OldSchoolLion

Before the Miami Dolphins existed and before the Miami Hurricanes were chasing national titles, Miami High was the city's first true football dynasty. The Stingarees were one of three city high schools, along with Miami Edison and Miami Jackson, to use the Orange Bowl as its home field when the stadium opened in 1937.
From 1929 to 1965, Miami High won countless state titles and were crowned mythical national champions in 1942, 1943, 1960 and 1965. In their heyday, the Stingarees drew huge crowds of 30,000 to 40,000 fans in the big rivalry games against against Edison, Jackson and Coral Gables. Between 1925 and 1951, Miami High never lost a game to a Miami-Dade County school.
By the late 1960s, Miami High had gone from an all-white high school in segregated Miami to a predominantly hispanic student body, many of whom did not grow up with American football.  The program started to decline after 1965.  The Coral Gables teams of Nick Kotys became the top national power.
Miami High played Coral Gables on November 11th, 1965 for the right to play in the state final.  Coral Gables was ranked first and Miami was ranked second in the state. Coral Gables High was the two time defending state champions and was riding a 28-game win streak. Miami High ended the streak with a 14 – 7 victory.  The attendance in the Orange Bowl that evening was a state record for a high school football game. The estimates were anywhere between 47,000 – 50,000 people. It has been said that Joe Robbie pointed to the attendance at this game to help justify bringing an AFL team to play at the Orange Bowl in Miami. The Dolphins were awarded to Miami and played their inaugural season in 1966.
Miami High, who wore midnight blue uniforms back then, played Melbourne High in the Orange Bowl for the 1965 2A title.  Highlights of the game, won by the Stingarees under head coach Bobby Carlton, are below.  Melbourne High, returned to south Florida the following year and defeated Fort Lauderdale High to win the 2A title.     
 
 

2018 Nominees from Florida
Carl Jackson-Alabama St--OL(All-SWAC First Team)     Graduated from Miami Jackson
James Gardner-Miami University(OH)-WR(All-MAC First Team and Team MVP)     Graduated from Fort Lauderdale High
Frederick Jones-Florida St-DT(ACC Academic Honor Roll)     Graduated from Miami Central
 
The Allstate AFCA Good Works Team has been one of the most esteemed honors in college football for more than 25 years. The student-athletes who are nominated for this award not only demonstrate a unique dedication to community service and desire to make a positive impact on the lives around them, but they also show tremendous perseverance as well as the ability to overcome personal struggles and come out victorious against all odds.  

The college football players who have been nominated make it a priority to find time in their busy schedules to volunteer in meaningful ways. Of the nominees, many players dedicate time to reading, mentoring and playing sports with disadvantaged children when they are not in the classroom or on the field. Other players make frequent visits to hospitals to spend one-on-one time with ill patients. One student-athlete even went as far as donating bone marrow in order to save the life of a child in need.
 

The team being described below was Dixie County, and they came to PAL field in Plantation and beat a 9-2-1 St Thomas Aquinas team in the 1971 2A state semis 24-6.  Below is what the scouts had to say.
“They have a couple of big backs, 6-foot-2, 210-pounders.  Along the line they go 190, 190, 170, 180, and 185, which is pretty good size.  The ends are both about 185.  They are just a big ball club that comes at you.  They run most of the time."
Can you imagine beating St Thomas at home now with a line that averaged about 185 pounds!  Cross City's defense really won that game, intercepting 7 Aquinas passes. 
It is a bit scary though.  We have not evolved that quickly.  Some of our young lineman are grossly overweight.  No problem until after the football career is over...then it's time to pay the piper.   
 
 

The following teams have not played in at least one state final over the past 25 years: IMG, Melbourne CC, Yulee, and Coconut Creek.  I believe all of the other Florida teams listed above have.  I don't call a team good enough to make a state final "garbage."  ....nor do I call a team with one of the greatest hs rb's of all time "garbage."  
The intent of the exercise was to include "good" teams...not just great ones.... so that we could have a substantial data set.  One could easily say that some of the Georgia teams listed above were not amongst their state's best either.  Note that some of the Georgia teams even had losing records, but I still considered them reasonably good programs from a historical perspective.
The intent was not to demonstrate  which state is better.  Even though Georgia has won more games, it does not mean Georgia football is better than FL football.  The data does clearly demonstrate that both states are competitive when their teams compete.  The bottom line is that there have been relatively few games played over the past 15 years between the best of Georgia and the best of Florida. 
And concerning those "garbage" teams from I-10...they are the ones who helped bring prominence to Florida when national polls started getting serious attention back in the 1980's.  Those "garbage" teams were clearly ahead of south and central Florida teams in the playoffs back then.  It is now south Florida's time in the sun, but that is no reason to disrespect the part of the state that arguably produced more coaching legends that any other.   As you can probably tell, I don't like the word "garbage," especially when referring to teams...made up of kids and coaches who work their butts off.  

Jack Daniels 
Dwyer

Maxpreps has released their "official" preseason top 25 in Florida for all classes this morning. It still lists Oxbridge Academy as #11 in the state. As we know Oxbridge will not be fielding a team in 2018. Essentially, everybody below Oxbridge will move up 1 spot- so I've included Rockledge who was ranked #26 since they will be the new #25.   1 IMG Academy 2 St. Thomas Aquinas 3 Cardinal Gibbons 4 Wekiva 5 Chaminade-Madonna 6 Deerfield Beach 7 Northwestern 8 Venice 9 American Heritage (Plantation) 10 Miami Central 11 Oxbridge Academy** (Will not be fielding a team in 2018) 12 Immokalee 13 Braden River (Bradenton) 14 Carol City 15 Armwood 16 Columbus (Miami) 17 Trinity Christian Academy 18 Bartram Trail 19 Plant 20 Vero Beach 21 Dr. Phillips 22 Cocoa 23 South Dade 24 Apopka 25 Clearwater Central Catholic 26 Rockledge   To me- this is a pretty solid list for a preseason top 25 even if it's mostly pulling information from 2017 to populate these results. I haven't listed the teams by class, but it looks like there is a healthy spread except for 1A and 2A. All other classifications are accounted for.   As always, this is just message board fodder/rankings to discuss.   They've also posted their classification rankings.

 

Thought you might find this interesting

The team being described below was Dixie County, and they came to PAL field in Plantation and beat a 9-2-1 St Thomas Aquinas team in the 1971 2A state semis 24-6.  Below is what the scouts had to say.
“They have a couple of big backs, 6-foot-2, 210-pounders.  Along the line they go 190, 190, 170, 180, and 185, which is pretty good size.  The ends are both about 185.  They are just a big ball club that comes at you.  They run most of the time."
Can you imagine beating St Thomas at home now with a line that averaged about 185 pounds!  Cross City's defense really won that game, intercepting 7 Aquinas passes. 
It is a bit scary though.  We have not evolved that quickly.  Some of our young lineman are grossly overweight.  No problem until after the football career is over...then it's time to pay the piper.   
 
 

Your coaching staff has a lot of balls taking this game. Hope Columbia holds its own. I will keep my fingers crossed.

You keep playing them because its tradition; its a rivalry; its something the fans, alums, and both communities look forward to.  Besides, these things come and go in cycles.  Hardee plays DeSoto for the same reasons just given.  Many regard DeSoto as a pushover but there was a time when they were a very strong program.  

I'm not perfect and yeah i do jump to conclusions 
 
I look at trends to fill in gaps when I don't know the inside workings of a team but if there is evidence to the contrary I'm willing to learn 
 
Unfortunately without inside intel anything discussed involving scheduling is speculative at best
 
That is something i have failed in regard before of jumping the gun and leading with emotion prior to having all the facts at my disposal 

The bigger point is that you seem to assume other states do not play as many OOS games as Florida because they are not as confident or bold.  You obviously don't appreciate people making assumptions about Columbia...and you offer lots of reasons why they do/do not do certain things.  Yet, at times, you do not hesitate to draw conclusions and judge others without having all of the facts.  If you spent as much time genuinely listening and understanding as you do defending, you would be a genius.  I have failed in that arena myself, at times.      
 

Here we go Moral Victories already.  Now we are going to have to hear all year how Columbia only lost by 24 or how it was close until late or how they scored.  Remember it's a KOC so either way it doesn't matter unless you get killed then we can laugh at you.   

...interesting point.  IMO, Florida's "average" or "good" teams are not necessarily better than such programs of similar school size in other states in the South.   I saw it with my own eyes.
For instance, Northside in central Georgia was #41(Maxpreps) in Georgia last year.  In Florida, they would be a 6A school.  Naples was the #40(Maxpreps) school in Florida last year and in 6A.  Knowing the history of Northside's program, they would likely give Naples everything they wanted and then some.   
Dr Phillips is traveling to play Lee County GA this season.  Lee County would be in 5A if they were in FL and they are a good/very program historically.  Except for AHP, they likely could have played with any FL team in 5A last year.
Florida's elite have a mystique about them, and deservedly so.  I sometimes sense this mystique is attributed to lesser FL programs, ie they could dominate an OOS team simply because they are from Florida.  Let's face it, if IMG, STA, AHP, Gibbons and Chaminade fell off the face of the earth today, Florida would not be nearly as special on a national scale. 
Many states in the South do not have big schools like Florida.  Clay-Chalkville is one of the better programs in Alabama .  To compare them versus one of our 8A powers is not fair because they would be a 4A school in Florida.  
I am not knocking our programs!  I am simply stating that there are lots of good/very good teams in other Southern states that could compete well in the appropriate classes in Florida, if not win.  
 

Scott Klees is the coach at Wakulla.  He has done a great job.

Damn, excuse my reading comprehension. I missed the word CURRENT 

Damn OldSchool, I was afraid you'd get me. I remember Lakeland, but mistakenly thought we beat them, although I wasn't there. Also thought Osceola was twice. I did attend all the playoff losses from '99 -'17. My union seniority finally rewarded me with Friday night's off and the rest is (clouded) history  

J.D. Jones -wakulla
Jarrod Hickman- Florida High
Chuck Dickinson- Keystone Heights

In Maxpreps' recent Preseason 100 poll, only 4 schools were from rural areas clearly outside major metropolitan areas...Longview(TX), Rome(GA), Colquitt County(GA), and Muskegon(MI)
In ColumbiaFan's recent Florida preseason poll, 6 of the 50 schools were from rural areas(my definition of "rural" is subjective).  Madison County, Crestview, Niceville, Columbia, Immokalee, Pahokee
In years past, one would see more rural schools in the rankings.  Any opinions what is happening?  Are rural areas not getting the love they deserve in the polls?  Are rural programs declining due to waning interest in "country" areas?  Are metro areas better able to leverage transfers?      
 
 

Lafayette - Pearson?

TC Verlon Dormiley
BT Darrell Sutherland
Niceville John Hicks
First Coast Marty Lee

...I've already got a visual

Some coaches seem to like to build a program as much as winning a championship.  Charlie Tate at Winter Haven is one of them.  Before he got there, Winter Haven was a losing program.  Before that Charlie Tate was at Mosley High, another program he developed into a winner, as well as a brief stint at Bartow in the late 80's/early 90s, and Arcadia DeSoto in the 1980's.  
Interestingly, Charlie Tate's brother Richard has done the same at Ridge Community High. Richard was Ridge's first coach and after 2 years at George Jenkins, he went back to Ridge.  Before Ridge, Richard Tate turned Lakeland Kathleen into a winning program.  

ColumbiaFan....I am pretty sure this whole affair at Disney is about making money and the sponsors could care less who played as long they made money.  You are looking at this from a hardcore fan-of-the-game perspective.  Our opinion does not matter any more!  It is all about commercialization.  Get used to it.  I do not see things getting any better.  
 

holy cow..if you did that, why didn't ya'll just schedule the Jaguars instead.