NationalHSFB.com Preseason Top 25 Rankings

[Columbiafan]

25 minutes ago, Longtime Observer said:

So, it sounds like, at best, Central would only play Lakeland if it was at Traz Powell? 😂

Lakeland made the attempt after they did what Central does every year in Dade county. 

I think it's fair to say both teams are guilty of the same thing. (Which, of course, means fans of one team only consider how the other team is bad/weak/scared etc.)

I never said Lakeland was scared of Miami Central but don't be saying Central ducked it 

 

They were willing to play but wouldn't leave Polk County to do it, Miami Central has no obligation to agree to that deal 

 

Miami Edison would play Columbia but only if Columbia covered ALL of Edison travel expenses then covered our own way to Miami next year

 

That deal was a crap offer so Columbia told them no, it doesn't mean we ducked them but we aren't gonna take a crap deal out of desperation

 

In this case Central would have taken it if the deal was more balanced but Lakeland wouldn't provide that so it fell through

[Sammy Swordsman]

37 minutes ago, Columbiafan said:

I never said Lakeland was scared of Miami Central but don't be saying Central ducked it 

 

They were willing to play but wouldn't leave Polk County to do it, Miami Central has no obligation to agree to that deal 

 

Miami Edison would play Columbia but only if Columbia covered ALL of Edison travel expenses then covered our own way to Miami next year

 

That deal was a crap offer so Columbia told them no, it doesn't mean we ducked them but we aren't gonna take a crap deal out of desperation

 

In this case Central would have taken it if the deal was more balanced but Lakeland wouldn't provide that so it fell through

Any chance that Fla moves to having an "open" playoff division so these top teams would be able to duke it out on the field instead of twitter?

[Columbiafan]

5 minutes ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Any chance that Fla moves to having an "open" playoff division so these top teams would be able to duke it out on the field instead of twitter?

An idea similar to it was floated a few years ago but couldn't make it past the coaching advisory committee and it would likely get shut down by the state legislature anyway 

 

It's why they can't have a transfer or private school modifier, both would break Florida law on some education statute that I'm not gonna waste time digging up the specifics on 

[Columbiafan]

7 minutes ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Any chance that Fla moves to having an "open" playoff division so these top teams would be able to duke it out on the field instead of twitter?

Technically though if the FHSAA were to pass it they could have metro vs suburban champs face off in an open division game but I think that would have to pass the advisory committee so it couldn't go into effect until next year at the earliest and it would need someone on the board to present that idea up for a vote

[Sammy Swordsman]

3 minutes ago, Columbiafan said:

Technically though if the FHSAA were to pass it they could have metro vs suburban champs face off in an open division game but I think that would have to pass the advisory committee so it couldn't go into effect until next year at the earliest and it would need someone on the board to present that idea up for a vote

Having the states top teams in different playoff divisions is counter / anti competition.  
 

STA, Lakeland, Central, Venice, Cocoa, Madonna, Columbia, et Al. Should all be in the same playoffs.   There is no good reason for them not to be since they would all be competitive with each other 

[Columbiafan]

1 minute ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Having the states top teams in different playoff divisions is counter / anti competition.  
 

STA, Lakeland, Central, Venice, Cocoa, Madonna, Columbia, et Al. Should all be in the same playoffs.   There is no good reason for them not to be since they would all be competitive with each other 

The problem is with how loose the transfer rules are a team like Columbia would need to get all the top players from the surrounding 8 counties just to get 1/3 the blue chippers of a Miami Central and that's not even including Central could easily get 10 more blue chippers in a single off-season to extend the gap further 

 

In the past when the transfer rules were better managed these teams could share a class together but now a days unless your in an area loaded with blue chippers you can't realistically compete with these teams 

 

The state of Florida legislature went and screwed over a lot of rural schools by this change which heavily favors metro schools 

[Columbiafan]

The idea of metro suburban is also being done to address the state championship blowouts because by definition if you put programs pulling from a similar talent pool size wise then you will have teams of similar ability on the field and better state championship games will also lead to better attendance for these games and that makes the product better 

 

Obviously though there's a long ways to go to correct the many problems surrounding Florida High School athletics

[Sammy Swordsman]

1 minute ago, Columbiafan said:

The problem is with how loose the transfer rules are a team like Columbia would need to get all the top players from the surrounding 8 counties just to get 1/3 the blue chippers of a Miami Central and that's not even including Central could easily get 10 more blue chippers in a single off-season to extend the gap further 

 

In the past when the transfer rules were better managed these teams could share a class together but now a days unless your in an area loaded with blue chippers you can't realistically compete with these teams 

 

The state of Florida legislature went and screwed over a lot of rural schools by this change which heavily favors metro schools 

That’s fine.  Then Columbia can be in the D-1 playoffs and not the open.  Nothing wrong with winning a D-1 ring vs schools with similar challenges and opportunities.

[Sammy Swordsman]

1 minute ago, Columbiafan said:

The idea of metro suburban is also being done to address the state championship blowouts because by definition if you put programs pulling from a similar talent pool size wise then you will have teams of similar ability on the field and better state championship games will also lead to better attendance for these games and that makes the product better 

 

Obviously though there's a long ways to go to correct the many problems surrounding Florida High School athletics

Metro vs Surburban sounds like a good start.  How would this improve the playoff brackets?   Would teams like STA now be in the same bracket as Central and Lakeland?

[MC ROCKETS]

31 minutes ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Any chance that Fla moves to having an "open" playoff division so these top teams would be able to duke it out on the field instead of twitter?

I've been talking about this for a while. Even just as recent as this weekend. 

[Columbiafan]

19 minutes ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Metro vs Surburban sounds like a good start.  How would this improve the playoff brackets?   Would teams like STA now be in the same bracket as Central and Lakeland?

No at least not the way they broke it down which is kinda what I meant by there is ways to go 

 

The way Florida did it was they took Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Seminole, Orange, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Duval county and split all those teams into 4 classifications and then took the remaining counties and set them into 4 classifications 

 

Currently Central, MNW and a few other Dade powers ended up in 2M while STA ended up in 3M 

 

Ideally I think that other counties like Polk (Lakeland), Lee (Fort Myers), and Brevard (Cocoa) should have gotten classed as metro as well but when you had 2 people on the voting board from Lee county they were able to get the board to go by 8 most dense counties instead of 8 highest population which put Seminole county in the place of Lee County

 

The problem is the change I'm suggesting would never get passed because unfortunately the people on the advisory board will only vote to help their individual teams not the overall product of the state, we were lucky to get the 8 counties separated that we did because it was a tight vote to get passed 

 

 

The way it would improve playoff brackets is by having it where rural teams won't be having to face metro schools in the playoffs who under the current rules can basically recruit from a county of over 1M people when some these rural teams are from counties of 30-80k in some cases and don't have 1/20th the talent pool of these massive counties 

 

But I have some doubts because they chose to maintain the student enrollment numbers to make the split on the 4 suburban and 4 metro counties when winning percentage may have been a better method to accomplish what they really want to do with balancing the classifications

[Longtime Observer]

13 hours ago, GardenStateBaller said:

That's true? I always thought that was urban folklore. 

It's happened many times, though Traz isn't the only place it's happened by any means.

[Longtime Observer]

12 hours ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Any chance that Fla moves to having an "open" playoff division so these top teams would be able to duke it out on the field instead of twitter?

Hopefully, but it doesn't seem likely anytime soon. I'm hoping for a final bowl game of sorts. Like the Gieco game, but with "metro" and "suburban" champs volunteering to play.

[Longtime Observer]

12 hours ago, Sammy Swordsman said:

Having the states top teams in different playoff divisions is counter / anti competition.  
 

STA, Lakeland, Central, Venice, Cocoa, Madonna, Columbia, et Al. Should all be in the same playoffs.   There is no good reason for them not to be since they would all be competitive with each other 

Agreed. Schools like Lakeland and Venice, despite being "suburban", both recruit (the players do the recruiting) very effectively. Just last year, Venice blew out Miami Columbus and Apopka (close to Orlando). And Lakeland has the history they have, and perhaps the most loaded team ever on the way. And I'm quite sure they'd both prefer to play with those other teams. But the FHSAA wants as many title games as possible, and most teams from outside of urban areas aren't like Venice/Lakeland with the recruiting, so they like the split.

[Longtime Observer]

12 hours ago, Columbiafan said:

The idea of metro suburban is also being done to address the state championship blowouts because by definition if you put programs pulling from a similar talent pool size wise then you will have teams of similar ability on the field and better state championship games will also lead to better attendance for these games and that makes the product better 

 

Obviously though there's a long ways to go to correct the many problems surrounding Florida High School athletics

The answer, as Sammy suggested, is an "Open" division. Schools like Baker County and Merrit Island could always opt out of the Open division, while schools like Venice and Lakeland could opt in.

[Columbiafan]

44 minutes ago, Longtime Observer said:

The answer, as Sammy suggested, is an "Open" division. Schools like Baker County and Merrit Island could always opt out of the Open division, while schools like Venice and Lakeland could opt in.

I think that's a good idea in theory but I have a feeling that some of the more "conservative" people on the advisory boards wouldn't want to implement it

 

 After all they fought like hell to stop metro/suburban, change from runner ups to wild cards and using an RPI/ranking system instead of flipping the brackets each year 

 

They just hate any form of change 

[Columbiafan]

1 hour ago, Longtime Observer said:

It's happened many times, though Traz isn't the only place it's happened by any means.

I know Duval county had to go to 6pm start time for all public schools after Raines vs Riverside (formally Robert E Lee High) had a shooting in the neighborhood in 2 consecutive years at their games and there has been incidents also involving I think Terry Parker, Ed White and games involving the northwest classic (Ribault vs Raines) 

 

All these schools are in the West or North side of Jacksonville

 

The times have been in effect since the 2018 season when the incident involving Lee vs Raines happened in week 1 of that season

[Columbiafan]

55 minutes ago, Longtime Observer said:

Agreed. Schools like Lakeland and Venice, despite being "suburban", both recruit (the players do the recruiting) very effectively. Just last year, Venice blew out Miami Columbus and Apopka (close to Orlando). And Lakeland has the history they have, and perhaps the most loaded team ever on the way. And I'm quite sure they'd both prefer to play with those other teams. But the FHSAA wants as many title games as possible, and most teams from outside of urban areas aren't like Venice/Lakeland with the recruiting, so they like the split.

But Venice and Lakeland aren't the same suburban as say a Buchholz, Columbia or Baker County

 

That's the biggest issue with this system as this change was to help schools like the bottom 3 play on a more level playing field instead of being in brackets with metro teams that are recruiting from 1M+ people 

 

Sarasota and Polk counties (Venice and Lakeland respectively) are not too far behind some these metros in terms of talent pool but the change wasn't to help them but they indirectly got a much easier path to states but to be fair Lakeland and Venice I believe are both in 4S along with Osceola so 4S will have 3 top 10 FL teams with those 3

[Longtime Observer]

40 minutes ago, Columbiafan said:

But Venice and Lakeland aren't the same suburban as say a Buchholz, Columbia or Baker County

 

That's the biggest issue with this system as this change was to help schools like the bottom 3 play on a more level playing field instead of being in brackets with metro teams that are recruiting from 1M+ people 

 

Sarasota and Polk counties (Venice and Lakeland respectively) are not too far behind some these metros in terms of talent pool but the change wasn't to help them but they indirectly got a much easier path to states but to be fair Lakeland and Venice I believe are both in 4S along with Osceola so 4S will have 3 top 10 FL teams with those 3

I agree what you're saying, with the exception of Buchholz. A Gainesville/Alachua county all-star team would be pretty loaded.  

[Columbiafan]

41 minutes ago, Longtime Observer said:

I agree what you're saying, with the exception of Buchholz. A Gainesville/Alachua county all-star team would be pretty loaded.  

They were last year and couldn't even compete for a quarter with STA

 

Buchholz had over 10 transfers from local schools like Santa Fe, Oak Hall, Eastside and Gainesville

 

Hell their big name WR (Quan Lee) spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at Eastside with Anthony Richardson

 

He transferred to Buchholz in his junior year after Richardson graduated 

[Columbiafan]

43 minutes ago, Longtime Observer said:

I agree what you're saying, with the exception of Buchholz. A Gainesville/Alachua county all-star team would be pretty loaded.  

Gainesville in 2011/2012 was also an Alachua County all star team and when they made state finals against Miami Central they got completely smashed 

 

Hell they barely got by Columbia in the regular season that year (they got a controversial call in their week 2 home game that took a Columbia TD off the board and allowed Gainesville to escape the game 17-14) 

 

The talent in Gainesville could end up at one team and create a top 15-25 team in Florida but nothing is gonna put them on par with the STA or Miami Central's of the world 

[GardenStateBaller]

3 minutes ago, THEOC89 said:

Like who?….. That 3rd rate TX Private School you tried to Stick them with in The TL vs USA Event?…..🤣

Truth is Servite played OOS games Long before PGL was around and if they want to play them in the future they will have no problem as long as they make sense for the program….

I offered the best of the best outside of Cali. They were always frightened beyond belief to move forward. Always had a lame excuse. When's the last time Servite played an OOS game east of the Mississippi? 1982? 

[GardenStateBaller]

12 minutes ago, THEOC89 said:

So you are Basically saying Servite Did the Same thing that SJB did and MD has been doing since 2019 which is Duck SFA?….. 🤣

I don’t really care when that last OOS game Servite played was because I would rather see them play MV, Sierra Canyon and Bishop Amat then a smoke and Mirrors OOS schedule of non competitive lower level teams East of the Mississippi like SJB plays….. 🤣🤣

Servite has such a rich tradition that its loyal fanbase will always be content with the team being ranked outside the T100. And that's ok in the grand scheme of things. 

[Columbiafan]

14 minutes ago, THEOC89 said:

So you are Basically saying Servite Did the Same thing that SJB did and MD has been doing since 2019 which is Duck SFA?….. 🤣

I don’t really care when that last OOS game Servite played was because I would rather see them play MV, Sierra Canyon and Bishop Amat then a smoke and Mirrors OOS schedule of non competitive lower level teams East of the Mississippi like SJB plays….. 🤣🤣

Then schedule an elite FL team 

 

Outside of maybe Mater Dei, there's at least 5 teams every year in Florida on par with the rest of California (and I'm not even including IMG Academy)

[GardenStateBaller]

1 minute ago, Columbiafan said:

Then schedule an elite FL team 

 

Outside of maybe Mater Dei, there's at least 5 teams every year in Florida on par with the rest of California (and I'm not even including IMG Academy)

This season Servite is projected to finish #4 at best in the TL. Time to move on the bigger and better opptys.