UPDATED: Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016 at 12:34 p.m. ET
Getting bad news is not the way you wanted to start your weekend if you are a Trinity Christian Conquerors fan.
Justin Barney of the Florida Times-Union has reported that the defending Class 3A state champions out of Jacksonville have had to forfeit all their games played through Week 9 (Oct. 21).
Little bit of breaking news. Trinity Christian has forfeited all of its games due to use of ineligible player. Confirmed thru FHSAA.
— Justin Barney (@JustinBarneyTV) October 28, 2016
The violation was self-reported to the FHSAA Friday afternoon, according to Barney. The self-reporting to the FHSAA came after having been in contact with eligibility and compliance at the association’s offices in Gainesville following some routine paperwork in prepreation for the playoffs. The forfeits made the Conquerors winless for about a few hour on Friday afternoon, before thrashing Episcopal in both team’s final District 3A-2 contest to force a three-way tiebreaker.
RELATED: 2016 District Tiebreaker Information
Trinity Christian self-reported the violation to FHSAA today. Needs to beat Episcopal to force district shootout Monday with ESJ, Providence
— Justin Barney (@JustinBarneyTV) October 28, 2016
According to Barney, the eligibility issue stemmed from a player that has been at Trinity Christian for three years and not a recent transfer that he posted in his weekly recap of thoughts on Jacksonville-area games.
“We had Oct. 22 as the date [his eligibility expired]. OK, so no games after that. But it was actually August,” Dorminey told the Times-Union after the game on Friday.
However, the school did address the fraction earlier on Saturday morning that was posted by the Times-Union:
[su_quote cite=”Trinity Christian Academy”]On Friday, October 28th, Trinity Christian Academy learned that one of its players was ineligible based on FHSAA guidelines.Trinity Christian discovered and self-reported this issue to the FHSAA the same day. The eligibility error was regarding a homeschooled student’s high school registration date. When Trinity initially reported the student’s eligibility, we made an accurate report based on the information provided. However, today we learned that the information provided was inaccurate, which led to the self-reporting. As a result, Trinity will forfeit all of the games that were played up to this point in the season per FHSAA regulations. We look forward to continuing our season as the FHSAA rules permit.[/su_quote]
Had Trinity Christian not self-reported the issue before the game against Episcopal, it could have been costly for the Conquerors as it could have kept the team out of the playoffs. Also, the Conquerors had the saving grace of Duval Charter dropping out of District 3A-2 prior to the start of district play which meant one less game for the three remaining teams. Had Duval Charter still been in the district it would have ended the Conquerors hopes of winning a fourth straight state championship in December.
Now the Conquerors must get ready to play Providence in the first quarter of the tiebreaker on Monday at Episcopal. In order for the Conquerors to win the district championship, they must beat Providence in the first quarter and then beat Episcopal in the second quarter.
And how rare would it be for Trinity Christian to finish the season with a losing record at 6-8, but hosting the Class 3A State Championship in December? It wouldn’t be just rare, it would be a first in Florida.
According to Florida high school football historian Richard Burton, no football program in the state of Florida has ever won a football state championship with a losing record.
Also according to Burton, the last team to win a state championship after emerging from a district tiebreaker was Frostproof in 1999. The team they beat that year? Trinity Christian, 6-0.
https://twitter.com/FLFBRecords/status/792126032761552896
