Proseteye

Trinity Catholic over Belleview 27 - 0. Belleview lost ever game last year but do seem to look a little better for this season. The Celtics do have carryover experience from last season's 3 point loss in the Championship game.

Was reviewing their schedule for 2024 on Maxpreps and they don't seem to have any national teams of any real merit. Corner Canyon a Utah team is not really any powerhouse. The only out of state team they play. Cocoa and Venice, although pretty good Florida teams, don't have a prayer against IMG IMO. The rest of the schedule my team Trinity Catholic could either possibly defeat or could hang with. So, do I have the right schedule for the national team IMG Academy that I am looking at? Is there a reason they are playing such a tame bunch of teams this coming season?

Wow, pretty down on IMG a team that went undefeated last season and played some tough games out of state and a couple of the better in state teams. And, they have some of the top players just about every season without even trying. Where do you get that they don't have any fans? Are their stands filled with homeless people every home game? Do you even watch any of their games? IMG doesn't play in the playoffs or championships as per an aggreement with the FHSAA not to. Strange you didn't even know that.

Dillard - I'm not sure that hiring a HS football coach is the same as bringing a student on board the team. I think that any school can hire any football coach that they want any time they want. They can even hire a football coach that is currently coaching at another school. Where did you find that it's illegal?

IMO the FHSAA should simply return to the previous rules that if a student transfers from one school district to another they would be allowed to in accordance with Florida law. However, that student could only transfer for academic reasons and would have to remain out of sports for the first full season of that particular sport. As I understand it, when the Florida Legislature passed the law that allowed students to transfer anywhere and at anytime they had academics in mind. It was a law that allowed students to transfer from a poor performing school academically to a good performing school academically and not for the explicit purpose of playing a game. I wonder if the Florida Legislature fully understands what happens when students are allowed to transfer explicitly for sports and how some of those transfers seriously disturb the natural flow of events with the sports team of those schools. To make matters worse they are now proposing that some high school students, that just happen to be good at playing a game, be paid for their participation. Truly amazing.

I wonder why STA never plays IMG? The two best teams in Florida should play at least once every couple of years. Other Florida teams manage to play the national IMG team with a few that play the various other color IMG teams. Miami Central doesn't seem to have any problem with playing the national team every year.

How do you fix it? You stop high school teams from recruiting. Most of the top football teams have a high rate of transfers in. IMG at least admits that they are a school that recruits the best for all sports. As a result of that they are not eligible for the playoffs and are not really considered a standard high school. With recruiting any HS team can become an artificial powerhouse without ever having much more than a few token players from the district that they are in. HS sports have been turned into mini NFL teams with families that come out to see their son do not much more than bench time or they don't come out at all because he has not even joined the team. Sad state of affairs where it's become more important to pad the egos of a few narcissistic teenagers and their coaches than to build character in all players that have joined the team or the one's that could have joined the team.

Madison and Hawthorne are playing for the championship in 1R. Trinity and Cardinal Mooney are playing for the championship in 1S. I would like to see a final playoff between 1S and 1R. https://www.maxpreps.com/tournament/0rn28S-aEe6A0wqb9tl3hA/vIanMi-bEe6A0wqb9tl3hA/football-23/2023-fhsaa-football-state-championships-1-s.htm

Everybody, except for a few folks, thought that the Celtic's season was over. Some people knew better. With a horrible season, where the Celics won only 3 games (1 of which was a forfeit) they have managed to win 3 straight playoff games, and by big scores. Go up to Tallahassee on Friday morning to play Cardinal Mooney. Celtics defeated last season's 1 S champion First Baptist in Naples this past Friday. First Baptist has one of the best QBs and receiving corp but they couldn't outplay or outscore Trinity. IMO the Celtics played a masterful game with discipline and no self inflicted mistakes and had a total of 3 interceptions off the hands of QB Crossan. The Celtics had 432 total yards of offense. This is not the Celtics' team that I witnessed in the beginning of the season and, if they play as well against the Cougars, they should have a good chance of coming back to Ocala with the champianship.

Trinity played a pretty rough OOD schedule against some championship type higher classification teams. They lost 3 games by 1 or 2 points. Yes, won their district against pathetic opposition. Believe me, they are a much better team than their record indicates. I would not be surprised if they defeated last year's champion First Baptist.

CFCA cancelled like they have for every game over the last two years. Have no idea why Trinity agreed to schedule them. You can't be anymore baffled than I am about that and this strange season.

Unfortunately the season did not go as I thought it would for the Celtics. They have the players and the coaching, where they should have been contenders for possibly a title game, but just can't get the job done. Lost close games to three good teams but got defeated pretty well by a couple of other teams that they should have done better against. That being said they play Bucholtz at home tonight. Bucholtz is undefeated and is in 4S with the Celtics in 1S so the Bobcats would normally have the advantage at anytime. Although I don't expect it, there is a possibility that the Celtics could bring all of that ability together and either give the Bobcats one heck of a game or even defeat them. I have seen them do it before.

OTC @ CCC tonight. Just remember that last season OTC gave CCC it's only defeat until CCC played Chaminade in the championship game and lost in a very competitive game. I believe that both teams are as good or better than last season. I know that the Celtics are a much better unit than they were in 2022 with 3 exceptional QB's two seniors and 1 junior, any one of which could be a starter on most other teams. Think it will be a game worth watching as it looks as though the weather in Clearwater will be dry for the most part.

The Team I support, the Trinity Catholic Celtics, is IMO a team to watch this season. They went down to Key West yesterday, a distance of 470 miles, and defeated Key West in the classic. Given that Key West is not a powerhouse. But, they are a well coached team with skill players and I believe they run a wing T offense that is always difficult to defend against. The Celtic defense had some difficulty against it for the first quarter and a half until thay came up to speed and Key West was then shut down. This Celtic team is very big and very good. They are also a lot quicker than I have seen in the past and seem to have more dedication like the championship teams we used to have. They have 3 excellent QBs 2 Seniors and 1 Junior and quite a few skill players at WR and RB. The speed of these players makes the difference. Considering that their schedule for a 1S team, FSU HS, CCC, Gainesville, Carrollwood Day, Raines, Calvary Christian, St. Xavier (Cincinnati), and Buchholtz, is not a walk in the park. We shall see how it goes but I am more positive this season than I have been in quite sometime including being the runnerup in 1S last season. The smaller classes don't get much play on this forum, unless you are a Pahokee or a Madison, but the Celtics are here and have a young history of getting the job done when it counts. Thanks for listening.

The Celtics did defeat NM and Vanguard a couple of times over the years. Maybe you can ask those 7 teams why they didn't play the Celtics in 2022. Coach Brantley has always tried to play the local public schools. Could be that he offered to play them and they declined. Could be that previous 5A and 6A teams don't want to risk losing to a previous 3A team.