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Thank you sir, and best of luck to Kissimmee Osceola in your season. We have to work on the little things. Still plenty of time to win the district, and make some noise in the playoffs.

You know me & I know you so I can b super honest. I don’t look at the regular season win streak as anything phenomenal. You hang your hat on 1 1/2 games: Columbus & half a game with Deerfield. The Tri County championship was like the Div 3 championships ncaa compared to the real National Championship game. (Plus the Covid era). The game with STA will b the measuring tape. Jesuit was considered a good team till they beat Aquinas. They’re the 6a favorite now. A team is considered great when they win the Florida State Championships. The playoffs. Panthers defense is real good. Their offense is good. Their coaching is certainly better. I hope they beat STA twice & make it to the State Finals.

Dan, the timing may be good right now . . . after losing to Lake Gibson Friday night, the folks in Polk's big city might be looking for a new way to solve their problems. But, I dread not.

Interesting read (and I listened to the podcast). Mr. Smith doesn't really tell us anything that we don't already know. His solution to the problem is twofold: (1) a kid can transfer once, as a matter of right; after that, any additional transfers (without a total move into a new district), and the kid has to sit out a year; and (2) $5,000 fine for those guilty of recruiting, to be paid by the coach and/or the school, Mr. Smith doesn't really state his preference on this one. But, nor does he really address the issue of what happens if the coach and/or the school is not directly involved in the recruiting. For example, what happens when a kid at one school is being blatantly recruited by a kid or family from another school? Who do you fine then? Are we going to fine a high school kid who gives some other kid a sales pitch at a 7 on 7 tournament over the summer? Are we going to fine the coach or the school if that were to happen? Who among us would think it fair to fine a coach more than he makes in a single season because some kid on his team tries to lure some kid from another team to jump ship at a summer camp? Here's the thing that got my attention: I don't know Mr. Smith, but he appears to be involved with UCF, although I can't tell whether he's formally associated with the school or just does his own thing with respect to UCF football and recruiting. I ask this question because Mr. Smith calls for all coaches to start reporting recruiting incidents. If he's truly a media person, why doesn't he do an "All the President's Men" type journalistic piece and start naming names himself? It's almost like he doesn't like what's going on because it makes it inconvenient for him to keep track of all the top high school players in the state. And he doesn't want to kill the golden goose by calling out all the wrong-doers and forever tainting the relationship he has with high school coaches. In other words, if he truly wants to help solve the problem, perhaps he needs to make the sacrifice: he should do what he wants all the coaches in the state to do -- start calling out the wrong-doers . . . by name, by school and by district. Bring the receipts forward. Embarrass a bunch of coaches and see if that gets the attention of the FHSAA and/or the school administrators. Clean coaches and programs (if there are any) will respect what he does because it will help clean up the problem. As always, just my two cents' worth.

Hey, just wanted everyone on here to know, that my brother Coach George Zaleuke who coaches at Vero Beach and posts on here as @Ric Flairpassed away Friday night due to complications from covid. He coached in this area for over 35 years at all levels and at all three Indian River county high schools. He was super proud to be a part of the Vero Beach program, and he enjoyed the football discussions on here as well. Hopefully I can confirm for him that despite him not being out there, Vero Beach did in fact line up correctly Friday night…

I agree & hope we make it there , ijs u got one school that nationally recruit with top D1 vs a team with not even 5 transfers. jesuit is also a private school who steals talent & bring them in from middle school to high, all I’m saying is wether we win or lose vs St Thomas which 98% of Florida do , it doesn’t take away the fact that Dillard is most def a top 10 school in Florida.

Impossible to stop kids from talking to other kids or guys just wanting to transfer to bigger programs/winning problems. What they need to crack down on are specific things that coaches do 1. If being paid or a volunteer coach, you can not be part of an all star 7s team. Do one with your own team. 2. You can not run a sports based summer college tour like a side business and take kids from other schools. 3. You can not follow players from other teams on social media. A few do it for the right reasons. Most do it to plant the seed even if they never say a word. Public schools are just as guilty for all the above #4 more private 4. Stop allowing private schools to hold clinics and showcases on campus. Public schools are told that if they even mention their sports program to 8th grade visitors it’s a violation. I don’t even know if these are enforceable in anyway, but they seem to be the most common forms of recruiting that lead to transfers that I see outside of kids just talking to each other.

School Choice not out of zone. However with school choice there are rules. You must apply for it and if a school is at capacity you can't go. It also is done over the summer not in the middle of the school year. Theses kids enrolled illegally and were allowed to stay.

Someone please refresh my memory. But wasn't the catalyst for all this freedom of movement the Florida legislators, in particular a Polk county one at that ? I forget many things these days, but fighting Tallahassee would seem to be where this must start if one wants a different result. And good luck with that in the current days of personal "Freedoms" trumping anything that could "possibly" be good for the masses.... #anoldcynic

The problem I have with top 10, is that aside from Deerfield, you have not yet played top tier competition. It is very hard to judge how good a team is that demolishes Cooper City and Ely.

While there is a real problem, I am not sure Brian Smith's solution would not be circumvented by the more astute programs. When the state opened up the ease of transferring with or without reason, it became very difficult for the FHSAA which, at that juncture, essentially abandoned any attempt to monitor and penalize recruiting.

I can respect that

At this stage, Dillard is a very good Florida high school team, that has a shot at taking down St. Thomas. I would not make you a favorite to do it, but I do give Dillard a chance. If you do, at that stage, I would regard Dillard as likely being Nationally elite. For now, I would just say you are a top 25 Florida team. Where in the top 25 is yet to be determined.

I had a feeling Lake Gibson would pull it off and went with them.

Lakeland did me in, too. I should have had more confidence in Lake Gibson, but they seemed to be giving up too many points. Wait, they did the same against Lakeland, but managed to outscore them.