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I just have a hard time believing in the IMG concept for high school football. If you're already a four or five star player you've got your offers. Sometimes it really more has to do with the lifestyle and training. But I think most kids just want to be kids and go to school like normal kids and not tucked away in some athletic Academy with a college type schedule and non-stop regimented training.

We've discussed the possibility of using a relegation system in the future, in which teams are demoted and promoted based on their performance. The English Premier League, the NFL of soccer in England, uses such a system. The League consists of 20 teams. Each year, the bottom 3 teams move down to the Championship League(the second highest league behind the Premier League), and 3 teams from the Championship League move up. What could such a system look like in FL HS football? Rather than relegate teams every year, it might be more feasible to do it every two years in conjunction with the reclassification cycle. Let's assume that every 2 years we will relegate 10 teams each in classes 5A-8A and 5 teams each in classes 3A and 4A. No teams would be relegated from 2A and 1A. Over the years, in theory, 2A would get very weak, but at least the 40-or-so teams in this class would be at similar levels of competitiveness and have a foundation on which to build and advance to higher classes. Let's use 7A and 8A as an example to see how this could work. Directly below are the teams with the worst 2-year, regular season records in 8A over the past 2 seasons. Their new classification, after the recent reclassification by the FHSAA, is in parentheses after each team name. As you'll see, some teams are already slated to move down or go independent, ie Varela and Winter Springs. The 10 teams slated to stay in 8A are bolded below. These 10 teams would be moved down to 7A as part of the relegation process, and replaced by 10 teams from 7A. After the "switch," the FHSAA could then go about designating regions. Varela(Ind) 0-19 Winter Springs(7A) 1-20 Lake Worth(8A) 1-18 Flanagan(8A) 2-18 JI Leonard(8A) 3-17 Spanish River(8A) 3-16 Brooksville Central(5A) 3-15 Haines City(8A) 4-17 South Plantation(7A) 4-16 Cypress Creek(8A) 4-16 Killian(5A) 4-14 Coral Park(Ind) 5-16 Evans(8A) 5-16 Dr Krop(Ind) 5-16 Freedom(8A) 5-16 Miami Beach(7A) 5-16 Jupiter(8A) 6-15 Hialeah Gardens(Ind) 6-14 Timber Creek(8A) 6-14 Directly below are the teams with the best 2-year, regular season records over the past 2 seasons slated to be in 7A after the recent reclassification. The 10 bolded teams below would move up to 8A. Wekiva and Atlantic were slated to move down to 7A from 8A, but they would stay in 8A and count as 2 of the 10 teams to move up from 7A. Plant is already slated to move to 8A as part of the reclassification, so we would not include them amongst the 10 to move up to 8A. If you are worried about 7A becoming depleted, keep in mind that a number of very good teams slated to be in 6A after reclassification would be moving up to 7A as part of the relegation process, ie Miami Central, Columbia, Naples, etc. Lakeland(7A) 18-0 Venice(7A) 18-2 Wekiva(7A) 18-2 Plant(8A) 18-2 Plantation(7A) 18-2 Atlantic(7A) 17-2 St Thomas Aquinas(7A) 17-3 Dwyer(7A) 17-3 Tampa Bay Tech(7A) 16-4 Viera(7A) 14-4 Fletcher(7A) 14-6 So, after promoting the 10 teams from 7A mentioned above(bolded below), 8A could look like the following. Not bad, huh? Region 1 Wekiva Apopka Winter Park Seminole Bartram Trail Mandarin Fletcher Region 2 Lakeland Venice Osceola Viera Plant Tampa Bay Tech Sarasota Riverview Dr Phillips Region 3 Vero Beach Deerfield Beach Palm Beach Central Atlantic Dwyer Region 4 Columbus South Dade Plantation St Thomas Aquinas Western Palmetto Coral Gables

Cocoa is playing at Venice too

1 Seed Lakeland 16 Seed Venice 8 Seed Cardinal Gibbons 9 Seed Wekiva 4 Seed Miami Northwestern 20 Seed Lee 5 Seed Miami Central 21 Seed Jones 2 Seed Miami Carol City 15 Seed Raines 7 Seed Columbus 10 Seed Chaminade Madonna 3 Seed Mandarin 19 Seed American Heritage Plantation 6 Seed St Thomas Aquinas 11 Seed Deerfield Beach

4A doesn’t have the depth

It's not clear to me that there is any difference among the four highest classes when it comes to the overall quality of the football. So this may render the topic moot. For example, if we picked the four highest class state champions this year (or any other recent year for that matter) and runners up, eight teams in all, and put them in a playoff bracket, it is not at all clear to me that the finalist would be correlated by current classification. I do agree that generally, not always, the three smallest classes are somewhat behind the bigger schools. 4a, I am not sure about. I think it varies from year to year.

Based on today's philosophy of playing tough schedules, I think if Vero schedules IMG, Mater Dei, De La Salle, St Thomas Aquinas, and Hoover for its non-district games, it should just about guarantee them a state title, right?

Word on the street is Osceola has inquired about a a game, and will travel.

A lot going on this off season with those two programs. I hope the two programs get back on track (state championships) because high school football is at it best when you have the Glades at the state championship games.