2023 SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN: Victory Christian seeking district title with shifting schedule in 2023

VICTORY CHRISTIAN STORM

District: 1S-5

2023 SCHEDULE

* – District Contest

MILEAGE BREAKDOWN

With just four road games on the schedule, the Storm will not have to travel many miles for three of their four road games, as the road trip to Golden Gate down in Naples to open the season will rack up 79.3% of the mileage traveled for the season. The shortest road game of the season for the Storm will be a quick jaunt from the school grounds (remember, the Storm plays home games at Victory Field on the campus of Southeastern University), which is just 3.7 miles away on the other side of Interstate 4.

To Golden Gate: 186 miles
To Ambassadors Christian Academy: 39.4 miles
To Kathleen: 3.7 miles
To Lakeland Christian: 5.3 miles

One-Way: 234.4 miles
Round-Trip: 468.8 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.

When looking at the schedule for Victory Christian, the schedule looks like a mishmash of teams that the Storm could get placed on the schedule. However, some of this is no fault of the Storm, who are already in a small district and had to add one more non-district game going into the upcoming season as Bishop McLaughlin has declared to play an independent schedule.

Looking at the schedule further, the best games that stand out for the Storm include state semifinalist John Carroll and regional finalist Lakeland Christian, which stand out the most. Fort Meade, a team that stays consistent on the schedule for Victory Christian, continues to be on the schedule and will provide the Storm with a quality opponent.

The biggest concern to the schedule for Victory Christian includes games like Ambassadors Christian Academy and A’kelynn’s Angels Christian, two teams that have not consistently won games or played a complete schedule over the last few years. How both of these teams perform in 2023 could seriously impact what position in the playoff seeding the Storm have at the end of the season.

As such, looking at what we discussed above, the new Strength of Schedule formula from FloridaHSFootball.com gives Victory Christian a strength of schedule of .544 going into the season. This means that Victory Christian has a schedule that will be winnable and should get them into the playoffs. Still, it also could be a schedule that could hurt them depending on a team that is expected to perform well during the season and takes a step back. This could be an issue for the Storm when the playoff seeding is announced in early November.

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

KEY DISTRICT GAME

10/13 – Lakeland Christian: With only two required district games, this game was the one that decided the district championship and once again decided who advanced to the regional finals last season, with both meetings being very competitive and tight, with the regular season meeting resulted in overtime. Expect this year’s regular season meeting to be a battle again between the two programs that are starting to develop a bit of a rivalry after meeting for the first time last season.

KEY NON-DISTRICT GAME

10/20 – John Carroll: The Golden Rams were state semifinalists last season, and this will mark a solid matchup for the Storm that gives them their most significant boost to the strength of schedule. With this being a home game, the Storm will hope to provide them with enough edge to get them a win and a significant boost in the power rankings with just a few weeks to go before the playoffs.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

As mentioned earlier, this schedule for Victory Christian is a mishmash of teams that the Storm could get on the schedule to fill in open holes after some spots from last season’s schedule came open. While the Storm has some decent opponents, scheduling opponents of a lower tier quality will impact the Storm. Given the tradition of the Storm looking to win games and have deep playoff runs, this is not what we would expect from them in the scheduling process. Based on the schedule presented here, it will remain to be seen just how well Victory Christian will do in 2023.