blame the kids for getting paid.

Purely promotional materials. That is the ONLY purpose this thread and posts like this serve.

I mean it makes perfect sense to want to move to one of the most violent shitholes in the country to play for a school without any fans or home games...when you consider the amount of cash those guys are getting 😂

sure. Those occurrences were able to happen only because they had to play the game. Having to play the game made it possible-no matter how unlikely it is that it would happen again- that the upset would happen. Hence my point that having to play more playoff games is more difficult than not having to play those games. Five or six playoff games, instead of three, increases the probability of having some bad luck, especially given the fact that each of those games takes something out of your team. Sure, vastly superior teams still win all the games anyway most of the time. But not always...

Fans are often much worse than they think at accurately deciding what games are "relevant" or not. The only reason the Estero game was "relevant" was they had to play the game late in the playoffs. On paper, nobody would have otherwise picked Estero to stay within 4 TDs.

Except they often don't submit this. And they can misrepresent reality as well. Most coaches will overstate what they have, while some "old school" coaches will intentionally understate what they have. It stands to reason a dude living in California, running a website named calpreps.com, is going to know much more about CA teams than those in other states. No doubt it's a wet dream for some to believe STA is no better than the 8th best team in California. That's fine...unless people are going to start arguing as if said person's opinions and corresponding computer model are "fact".

Yes, they *shouldn't* have lost to Estero. They were banged up, and a couple of fluke plays happened late in the game, and Estero kicked a game-winning FG at the buzzer with 12 guys on the field. Point is, crazy things happen. If some here had their way, Lakeland, having beaten teams by an average score of something like 45-3 all year, would have just been handed the trophy and ranking after beating STA. The Estero game would have been seen as "predetermined". lol Agree on the consecutive games thing for DLS. If they had five or 6 state playoff games to play, they would have encountered consecutive opponents who were enough "in the ballpark" of them to knock them off. That's something that makes the SEC difficult, which people miss. It's easy to assume that, since Texas A&M beat Alabama, and none of their other opponents were as good as Alabama, that it would be "predetermined" that they'd win the rest of their games and thus it would be pointless to play them. Or, alternatively, since Alabama beat Georgia decisively in the SECCG, and none of their other opponents were as good as Georgia, they need not play the rest of the games. Inferior teams can knock off superior teams for a lot of reasons that aren't apparent to casual fans. The more games you have to play, the greater the chances you're going to have an off day against a team that's maybe an odd match up for you.

What the best number of teams in the playoffs is is a different question. Fact remains, if you have to take the field and play 4 quarters to beat a team-even if you're clearly the better team-that's harder than NOT having to take the field. Of course, the outcome isn't always as "predetermined" as some want to believe.

Sometimes, the difficulty appears to be overrated. But, I think you underrate it some, too. For one thing, the sheer number of games a team has to win is not insignificant. Physically and psychologically, it is a challenge to be "up" for that many games. I remember many years ago, third round of playoffs, Lakeland went down to Ft. Lauderdale and won a classic battle on STA's home field. Came back up for a home game the next week against a nobody Estero. Team was banged up and flat, and suffered one of the bigger upset losses in state history. Make no mistake, beating Estero at home was the WAY easier task than winning on the road at STA. It wasn't the degree of difficulty of that particular game, it was the difficulty of playing so many games in a row that you had to be up for. Many of the teams discussed here have entire seasons of 8-12 games...total. In Texas, you have to play 16. That none of the excess teams on those schedules are any better than some particular opponent does not tell all of the story. I maintain DLS would have never had the win streak it had if they had to play 15 or 16 games in a season, even if none of the added teams were better than the best team they beat in a given year.

Facts. While there are egomaniacal coaches who love to promote/sell their teams to the media, and like ball-washing exercises like those we've seen in the interviews posted here, there are still A LOT of coaches as this level who are nothing like that. And sometimes they have powerful teams. There isn't necessarily a blanket opposition to playing major OOS games. But, there IS an opposition to getting caught up in loud mouth promotion contests, dealing with fast-talking hustlers trying to grab a bit of glamour and attention for themselves. There's an old tradition in some parts where coaches intentionally (sometimes to the point of being humorous) speak poorly of their teams so as to either get opponents to take them lightly, or to take media pressure off the team. Of course, a hustler from Jersey knows nothing of this. When you start entire threads dedicated to announcing "news" (meaning player transfers to the school, college commitments) and promotional materials for *some* schools (like Clearwater Academy International), and start other threads only intending to denigrate others (Westlake and Lakeland being two examples that come to mind), the agenda starts to become apparent.

Literally ALL of the data here is pure fantasy, derived entirely from one (1) individual's self-programmed computer model. Nothing seen here is objective fact. It's like a painful flashback to the dreadful Covid models used to lock society down for a year and a half. 🤮

The simple fact of the matter is, we have two (used to be a couple more like USAA, Bishop Sycamore etc) programs who's very existence as high school playing football teams is tenuous. IMG and SFA recruit-and house!- players from all over the globe. Very, very few teams will play them. They often can't even play 10 games in an entire "season". And many of the schools agreeing to play them are only willing to do it once or twice. So, IMG and SFA face the distinct possibility of having a "season" where they only have each other to play. So, they NEED Joe to get them games. Joe loves getting them games because he likes the sense of importance it gives him. So, Joe needs to try to bait high schools into playing them. It's really all about the push to eradicate traditional high schools from HS football, to be replaced by these academies which will all be managed by Joe. L O L

It's a quality schedule. It's geared-wisely- around playing teams in their part of the state. You just don't like it because there aren't any "PGL" clients on the list. They didn't need you to make this schedule. So, you call it "weak-ass". High school football doesn't revolve around you. Get over it.

Armwood has tended to end up with a lot of talent year after year, transfers or not. Each of the last twenty-seven (27) Armwood teams have had players and been fairly strong teams. Odds are fairly good they've got a lot of underclassmen or previously ineligible players none of us have heard of but end up being dawgs. Public schools like Armwood relatively frequently have kids who are academically ineligible one year, but are actually monsters if/when they get their grades together. Sight unseen, I'd never put Lakeland Christian ahead of Armwood!

The 247 lists are not all the way reliable. I've caught them in many errors just with Lakeland alone. That's even during and after seasons are complete, not to mention based on early July knowledge. Guys who graduated or transferred the year prior being listed, and missing other guys. Just this coming season alone they are missing a 3* LB (RJ Kelly) and have a backup DB listed as a QB (MIke Singleton). If they can make that many errors on a relatively high profile program in a power state, they can be counted on to get much more wrong. Which is understandable, all things considered. But, point is, it's not a great idea to base rankings off 247 player lists. Nor would it be a great idea even if the lists were perfectly accurate. There are many different reasons as to why a player may get some stars or not get stars next to his name. And, the quality of a player that he is *RIGHT NOW* as he is playing for the HS team being ranked is often not particularly high on that list of reasons. Some players have some physical attributes that mean they are *projected* to be monsters, but are actually kind of average as 16/17 year-old players. Others may not have much room for future growth/development, or may play a role for the HS team that is not valued at the higher levels of football, so they have no stars, but are actually awesome at the HS level. Furthermore, we've known for a long time that the quality of a team is not always the sum of its parts. Even if it was actually plausible to accurately evaluate all of the individual players on all of the teams (this is not actually remotely plausible), we couldn't accurately evaluate the teams based on those ratings. I go on this rant because I get the impression that lists like the 247 lists are pretty much all anyone on these boards is going off when they decide how to rate teams. 😁

Armwood seems low, being below the likes of Lakeland Christian, Merrit Island, CCC etc. Maybe they will really be that down, but it's hard for me to understand starting them below those teams before any games have been played.

We've already seen this game. The result will be the same as last time. Last year's Venice team perhaps could have been somewhat competitive. This year's Venice team wasn't competitive against Lakeland's backups. SFA's defense is probably as good as Lakeland's 1st team defense, which largely played at other schools in May 😂

We certainly don't know that. Bryce Young's ability to make plays with his feet, and throw into tight windows, vastly exceeded DJ's. That was crucial to MD getting the win, and SJB wouldn't have had near as much of that. That's why the "daisy chain" approach often fails.

Is the oct. 21 game at Lakeland set in stone? I was kind of hoping Lakeland could get a bigger name that week.