2023 SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN: Santaluces looks to keep winning ways going this fall

SANTALUCES CHIEFS

District: 4M-11

2023 SCHEDULE

MILEAGE BREAKDOWN

All of Santaluces’ away games will be confined inside Palm Beach County this season except for one game. The most extended road trip will come in mid-September when the Chiefs take the trip to Louisiana to face national power John Curtis Christian. That road trip to Louisiana will be 822 miles long one way or 1,644 miles round-trip. The shortest road trip will come with the trip to Park Vista late in the season at 3.7 miles, while Boynton Beach will mark the second shortest trip of the season with just a tenth of a mile longer at 3.8 miles one-way.

To Boynton Beach: 3.8 miles
To John Curtis Christian: 822 miles
To Boca Raton: 18 miles
To Spanish River: 18.4 miles
To Park Vista: 3.7 miles
To Atlantic: 11 miles

One-Way: 876.9 miles
Round-Trip: 1,753.8 miles

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

FloridaHSFootball.com has developed a weighted strength of schedule formula that weighs a team’s strength of schedule using data trends from the previous five seasons to measure a team’s overall strength of schedule. This includes all team records for all opponents and other weighted factors given about the teams on a schedule.

While the schedule remains pretty similar to last year’s schedule, the Santaluces did receive an upgrade when head coach Hector Clavijo III landed national power John Curtis Christian on the schedule within the first half of the 2023 season. This is great as this boosted the strength of the schedule against what is a very weak schedule, especially in a very weak district. John Curtis Christian is coming off winning the Louisiana Division I Select championship, and they will give the Chiefs their biggest test to see where they are at as a team.

Looking at the rest of the schedule, four other teams reached the playoffs over the course of the last two seasons, which helped boost the strength of the schedule slightly, and that includes Pahokee, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton, and Atlantic, all of which did not make it out of the regional bracket in their respective classifications. When stacking these four teams against the rest of the schedule, five teams alone have a combined weighted strength of schedule under .400.

Overall, the strength of schedule should be helpful for the Chiefs to win the District 4M-11 championship once again in 2023, but outside of playing one team from outside of Palm Beach County could ultimately hurt the Chiefs come time for the playoffs as they will not have faced any teams from Broward or Miami-Dade counties. These two counties have been sending multiple teams to the state championship game for a long time.

MORE: Find all the links to all the schedule breakdowns published here

KEY DISTRICT GAME

10/13 – Boca Raton: This game last season determined the district championship, and it will likely be the same again. While Boca Raton was not as strong as last year, the expectation, at least coming into the season, is that they will be the one team that will challenge the Chiefs. However, the Chiefs will likely have the advantage on the road barring any catastrophic issues before getting to October.

KEY NON-DISTRICT GAME

9/14 – John Curtis Christian: This will be the biggest game all season for the Chiefs, getting a national power in John Curtis Christian that will challenge them. As the only defending state champion on the schedule, the Chiefs must be prepared for all the expectations of playing the game. Head Coach Clavijo should be able to do that through his experiences as head coach at Champagnat Catholic in Hialeah. This game will make the Chiefs a stronger team towards the second half of the season when district games come into view.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

This schedule will help Santaluces reach the playoffs, but winning playoff games will be a huge question mark they must answer. The logic behind that thought is that the schedule needs to thoroughly test the ability outside of the game with John Curtis Christian to be prepared to win at least one playoff game. If the Chiefs do not fumble any games early in the season outside of the John Curtis contest, they should be setup for the second half of the 2023 season to not have any major issues. However, if the Chiefs do have some hiccups, other teams in the district could take advantage of any perceived weaknesses and make things interesting for the playoff race in late October.