gatorman-uf

Let's be honest, as much as I talk about promotion/relegation, it is a pipe dream, because admins/ADs/coaches are scared. Look at the push back from non-football sports for the radical realignment the FHSAA wanted to do. The reality is that if promotion/relegation is going to happen, it will happen slowly. Having said that, the FHSAA can do some simple things to fix things. 1) Go back to 4 teams for 1A-4A who make the playoffs, instead of 6. or 2) Shrink 2A-4A down by 1 classification, with the goal of 60 teams (15 teams per region) if they are going to keep 6 teams. Ideally: 1A: Keep the Same 2A: Expand to 60 teams (~15 teams per region) 3A: Expand to 60 teams (~15 teams per region) 4A-7A: Equally Split (~80 teams per) The reality is that we should shrink by one more class to get closer to 96 teams per class and 16 districts, but shrinking by 2 classes would be very radical. ______ Use the average of the RPI/LaxIndex/Pinkos (whatever system) over 2 years (preferably after the playoffs are done) to continue to allow teams to "earn" points as they progress. Lowest 10 teams drop a classification, top 10 teams move up a classification. It would take 10 years for a 3A team to make it to 7A, slow changes are important if you are going to sell this idea. Brand new public schools start at 3A (no matter their size) and have to work their way up while they gather some stability in their program. Assuming we just used this year's RPI for 5A-8A. 8A Drops to 7A: Alonso (Tampa, FL) Oak Ridge (Orlando, FL) Haines City (FL) Leonard (Greenacres, FL) Cypress Creek (Orlando, FL) West Broward (Pembroke Pines, FL) Piper (Sunrise, FL) University (Orlando, FL) Windermere (FL) Spanish River (Boca Raton, FL) 7A Rises to 8A: St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Armwood (Seffner, FL) Lakeland (FL) Edgewater (Orlando, FL) Palm Beach Lakes (West Palm Beach, FL) Niceville (FL) Fleming Island (Orange Park, FL) Bloomingdale (Valrico, FL) Viera (FL) Tampa Bay Tech (Tampa, FL) 7A Drops to 6A: Olympic Heights (Boca Raton, FL) Homestead (FL) Strawberry Crest (Dover, FL) American (Hialeah, FL) Everglades (Miramar, FL) North Port (FL) West Boca Raton (Boca Raton, FL) Miami Beach (FL) Leto (Tampa, FL) Mater Academy Charter (Hialeah Gardens, FL) 6A Rises to 7A: Palmetto (FL) Naples (FL) Port Charlotte (FL) Escambia (Pensacola, FL) Lake Gibson (Lakeland, FL) Gaither (Tampa, FL) Dillard (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Clearwater (FL) Largo (FL) Fort Myers (FL) 6A Drops to 5A Port St. Lucie (FL) Northeast (Oakland Park, FL) Deltona (FL) Okeechobee (FL) Freedom (Tampa, FL) Spoto (Riverview, FL) Hollywood Hills (Hollywood, FL) Pine Ridge (Deltona, FL) Gateway (Kissimmee, FL) Brandon (FL) 5A Rises to 6A Rockledge (FL) American Heritage (Plantation, FL) Northwestern (Miami, FL) Jones (Orlando, FL) Eau Gallie (Melbourne, FL) Wakulla (Crawfordville, FL) Lake Wales (FL) Dunnellon (FL) Citrus (Inverness, FL) 5A Drops to 4A Estero (FL) Lake Weir (Ocala, FL) Stanton (Jacksonville, FL) Ridgeview (Orange Park, FL) Tarpon Springs (FL) Booker (Sarasota, FL) Cape Coral (FL) Belleview (FL) Gibbs (St. Petersburg, FL) Gulf (New Port Richey, FL) In quickly looking at this, I know there are some problems. Palm Beach Lakes could be the newest fad of a team and probably doesn't have long term to stay at 8A, oh well. How many of the teams that are dropping are we thinking that they just had a bad year vs them being a constant homecoming/senior night opponent? The goal of the FHSAA has to be to create an equitable playing field. Size is a good indicator of the talent that should be available at a school, but obviously, it is not the only indicator. So let's use size, but also use wins and losses, Strength of Schedule, and other factors. Teams want to face equal level teams. Nobody on this board thinks Trinity Christian (Jax) or Chaminade-Madonna playing at 3A is good for them or 3A. For those fearful of big teams moving down, look at a team like Stanton (Jax), they could move 2A and barely be competitive, but at least they would have a chance rather than staying at 5A.

Question that we always have to ask, is it better to let some teams in that have no business being in the playoffs to ensure every team that has a realistic chance is in or better to limited the number of teams who could win even if that means leaving one or 2 out. I think 6 is too many in 1A-4A, I thought one the reasons they changed to six was because of the hurricane hitting panhandle last year

In 2017 (the first year of non champ/runner-up), 6A District 16 had: Hialeah-Miami Lakes Miami Carol City Miami Central Miami Norland Miami Northwestern Northwestern was #1 seed, Central was #5, Carol City was #6, and Norland was #7.

Don't he think he was fired (but probably would have been at the end of the season). He chose to step down in the middle of the season. https://www.chronicleonline.com/news/local/chs-coach-steps-down/article_0ed11a6a-f9ed-11e9-ab36-534f6f9db503.html

Glades Central was contesting their forfeit to Wellington as they said ineligible player was not used, does anybody know if the FHSAA agreed. Based on what I see on MaxPreps, it looks like they did, but with every thousandth of a point making a difference, it would be nice to have clarity.

What if Columbia plays Ponte Vedra... can they handle them?

Teams have realized that CHS has guys weighing a 110 pounds playing DT. so why not run the ball in the middle for 4 yards at a time.

In defense of the FHSAA (despite being an RPI critic), my numbers have consistently lined up with the FHSAAs. But when I do make mistakes, it would be easier if all schools' data was available instead of wondering where my mistake is. For example, my rankings would have been very off if someone on here had not posted about Glades Central forfeiting games. I know they aren't including the FHSAA Independent class, but it would be nice if they did as a lot of the winning percentages, opponent's winning percentage are coming from that group. They did. The name of the school was Bishop Sycamore, but I guess they have now changed their name to Youthbuild.

One of the reasons, I wish the FHSAA would be more open with their data regarding the RPI is to be able to double check. If you go on and look at the RPI for Week 10, Mainland is listed as a 6-3 team. If you click on the 6-3 record of the team, it takes you to MaxPreps and has the team listed as a 5-3 team, so how in a day does Mainland go from a 6-3 to a 5-3 in one day. Well, it is easy. The MaxPreps system had Mainland playing the Youthbuild Centurions out of Columbus, Ohio. Mainland had a forfeit win against them. Now, this confuses me, because I am pretty sure that Youthbuild and Mainland never had a game scheduled (or at least nothing that I can find). Now, today it has been fixed, the game is removed. But I hope we don't find tons of these last minute additions to maxpreps. BTW, even though the MaxPreps has been updated the RPI rankings have not.

I think the referees should become jerks and literally call a penalty on every play (as we all know there is one) to the point that coaches/players/fans realize that they can't call everything because if they did it would be 6 hour long games. I think replay has spoiled us as fans. Force replay to be done in at normal speed, no slo-motions, and only for obvious calls. If you have to zoom in, then no go. If you have to take the play at half speed, no go. All of these NFL fans rave about the players in the 1970s and 1980s, but they fail to realize there was very limited replay available back then. And while they love the referees back then because the referees didn't get wrong, the refs still got it wrong, there just was 10K replays of it. I think if they are getting it right more than they aren't. At the high school level, I have obvious blocks in the back that led to a large punt return and the fans will still book the call. Why? Your player obviously did it.

4.7.2.3.2 State Semifinals (a) Dates and Times. See the football webpage at FHSAA.ORG. (b) Bracketing. The Region 1 champion will play the Region 2 champion, and the Region 3 champion will play the Region 4 champion in the state semifinal games in each classification. (c) Host Schools. One of the two competing schools shall be designated as the host school for each state semifinal game, and shall determine the site of the game for which it serves as host. The host schools shall be designated as follows: teams with the highest regular season RPI Ranking will be designated “home” team.

Don't expect that to be true when the standings come out. Columbia will rise up to #5 seed with Washington (Pensacola) losing to Escambia.

Yeah, but who in 2A Region 1 is better. Right now, they are a 4 seed so even under the old system they get in. Also remember, you have to compare a 2A school to a 2A school. NFEI might be bad compared to a lot of schools but how bad are they compared to other 2A schools.

Simple fixes: A ) Shrink back to 4 playoff teams (for 1A-4A) if they don't any of the following B ) Shrink classes down by 1 and increase the size of 2A-4A 483 Teams Minus 37 1A Teams means 446 teams, put 60 teams each in 2A-4A (~15 per region) and 88 teams each in 5A-7A for 5 teams per district C) Go to Northern/Southern Brackets for 1A-4A

STA Lakeland Manatee Godby Lincoln Northwestern Suwannee

Let me give an example... Class 4A, Region 4 Gulliver Prep (8-0) Cardinal Gibbons (6-2) NSU University School (6-2) Booker T. Washington (4-5) Miami Carol City (4-5) Somerset Academy (Pembroke Pines) (5-2) Previously, the FHSAA only allowed 4 teams in from these non-district classifications. Even in terms of RPI, the top 4 teams are a significant amount of point in front of Miami Carol City. Now, the FHSAA expanded to 6 teams. If our goal is to make sure that all teams that have a realistic shot get in that we need to be at 6 teams because I doubt too many people are going to say that Miami Carol City couldn't be in the final four. At the same point in allowing Miami Carol City, you let in a team like Somerset Academy. Or do we sit there and sorry Carol City, better luck next year, our top 4 are quality and you are just outside that. So again, in order to let every team that has a realistic shot of making the final four, do you only take a limit amount that might keep a deserving team out or do you make sure the deserving gets in even if a non-deserving team gets in.

The question the coaches/ad/fhsaa has to answer when it comes to playoffs is: Do we create a system where every team that "could" possibly win the state championship is in the playoffs (even if that means several teams that shouldn't) or should the playoffs be for only teams that can win the state championship (even if that means 1 or 2 possible teams sits home)? Once you answer that question a lot of what we try to do becomes easier to understand.

I think a team that loads up on highly difficult teams (Trinity Christian, Pahokee) and wins half or less are definitely going to struggle in 1A-4A to make the playoffs. I said at the beginning of the year that Pahokee would not make the playoffs because of how difficult their schedule was. Trinity Christian the same thing. You can schedule all the hard teams you want, but ultimately you have to win some of those games. If 4-6 Plant makes the playoffs, I think that will be an indictment of the system, just like last year an 0-9 Gadsden County making the playoffs was. As for playing 4 cupcakes, if you are a middle of the road team for your classification (Suwannee would be a good example), then it would be easier to schedule local cupcakes because nobody thinks you are going to dominate them. As a result, you end up with 6-7 wins and a good chance of making the playoffs. The FHSAA is trying to find ways for tough teams to play tough teams, and because teams can make their own schedules teams can refuse to play tough teams or end up traveling 3+ hours to find a game. The reality is that promotion/relegation would slowly push teams to their correct spot.

Team A (doesn't play 10th game): 6-3... .666 WP = .233 towards their RPI Score Team B: (loses the 10th game) 6-4... .600 WP = .210 towards their RPI Score Team C: (wins the 10th game) 7-3.... .700 WP = .245 towards their RPI Score _________________ HWY, it depends if they would win or lose their 10th game. If they were to lose the 10th game, they would lose .023 towards their RPI score. It they were to win, they would gain .012 towards their RPI score. As a coach, risk/reward sets in. Is it worth trying to get that extra .012 if the potential also exists if you were to lose .023.

So is American Heritage and Carver became Atlantic not American Heritage

This is a bit old (10 days), but it affects tonight's Lincoln vs Crestview game. Coach Gray knows about the chant (“One thing I know, we don’t put any school’s name in the chant."). Ooops. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/sports/preps/2019/10/11/lincoln-football-coach-quinn-gray-assistant-suspended/3946002002/

Dade (12 schools) Coral Gables Hialeah-Miami Lakes Miami Miami Booker T. Washington Miami Carol City Miami Central Miami Edison Miami Killian Miami Norland Miami Northwestern Miami Southridge South Dade (Homestead) Escambia (7) Escambia Tate Northview Pine Forest Washington Woodham Ernest Ward Brevard (6) Cocoa Melbourne Merritt Island Palm Bay (Melbourne) Rockledge Titusville

Escambia 7- (Escambia, Tate, Northview, Pine Forest, Washington, Woodham, Ernest Ward) Palm Beach 5- (Gardens, Dwyer, Glades, Pahokee, Carver) Leon 4 (Godby, Leon, Lincoln, FAMU) Alachua 3- (Buchholz, Gainesville, Santa Fe) Duval 2- (Raines, Mandarin)

https://sports.yahoo.com/missouri-high-school-forfeits-football-season-fires-coaches-after-using-ineligible-player-ad-will-retire-041337409.html

35-21 Atlantic.