DarterBlue2

8-16 sounds about right. It would remove all the real powerhouse teams while not forcing some very good, but not great teams, into a group with the best of the best where they would have little chance of ever winning it all. 

8-16 sounds about right. It would remove all the real powerhouse teams while not forcing some very good, but not great teams, into a group with the best of the best where they would have little chance of ever winning it all. 

First off, comparing high school athletics to college is an apple to an orange. Colleges are supposed to recruit as they offer scholarships for coming to play for them.  
Secondly, the purpose of school choice was started for academic purposes, so parents can find the best option for their children.  I personally support the concept, but what we see happening with athletics wasn't what school choice was intended for. 
As I stated earlier, I have no problem with a transfer when there is indeed a legitimate move. But what I have observed is certain schools poaching players from neighboring schools through one tactic or another. 

You are correct.  But here's the point that I think is being made.    'Back then' the teams in the metro areas were, in theory, constrained by district boundaries.   A kid could only go to Central if they lived in the Central district (again, in theory).   So, Central's talent pool was limited to the kids who lived in the Central district.   Just like Pahokee's talent pool was limited to the kids who lived in Pahokee's district.   Now, with school choice, and as a practical matter, Pahokee's talent pool (and the talent pool of all the other rural schools) is essentially still limited to the kids who live in that relatively-sparse geographic area.  Contrast that with Central, who now has the ability to legally pull in any kid from Dade County.  Yes, they are competing against other schools, like Northwestern, for that top talent, but recent history seems to suggest that only a small handful of teams are going to end up with the vast majority of the top talent. 
To oversimplify, if one rural high school football team has a thousand kids to pick from (including gamers, trombone players, theater buffs, etc.) and a metro high school football team has a hundred thousand kids to pick from (because district lines really don't matter any more), which team is more likely to end up with a group of thirty talented football players?  Now, it wouldn't surprise me at all if a rural team, like Pahokee, could beat the bottom-feeder teams in the metro area, because all the talented kids from those metro teams ended up at the super-power de jure.  But when it comes time for playoffs, the rural team likely won't stand a chance against the metro power. 
And, yes, there will be exceptions along the way, but for the most part, the numbers won't lie. 

Pahokee is about as rural as it gets yet they were able to compete with anybody in the state for years in the first decade of the 2000's.  People weren't sending their kids from the metro areas to attend that school.
 

Point is you can see we had parity before the current law.  Rural schools aren't scared to play schools from metro areas when there was a level playing field.  
There's this myth that South Florida has always been the dominant area of the state when it comes to football.  That's not exactly true. STA use to get to the championship but typically they'd lose. AHP use to never get past the first round, neither could Cardinal Gibbons.  And other than 2004, I can't remember when Chaminade was all that.  In fact the rise of these programs has been at the expense of other schools down there which are really struggling .

Well, I know that I, for one, can go to bed tonight and rest peacefully knowing that no coaches, assistant coaches, handlers or other representatives of any Florida high school football program will reach out to any of these players or their families to 'discuss their options.'   
 

I agree. Not exactly the best of sportsmanship on that sideline. But, they were a worthy opponent.

Short answer is no. 

Depending on where you are and the organizations involved I would argue some travel programs actually have more integrity and better development then many school teams as often times certain schools and rec leagues have coaches and adults who let their ego get in the way of the development of the athletes because they fear someone being better at the job than they are or they have the "good ole boys" running the show and operate more to protect the interests of a few egomaniacs then the benefit of the kids 

I agree.  Peacock doesn't.  

I think he's trying to set a trap. 
Seriously, my guess is that he's had/having a hard time getting teams to schedule Deland because of their recent success (and likely because teams don't want to play against Darlington-style offenses unless and until they have to).  So, he's taking a page out of playbook of former Georgia coach, Vince Dooley, who was notorious for talking down his team's chances of success.  In short, he's trying to entice potential opponents to catch Deland while they're down, knowing that they're not that down and knowing that they need games. 

I think he is saying this because he doesn’t want to play any good teams. He won 50-3, 60-18 and 70-12. Don’t feel bad for them. They want more of the same 

He's auditioning at Sumner for his real dream to be on the Venice team!

I asked this earlier, but if public schools don't have to be members of the FHSAA or even if they do and decide to go independent, what stops schools from creating their own "state championship" similar to what SIAA has been doing. I know the SIAA has been mostly "small" schools and for the most part schools that can't really compete for state championships and this gives them something to compete for.

I truly believe this is a reaction to the state's meddling in the FHSAA and basically kowtowing to private schools and other favored interests. But please don't think for a second, that small schools aren't recruiting or trying to find ways around the rules. Look to Williston football and basketball, look to Bradford, look to Madison County. 

I have said for years, create a promotion/relegation system that moves good teams up and bad teams down and allows mediocre teams to compete among themselves. Allow the teams that are bent on winning at all costs, compete against each other. It hurts to lose a player you built for 3 years to another school. It hurts twice as hard to have that player line across from you for a district or regional game on the line. 

Technically, I believe he must first be Tampa Gaither's starting QB before Peacock comes calling.

He's auditioning at Sumner for his real dream to be on the Venice team!

So, hear me out on this.   A QB left Polk County to attend a school in the Tampa Bay/Hillsborough County area as a junior.   That means Venice can go after him next year.  

He's going to get some transfers in 

Just kidding. If they are able to attract talent the same way Plant and Armwood did many moons ago then yeah they could emerge as a true title contender. They do need to beef up their schedule or you won’t know much about them till the playoffs. 

Someone left LG and didn't go to Lakeland!?  I'm shocked! 

My issue is that the metro proponents have been whining for 2 years that the enrollment spreads in the Metro classifications were unjustly impacting the fortunes of metro teams.  Now that they have gotten their wish with enrollment-based classification, I am curious as to which teams will see a change in fortune as a result.  My contention is Miami Central will still be Miami Central, and North Miami Beach (for example) will still be North Miami Beach, regardless of classification system.  So what is to be derived from changing the classification system, other than more blowouts in the playoffs?
As to your premise regarding the number of classes in general, I would agree that a playoff system in which more than 50% of the teams in a class make the playoffs suggests there are either too many classes or too many playoff spots awarded within a given class.
 

It's friggin' January. 
You've got the kids who transferred from one school to another prior to the start of this semester.
You've got the kids who will transfer before Spring practice starts. 
You've got the kids who will transfer after Spring practice ends.
You've got the kids who will transfer over the summer because they played 7 on 7 with some kids from some other school. 
You've got the kids who will transfer because somebody somewhere promised to give them or their family something if they switched schools.
In short, it's really hard to predict how good this team or that team is going to be in the fall because no one knows what each school's roster is going to look like come August.  For high school football players, August is a lifetime away. 
But Central and Northwestern will probably both be pretty good.  

And so it begins...
I almost titled this thread "The tragic fall of the Central Rockets", and wrote a post explaining how Dade fans would sell Central out and say they suck now that Lakeland is playing them. But, I thought better of it, figuring y'all wouldn't actually do that. Silly me!