DarterBlue2

Gatorman-UF. That was comprehensive and showed nice hospitality on your part. Given the complications involved I could not have "splained" it better.

Sad but mostly true. VM reminds me of someone whose name I will not mention.

Not sure whether the market is big enough for another football pro league. The original XFL folded after one year back when you were a young pup. However, if this one is better capitalized and they can put tweaks here and there, I have no problem with them trying. It would provide employment for some college athletes not able to make NFL rosters.

Sad story. He killed the neighbor execution style. No dispute was worth that. If they could not get along, he should have just moved.

Jordan Underwood has not been at Apopka since his Sophomore year. He played at Olympia High School his Junior and Senior years.

Humans tend to be treacherous and inhumane. You should listen to this old song. A more recent take is referenced below: The Monkey Speaks His Mind

This is not true. The kids Mainland puts on the field are much closer to say, a Miami Norland or Carol City, than to to a Vero Beach or Venice. Volusia County as a whole, is not like South Florida. But the Mainland football team draws mostly from the working poor to lower middle class, to inner city parts of Daytona Beach. And, for the most part, this is the case for the school in its totality, and is certainly so for the football team. Thirty years ago, things were somewhat different.

Oscar Smith has made a deep run each of those three years. How can you group them with Palm Bay? So if a team does not win state every year, they are now, somehow, inferior? VB is stepping up its competition. That is a good thing. Once you prove you can beat the Mainlands and Venices consistently, then you have an argument that you are battle tested and ready for everyone on the road to state. You come over as one that has a beef with the VB program. Are you just frustrated they have not gotten to state or is it something more personal?

Venice and Mainland are a step up from Lincoln and some of the Palm Beach teams like Olympic Heights that VB scheduled last year. Give some credit.

So, she is not very good, huh? At least not by male standards? Why am I not surprised. Just like you have women's soccer in high schools, if enough females want to play football, then make it a separate league. Having young women (girls) playing football with males just increases the odds that bad things happen, giving enemies of the sport more reason to seek its ban. I would not allow a daughter of mine to play tackle football.

There is something incredibly unseemly, if not downright dystopian, about this scenario. But the sad thing is, it may well play out. Maybe it's a good thing I am relatively old, and probably don't have that much time left. Not sure I want to be around for this.

Yeah, but still at least coach J seems to want to step up the competition. I think he realizes it's necessary if VB is to have a chance against the better 8A teams in the playoffs.

The Jags played hard and have nothing to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, they faltered in the final quarter. It was good to see a local kid, Blake Bortles, have a good game. I was rooting for him to win. I saw Blake play several times in high school as he represented Oviedo, a local school. It was hard to evaluate him as a QB then, as Oviedo was an option team and he probably had as many yards rushing as passing during his high school career. Had he gone to a spread or I Formation school, he would probably have picked up bigger offers than UCF. But in the end, UCF may have been the best thing that happened to him as he got a chance to start and his career blossomed.

Regardless, it's a step in the right direction for the VB program

The above is more and more driven by the fact that high school sports in general, is seen as the "farm" for big college athletics, which serves as the farm for the pros (NFL, NBA, ). But in a sense, this makes us poorer as much of what made high school games fun, the rivalry, the innocent naivete, goes the way of the dodo and we are left with sport as just another career ... monetizing everything sometimes impoverishes us all ...

Complexity is the preserve of the knave. Simplicity, is oft the essence of beauty. On a serious note, though, I am still on the fence regarding the new system. I will give it two more seasons, with adjustments as holes are discovered. If by then, it still has some of the flaws exposed last season, then I would prefer we go back to what we had, but with the elimination of three team districts.

I guess a team like ISB, which schedules powerhouses would be a likely candidate. Not sure whether they play are postseason eligible, though. Hopefully, we move on to a new system or fixes are made to the current one, that prevent a no win team from ever making the playoffs before it happens.

All the more reason to never, ever have three team districts. But with the new system, the inequity is somewhat reduced since only the champ would get a birth automatically.

I am pretty sure of it. BadBird is a good coach and big lover of High School football.

On Florida Varsity.

Really? So both were guaranteed a playoff spot? That is terrible. No team should have an automatic birth in the playoffs.

Why you outing Canes for? Just because Bad Bird outed you?

Exactly. As a fan, I don't want the death or permanent disability of players to be on my conscience. But I do enjoy the game and believe it teaches many important life lessons. My view of football is much the same as Carol Joyce Oats's view of Boxing was when she wrote a book on the sport in the 1980s. There is a lot of ambivalence on my part.

Under the old rules where district champions and runners up only, made the playoffs, it was not possible since Districts had to have at least three teams. Under the new points system, I am not sure whether this is theoretically possible or not. Someone who has looked at the different scenarios would have to tell me. However, I would not be surprised if it could be theoretically possible. But I would have to think it would be extremely unlikely since playoff teams are now decided by region after the district champ spot has been filled. I have a hard time thinking that a no win team could win the 7th or 8th sport in a region.

Proseteye, at the risk of stating the obvious, by its very nature, football, like boxing (there are other sports) is inherently violent. How else can you explain its rules which allows for perpetration of violence on the part of one athlete on another? The question is: can the sport still be enjoyable and still provide benefit to those that watch and play when rules are put in place to reduce the level of violence, thereby mitigating permanent and/or life threatening injury? If the answer is no, and the level of violence is unacceptable due to severe injury to the sport's participants, then it should be banned. It's really as simple as that.