Hwy17

You know as well as I that these kids are transferring for athletics not academics.

Let me rewrite that sentence for you:
"Then the state legislature started to get involved and passed legislation that forced the FHSAA to change its policies to allow kids to transfer to whatever school they want (as long as it's not at capacity and they provide their own transportation)."  
Had the FHSAA not changed their policies to be consistent with the newly-enacted legislation, the FHSAA would have lost their funding from the state.   So, I've got a pretty clear picture in my mind of a bunch of folks sitting around in Gainesville saying to each other "So, what do you want to do?  Come up with new policies that match the new law or all go out and try to find new jobs?"  I know how that one turned out. 

With all due respect, I call B.S. on this.   That may be how the legislators from Lakeland framed it to get support from their colleagues, but it was all about football . . . and pulling the teeth out of the FHSAA's mouth in retaliation for the FHSAA declaring a group of athletes ineligible for a season (in accordance with existing rules). 

We were talking about it before then. It's gotten more out of hand each year.

ColumbiaFan, I know that Jacksonville transfers (especially into public schools) is a topic near and dear to your heart.  But, I don't know if the media should be blamed for not reporting it, as if it's some kind of conspiracy between the media and the schools in Duval Co.  
In the Tampa Bay area, we've gone from two daily publications to one and home delivery has gone from 7 days a week to 2.  During football season, the newspapers used to have stories on virtually every game in the area.  Now, they tend to pick out two or three games, cover only those games, and nothing is said about all the others (not even scores).  We see absolutely zero coverage of high school football during the off-season.  Occasionally, one of the beat writers will retweet something, but that's about it.  And the TV stations are really no better.   During the season, one of the stations does a "high school windup" in the last 5-10 minutes of it's 11:00 newscast on Friday nights, but as with the print media, they focus on 4-5 games, if that, show a handful of highlights, and give a handful of scores. 
I mention all of this because the media, and the media's coverage of high school football, in particular, and high school sports, in general, has changed (and by "changed," I mean "decreased") considerably over the years as the whole media landscape has changed because of the Internet.  Personally, I don't like it, but I reluctantly understand it. 
My point is this:  the media has fewer and fewer resources and they are unlikely to devote those resources to someone whose main job it is to keep track of high school kids jumping from one ship to another.   Fortunately, as represented by the several posts you have included on this thread, there are some people in some areas (like South Florida) that do track transfers and who post the information.  (By the way, as an aside, and based on what I've seen in this thread, is Hallandale even going to be able to field a team this year?   Seems like every other kid I've seen is transferring from Hallandale to another school.). 
Bottom line:  if there were tens of thousands of people in a metro area who were interested in the fact that some 11th grade kid announced on his Twitter feed that he was transferring from one school to another, the media would report it.  But there aren't, so they don't. 

Lots of discussion on the transfer situation, mostly focusing on Jax area and South Florida where you have large populations in confined area.  However, little mention of Dreadnaughts yet coaches in Polk know they steal players to supplement their roster every year.  They did it before the rule change and they do it now.  Their coach is held in high esteem and no doubt he knows what is going on whether legal or not; just turns a blind eye to it.  That is the model they have used to maintain their level of "Excellence"?  No matter who does it be it public or private, one cannot deny it is an unfair advantage and as was pointed out by someone in earlier discussions they helped change the rules so they could keep doing it.  Most of us are very competitive in nature and want to win terribly, but don't believe in cheating to do it.  It just cheapens the accomplishment.

That's exactly right and if you are building a program good coaches play other kids to create depth as well as get experience for the following year.  RPI is subjective so I'm not a fan.  Play the maximum especially if it is another home game for revenue and your fans.

Have your JV schedule the easy team for the Varsity's otherwise open week.  Then, since varsity's not playing, drop all your varsity players down to JV that week so they can get their game in.    

HS football is supposed to be about the kids. I'm sure that, if asked, the players on almost every HS team would tell you to schedule the 10th game. If the only available opponent is weak, play your starters sparingly and give your other kids a chance to get some game time. You can't worry about the RPI because you can't control how well other schools perform from one season to the next. If you have a good season, you'll make the playoffs.

I am certainly not picking on TCA as Trinity Catholic is in the same boat as the Conquerors as we also pick up transfers from the public schools for what is primarily for sports. I'm not in favor of it but that's what it is these days. Personally I'm for the old FHAA ruling that a player had to wait 1 year after the transfer to be a regular player. That virtually stopped most transfers for sports only. All I was stating is that any team 3A or below, that gets 8 transfers, will completely change the makeup and outcome of that team. What about the players who had been with the school for many years and find themselves sitting out every game because some transfer dropped in from wherever in his Junior or Senior year and has no real affinity with the school beyond sports. This may be the reason why there are only a handful of schools, out of 2,237 high schools in Florida, that are competitive year in and year out in football and in some cases other sports. 

Considering that only 1 key player, in a small school, can make a ton of difference. As an example, Union County had CJ Spiller who made them one of the best teams in their division the years he was a student pretty much on his shoulders alone. 8 top players, for a small school, gives them the championship hands down. 95% of all schools get no transfers and never win much of anything. I guess that's where we're at. 

It is a disadvantage for all high schools located in smaller towns/cities. On the other hand, for the same reason, such schools don't lose their best players to transfers too. It's a two edged sword, but it makes it difficult for rural and small town/city schools to win state titles in the current environment. 

Decent in Florida = top tier in other states. I reckon that team from Colorado thought Barron Collier was a push over. I believe Braden River also got a win over a Colorado team a few years ago.

Yes. 

Jesuit has been a good program consistently. 

Wakulla makes the playoffs just about every year in 5A.  They played for the 5A state championship in 2011 and 2015.  In 2012 they were undefeated and ranked #1 in 5A and were upset by Godby 14 - 7 in the second round of the playoffs.  Godby went on to win the 5A state championship.  Wakulla had defeated Godby quite easily a couple of weeks earlier to win the district championship.  That turned out to be Godby's only loss of the year.  In 2019 they were undefeated and lost to Orlando Jones 21 - 20 on a missed extra point late in the game...they could have easily won that game.  In a crazy season last year they were upset in the playoffs by Pensacola Pine Forest 28 - 21 in overtime.  They manage to win a lot of games without having a complete roster turnover with incoming transfers during each offseason.  Overall they've played in five state championship games and won two of them.  I don't know anything about Delaware Valley.  In 2015 they played Cathedral Prep out of Pennsylvania in this event and beat them easily.  I don't know anything about the other Florida schools on that list.

This looks like a legit full and complete move from out of state. I got no problems with this kind of transfer.

I in no way hate IMG. I respect them because they don't try to hide how their team is built. They play for national championships and they recruit nationwide. They have an IMG White team that competes against FHSAA teams, and wins some and loses some. I don't need Mike Tyson to hit me with a left hook to realize he can kick my butt from here to next Sunday. Apparently, there are some here that actually believe their local teams should be playing IMG; I'm not one of them.

How i feel what’s not good for the goose shouldn’t be good for the gander of private schools get bashed for recruiting and heavy transfers, then public schools shouldn’t get a past either. 
 
like it or not all these transfers and recruits have become a problem and a lot of schools are suffering because of it. 
 
if you’re gonna recruit and create all star teams? Fine but in my opinion all those teams should be in their own league/classification. 
 
how can you really boast about winning a state championship by 30-40 points when the level of playing field wasn’t even fair to begin with. 

And Cocoa in 6a

Of course size of school matters! The amount of kids you have determines what classification you have to play in. It also gives coaches more potential players who are willing to enroll in a program to succeed in their football abilities.
Like @ColumbiaHighFan2017class said, Columbia has been losing kids to  schools like Buchholz and Suwannee for years now. They still field a competitive football team because they play in 7A and have more kids enrolled to fill in the gaps left behind. The same cannot be said for schools like Hawthorne or Pahokee, smaller schools with less enrollment to fill the gaps when kids transfer away.
Venice has been taking kids from North Port, Lemon Bay, and Sarasota for decades now. I’m open enough to admit that, and none of these schools are competitive. Although they play in 7A, they do not have the proper coaching or funds to field competent football teams. The result is that kids want to transfer to Venice to have more success. The outlier here is Madison County. They are not completely honest about their enrollment numbers, and the result has been complete dominance over 1A. That’s not fair to other teams whatsoever, and it needs to be stopped. Madison County belongs in 4A, not cruising to blowout victories over smaller teams who possibly lose players of their own to schools like Madison. That’s why school size matters.

Orlando City Soccer Stadium is the ideal location for state championship games: centrally located in the middle of the state, easy access by two major highways; plenty of parking. lots of hotels and other entertainment and dining venues to give people other things to do while waiting to attend games, and it's a new stadium with a capacity of about 20,000: not too big for HS championship games.

I think everyone in Vero (and the rest of the state) would be happy just getting to play scheduled opponents and not scramble to find games again due to Hurricane and/or Covid cancellations...

From what I see, y'all played a tougher schedule in 2008 than you did in 2018.

I've always thought that you have to schedule so that you can challenge yourself a few times a year, let the rivalries drive gates and then play games that will make you compete/get better. In order to be a good team, you have to beat good teams. I'm an Osceola County/Orange County guy. The Orange County schools have so much talent it's easy to put together a tough schedule. Osceola has been hoarding talent (not meant as a recruiting-type dig - they've been good and they hold on to their talented players) and can compete with most anybody.
As for scheduling up/down a classification, I think that can be somewhat of a fallacy sometimes. Victory Christian is a private, 2A powerhouse and St. Cloud (7A) fields a varsity team of like 40 and they went down there and won this season after losing 30-7 the previous year. Not all 7A or 8A schools are the same, so it's hard to use that as a justification in some instances. 
Regardless, I agree that you need to have a competitive schedule. However, competitive to a school like Cypress Creek or Celebration might look a lot different than it would to Apopka or West Orange (or insert teams in your counties here).