OldSchoolLion

Who knows.  Maybe this bump in the road will cause him to take a another path in life he would not have taken otherwise...and with that, maybe experience a life he never dreamed of.  Life has a funny way of working things out if we have faith.  Bet as he grows up ,this experience will help him to be very thankful for what he has in life.  Anyone who has had to live through "bad news" on the medical front can probably relate. 
 

Who knows.  Maybe this bump in the road will cause him to take a another path in life he would not have taken otherwise...and with that, maybe experience a life he never dreamed of.  Life has a funny way of working things out if we have faith.  Bet as he grows up ,this experience will help him to be very thankful for what he has in life.  Anyone who has had to live through "bad news" on the medical front can probably relate. 
 

Been to quite a number of those games.  Never saw or felt such a tense, charged atmosphere at any other football game, especially the closer you sit to either the corps of cadets or the midshipmen sections.  The energy put out on the field seeps up into the stands like a fast rising tide, sorta like bein engulfed in an approaching firefight without weapons.  All you get is a relentless, no-surrender battle of iron wills till the final whistle.  To see how they honor this game we love by the unique character of their on-field sportsmanship is a very rare occurrence these days.
IMO, this years game was the most exciting I ever saw,  and that goes back to 1959 when a bunch of us runny-nosed local 8-year old's jumped a side gate at the old Municipal Stadium, chased by ushers and the cops only to disappear in the 100K + crowd.  We never thought about how football should be played the same way after seeing that first game.  It was about grown men playin the game right only for the team, leaving your guts on the grass if that's what it took.  You didn't have to be good,  you just had to put all your heart, your focus, and your effort into every minute of each workout, each practice and all games .... even if you were a bench scrub.  It was easy to be happy yet humble in victory,  and without regrets and wiser after a well-fought loss.
Witnessing just one Army-Navy game should be on every diehard fan's bucket list.
BEAT ARMY !!!

Hold on there, Columbia   I lived in Georgia for six years-in central GA and north Atlanta-so I know the programs pretty well.  I found the roster of the Georgia team
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/e36455_3e865ae98c454d70896262990c2b6bd1.pdf
I would say that none of the schools those Georgia kids come from are in the top 25 programs in Georgia-maybe 2 or 3 teams from the top 50.  That Georgia all-star team is the equivalent of taking kids only from southwest Florida and passing it off as a Florida all star-team.
Comparing talent on the south side of Atlanta to that on the north and east sides would be like comparing talent from Naples/Fort Myers versus that in Dade and Broward.  The difference is light years.
I do think some of the Georgia teams do not get the love they deserve in the national polls.  There are a lot of very strong teams there that fly under the radar.
Florida has more depth of individual talent, but should considering we have several large metro areas and Georgia only has 1. With the exception of IMG, Georgia's best schools could give Florida's best schools all they could handle in head-to-head competition.
Where you really see a difference between the two states is in Georgia's small, public schools.  There are a lot of very good ones, whereas FL has relatively few.
We have not seen a huge amount of FL/GA matchups over the years. Here are a few below from this decade.  As you'll see, Georgia teams have done well against FL schools.  This is not an all-inclusive list-might be missing some.  And am only considering some of Georgia's better teams, not all.
 -Cartersville(4A of 7 classes in Georgia)In 2017 beat our 7A finalist Bartram Trail and Cartersville only made it to the second round of their playoffs
-Buford beat Trinity Christian and Melbourne Central Catholic
-Lowndes beat Plant
-Colquitt County beat Plant and lost to AHP
-Tucker-beat Godby and lost to BTW
-Grayson-lost to IMG, beat Deerfield Beach and Miami Central
Marist-beat Godby
-Valdosta beat Lincoln twice
-Camden County-beat numerous FL teams, including Miami Central, lost to Venice
-Stephenson(only a "B-" Georgia team, not bad but not great) -lost to AHP and lost to Miami Central 21-20 in 2014, when Central won a FL state championship
-Brooks County(only a "B-" Georgia team)-split two games with Madison County

...some background on a few teams I believe are overrated-not badly overrated, maybe 5-10 spots too high
#14 Glynn Academy-solid program, but only played one strong team during regular season and lost by 20; lost 31-8 to #32 Benedictine at home and lost to unranked team at home
#17 ELCA-Class A(out of 7 classes) power that plays a very weak schedule; have struggled against average bigger schools in the past
#19 Marietta-never considered a power program-had some "bad" losses this year, ie 49-14 loss to unranked team at home-only one "quality" win
#20 Stockbridge-like Cartersville, a team on the outskirts of Atlanta that always has a good record but plays a weak schedule and does not test itself against the better teams in Atlanta
 
..some background on a couple of teams I think are underrated-maybe 5-8 spots too low
#23 Mill Creek-7A power team; 26-2 record in past 2 seasons, with 2 losses to nationally ranked Grayson and Colquitt in the playoffs; 8-4 record this year is deceiving-2 losses to Archer by a combined 9 points, lost to North Gwinett, beat McEachern  
#25 Tucker-recognized in Georgia as power program for a long time, normally competing for a state title in their class; two losses this year to Colquitt and Coffee 

That's interesting.  I would put them at #20, with the following teams ahead of them.   One could argue they should be higher, but the problem is that year in and year out they do not play anyone great during the regular season.  They are kind of like a Vero Beach-always a great record, but hard to gauge because of the level of competition they play.  They have 10+ good teams in Atlanta they could play, but for whatever reason, they never schedule them.  Marist, McEachern, Milton, Rome and Walton are all within an hour of Cartersville.  
So, until they prove they can beat some of the Top 20 programs, it is hard for me to put them higher.  They got beat by Blessed Trinity in the playoffs this year, a solid team, but not exactly a powerhouse.  There are a handful of teams on the list below that they might be close to in terms of talent, but I would give the other team the edge over them because Cartersville is not battle tested and is a much smaller school than most on the list, with less depth.   
In case some folks are not aware, the records of some of the Atlanta teams can be a bit deceiving.  Like Miami, a number of them play each other during the regular season, so it is very difficult to go undefeated.   Unlike Florida, the big school class in Georgia, 7A, is heads above all of the other classes.  11 on the list below are from 7A.   7A is extremely competitive.  11 of 15 games from the second round to the finals in 7A were decided by 10 points or less.  It's very exciting because when the playoffs start it is not unusual to have 8-10 teams with a legitimate shot of making it to the finals.   
 
.  
 
North Georgia
Archer
Blessed Trinity
Brookwood
Buford
Grayson
Marist
McEachern
Mill Creek
Milton
North Gwinnett
Rome
Tucker
Walton
 
South Georgia
Coffee County
Colquitt County
Lee County
Lowndes
Tift County
Warner Robins

I found some better information.  Dade and Palm Beach are about 18% Black and Broward is 25%.  That is considering all age groups.  But if you just look at high school age kids, Dade and Broward is at 25% and Broward is about 33%.  Nonetheless, the numbers are disproportionate, as you'll see below. 
Not that long ago, a kid might say"I'll never play pro ball, but at least I have a shot in college."  Then kids said, "I'll never play in college, but at least I can play in high school."  Now some kids are probably giving up on high school football.  Football is no longer a game for the "average kid," especially in talent hotbeds like Florida and California. 
I could see "average kids" looking at all of the superstar talent that is in our faces all the time on ESPN and recruiting websites, and saying "no thanks, I'll take up golf."   And when those "average" kids are not playing, the parents lose interest in the game, and the audience for hs football becomes much narrower. 
High school football has become a freak show(in terms of talent levels and body dimensions relative to the "average" American kid).  That's great for hardcore fans, but not necessarily great if the game wants to attract mainstream America.  Just as some folks lost interest in basketball because they could not relate to 6'9" point guards, I can see that happening with high school football.  I just looked at the Top 100 recruits in several defensive positions which, in the past, were possible options for shorter, smaller players.  
Top 100 Cornerbacks-1 White who is 6'1" tall
Top 100 Safeties-4 White (only 1 under 6' tall)
Top Outside LB's-15 White (none under 6'1")
Top 100 Inside LB's-27 White (only 1 under 6' tall)
As a 5'9" slow,White kid in Dade or Broward county with average talent, my chances of starting on defense on one of the better high school teams are likely pretty slim.  In this sense, football is becoming a very specialized sport.  
 

If the judicial system was more lenient in terms of providing options enabling a kid to keep or earn a "clean record," but actually set meaningful goals as to what needed to be accomplished, and were held accountable to meeting them, that would probably go a long way. I grew up in a Jamaican hood. Some of my friends did wrong and met an early death or were long term incarcerated. These were individuals that I knew very well and I can honestly tell you that on a personal level many were not "bad people." (Of course some were.) But their circumstances were bad and they had no proper guidance/role models to curb their stupid tenancies. 
I was lucky in two senses. First, my mother owned a small business and made sure I busted my butt in it after school (kept me off the streets). Second, I was a "bright boy" and was able to earn a scholarship to high school (back in those days only about 1/6 of Jamaican kids benefited from a high school education, as it was determined by a competitive examination at age 11/12). 
Had it not been for those two things, I don't want to speculate as to what would have become of my life. So while I condemn what those two 18 year old's' did on some level I understand and don't roundly condemn them as individuals. There are a lot of young people that are born into circumstances that are not conducive to development into normal, healthy adults. 

..getting off topic here, but....  
We hear a lot about unemployment metrics, but we don't hear as much about this in the chart below.  Who cares how many people are working if they cannot live off of the wages.
On another note, I have a friend who manages a food processing facility with 1200 employees.  Nearly everyone who works in the factory is an immigrant.  He is so desperate for workers, he is paying to fly people there from Puerto Rico and put them up in hotels with a per diem, just so he can keep his lines running.  The workers make well over minimum wage and get excellent benefits.  Could be a great summertime job for a kid.  He said he has only a handful of "Americans" working there and has had little luck getting any of the "natives" to work there.  All of the factories in that area have the same problem.  I  was involved with manufacturing sites in 3 different states and saw the same thing.  
I know I am generalizing, but the kids do not want to work in factories.  It's ironic, but even if we "bring jobs back," we are increasingly lacking people with the skills and desire to work in them.   We need to go back to exposing kids to "blue collar" careers and stop the ridiculous "college or nothing" mentality to which we have evolved.
 
 

A critical aspect of martial arts is control.  A famous instructor actually had his students do drills in which they practiced the ability to "flip the switch," one second being in "fight" mode and then quickly transitioning to a calm state. 
Police dogs are no different.  Ever notice how they can "flip the switch" and go from "attack" to "passive" mode on command?   They practice that a lot, and obviously it is pretty important for the dog to listen when his master calls him off.
When I see something like this video, I see an utter lack of control on multiple fronts.  When people bring me "bad" dogs to train, I tell them that many, if not most, behavioral problems are an "owner" issue.  The "owners" in this case are the parents and coaches. 
Guaranteed, this is not the first time such overly aggressive behavior has been exhibited, and it was not nipped in the bud.  We train for aggression in football.  Just as much training needs to be put into discipline and restraint.  Isn't it ironic that the "teachers" of these kids on the field often show utter lack of restraint?  ..and we expect the kids to act differently.
 
 

...the dynasties in Florida football-Bolles, Aquinas, Lakeland, Armwood, Manatee....  What do they have in common?  ...one thing for sure, and that is a coach who was there for a LONG time building up the program.  And, in most cases, it took them a while before they were winning state championships.
Look outside the state at programs like Mater Dei, Don Bosco, De La Salle...again, legendary coaches with long tenures.
I believe this is one reason private schools sometimes have an edge.  The "family" feel at these places often enables them to retain coaches who feel a great investment in the school, far beyond just a job.  In some cases, it is like a vocation.  And these coaches are masters at emphasizing the fundamentals.  How many times have we seen a much more talented team get absolutely dismantled by a smaller opponent who plays very disciplined football, ie Dematha beating Central in 2015 and St Joseph beating Deerfield Beach this year.  
Unfortunately, in today's world of "win all or nothing" and instant gratification, with players and coaches moving much more frequently, I think we will see less of these great dynastiessustained.   
 

It's almost a joke at how bad the coaching is in the state. You look at the caliber of players and you think to yourself "wow, if only they were getting coached up" I know I say that all the time when traveling to different games on Friday nights. Being a retired coach from a different state, it's hard to watch. Almost makes me want to get back into it to see what could happen. 

"Since we were always in different classes, Coach Rogers would not play anyone under [what class Bolles was in],” Belger said. “It wasn’t because we were afraid to play, look at who we’ve played over the years. It’s just he wasn’t going to play anyone smaller."
This is the exact same reasoning I heard when St Thomas would not play Chaminade back in the early 2000's, when both were probably amongst the top 10-15 programs in the state, regardless of classification.  I guess the thought is, "If we win, folks will say we were expected to win, but if we lose, we are over-rated."  
It's not like losing would have cost Coach Smith or Coach Rogers a trip to the playoffs.  And I hardly think either's job would have been in jeopardy with such a loss.
Remember what happened around 20 years ago?   ...the internet exploded, Beef O'Brady's football bowl....  We went from state classification rankings showing up once per week in small print on the back of the sports page to "all classification" rankings front and center on the internet.  We went from obscurely referenced mythical national champions at the end of the season to weekly national rankings.
So, we are going to deny our local communities and players the joy and excitement of fantastic high school football games because... we are afraid we might drop in the rankings?  I'd bet the farm that players on these teams would have chomped at the bit to play each other.  And I am convinced it is this kind of stuff that keeps some of those on the fence about our game from becoming more dedicated fans and that allows the game's critics to claim we have lost perspective. 
If there is anything more to this stuff than ego, I have an open mind and will take my crow extra crispy, please.  30 years ago, I never remember hearing coaches worrying about "playing down" as long as the competition was solid.    
    

Data below came from Maxpreps.  Check out Texas.  One has to wonder if this is a reflection of kids not feeling a need to seek out private schools for better coaching, resources, exposure, etc.  California has 5 Catholic schools in the Top 100, Ohio has 4, and Florida has 2.   Interestingly, Texas has a large Catholic population(much larger than Ohio and Florida) and a large number of Catholic schools, yet none of them them show up on the list, and there is only 1 private school from Texas on the list.  Likewise, the biggest talent in Texas is coming from the public schools.  As I have mentioned in other posts, Texas citizens pay big property taxes to support the public schools, so maybe they feel more invested.  And I probably wouldn't being going out on a limb saying that community support in Texas, as a whole, blows away Florida.     
 
  Florida Georgia Alabama S Carolina Arkansas Texas Ohio California TOTALS All-Americans/Private 9 1 0 0 0 1 0 7 18 All-Americans/Public 2 4 1 2 0 6 1 8 24 Top 100 schools/Private 4 1 0 0 1 1 4 6 17 Top 100 schools/Public 6 6 3 3 3 13 6 13 53

Another area is North Central Florida (Ocala to the Gulf, North to Lake City to where ever you want to stop Tallahassee)...
1978-Dunnellon 1979-Dunnellon 1980-Gainesville 1981-Palatka 1982-Lafayette (Mayo) 1983-Palatka (runner-up) 1985-Bradford (runner-up) 1987-Suwannee 1988-Suwannee 1988-Williston (runner-up) 1989-Suwannee 1990-Buchholz 1990-Suwannee 1991-Santa Fe 1992-Newberry (runner-up) 1994-Santa Fe 1994-Vanguard (runner-up) 1994-Union County 1995-Union County 1996-Union County 1997-Chiefland 1997-Columbia (runner-up) 1997-Taylor County (Perry) 23 representatives in a 20 year period. 17 state championships, 6 runner-ups
1998-Madison County (runner-up) 1999-Suwannee (runner-up) 2001-Madison County 2003-Madison County (runner-up) 2004-Union County (runner-up) 2005-Trinity Catholic 2006-Trinity Catholic (runner-up) 2007-Madison County 2008-Newberry (runner-up) 2010-Trinity Catholic 2011-Madison County (runner-up) 2012-Trenton (runner-up) 2012-Gainesville (runner-up) 2012-Madison County (runner-up) 2013-Trenton  2014-Hamilton County (runner-up) 2015-Trenton 2017-Madison County 18 representatives in a 20 year period and 5 of them coming from the new 1A rural classification where half the teams are in the North Central Florida area. 7 state championships with 11 runner-ups and Madison County and Trinity Catholic having 5 of the state titles.

Part of the biggest reasons why is the growth of Florida in weird and different ways. If you look at Orlando, Palm Beach, Broward, and Tampa these areas have large growth but the transients didn't join football in large numbers. As a result different attitudes relating to football, no history, no tradition, no joining of youth leagues, no coaching connections to the communities, because there isn't a community to connect to. 


 

When Bolles won the 2A state title in 2002, they went down to play Chaminade in south Florida during the regular season and lost in a game that came down to a 2-point conversion at the end.   The two teams met again in the state finals, which Bolles won 6-0.  For a while(maybe still), it was the only state championship game in which no touchdown was scored.  Future pro bowler Jon Beason played in those games.
I think the regular season game actually added some intrigue to the state finals, ie chance for revenge.  Am sure Coach Rogers knew there was a good chance they would meet in the finals, so it was a gutsy move to schedule the regular season game.  

You are right!  So, statement should have read ...
Florida schools were 6-14 in those games, and were outscored 483-283.  On average, out-of-state teams scored 24 points, versus 14 points scored by Florida schools.
The error didn't have an effect on the average points per game or the overall trend.  
 
If we look further back in time than what I did above, Central has gone 8-2 versus out-of-state opponents.   That's an amazing feat to travel and win games like these, including a few blowout victories against solid programs. 
Dematha(MD) 14-38
Hoover(AL) 24-21
Stephenson(GA) 21-20
Don Bosco(NJ) 50-21
Grayson(GA) 3-35
Elder(OH) 24-21
Camden County(GA) 42-45
Madison(TX) 48-6
Prattville(AL) 49-28

You got your score mixed up.  Miami Central beat BG this year 24-20

That might explain why so much talent goes to the private schools in Jacksonville, ie searching for good coaching/structure and a program where they can get recognized.  I have always thought it odd that in the Jacksonville area, the private schools get the press in football and in Dade County it's the opposite, with public schools having the vast majority of the success.

Bc Jacksonville is a administration and coaching train wreck 
 
The administration at those schools don't know how to operate a football team and from what i hear the coaches even let star players skip practice bc they don't want to risk players transferring 
 
No discipline or authority at some those schools and results speak for themselves 
 
The few schools who actually have coaching (Trinity, bolles,  raines) win championships 

I see the confusion now.  When I made the following statement, I was considering just the cities themselves, and not all of Duval or Dade County.
"Jacksonville has always been an enigma for me.  Like Miami, it 's a huge area with a huge population, including a significant amount of inner city kids."
So, I wasn't even thinking of schools like Southridge, Central, Killian, South Dade and Norland, who are not within Miami city limits. I was thinking of Northwestern and Booker T Washington.   Going back to my initial point, how has Miami been able to take a bunch of inner city kids in public schools and create a couple of national powerhouses, but Jacksonville has not?

Port St Joe has 4 state titles  '71, '84, "05, "14.

A slight correction. Apopka has won three state titles: 2001 vs Northwestern, 2012 vs Cypress Bay and 2014 vs Columbus.
 So one Orlando area big school should be on your list above. 

I think you'll find this very interesting and would like your opinions of the questions I developed based on the data.  Below is a breakdown of all schools in Florida that have won 3 or more state titles.
Questions
What happened to the Tallahassee schools-no state titles since 2012?
Pensacola schools were always represented well in the state finals of the larger classes in  the 1970's, 80's and 90''s.  All of the following schools made appearances during that time: Pine Forest, Rutherford, Washington, Fort Walton Beach, Escambia, Woodham, Tate, Niceville, Choctawhatchee, Bay, Milton, Mosley.  Between 1980-1991, 10 of 24 4A and 5A titles were won by Pensacola area schools.  Since 2000, Pensacola schools have been represented in the larger school finals only a handful of times, and only Pensacola High has won a championship(2009).  What happened?
None of the Jacksonville public schools are on the list.  Does their talent get diluted by the private school powerhouses there?  Other reasons why they have had limited success?
None of the larger schools in Orlando are represented on the list.  Other than running into the south Florida powerhouses in the playoffs, any reason why?
There are a number of mature, private school programs in the Tampa area. Recognizing they have access to a rich talent pool and a potential advantage over public schools, why are they not represented?
In the 1980's and 1990's, the Sarasota/Bradenton area was a hotbed of high school football (Manatee, Southeast, Riverview) and most years 1 or 2 of those teams were playing for a state championship in the bigger classes.  The success tailed off in the late 1990's. What happened?
Over the years, Polk County has produced many strong teams that often made deep runs in to the playoffs (Bartow, Fort Meade,  Kathleen, Lakeland, Lake Gibson). There has been a noticeable tapering off of success this decade.  What happened?
 
BIG SCHOOLS
Breakdown:
South-37
Central-21
North-14
Public-58
Private-14
 
Schools/# of state titles:
St Thomas Aquinas-10
Lakeland-6
Manatee-5
Miami Central-5
Carol City-5
Northwestern-5
American Heritage (Plantation)-4
Plant-4
Coral Gables-4
Godby-4
Suwanee-4
Miami Central-4
Bartow-3
Lincoln-3
Pine Forest-3
Merritt Island-3
 
 
SMALL SCHOOLS
Breakdown:
South-37
Central-7
North-34
Public-48
Private-40
 
Schools/# of state titles:
Bolles-11
University Christian-9
Trinity Christian-7
Pahokee-7
Glades Day-7
Glades Central-6
Jefferson County-6
Booker T Washington-5
Cocoa-4
FAMU-4
Baker-4
Chaminade-Madonna-3
American Heritage (Delray)-3
Frostproof-3
Blountstown-3
Port St Joe-3
Union County-3
 

When Bolles won the 2A state title in 2002, they went down to play Chaminade in south Florida during the regular season and lost in a game that came down to a 2-point conversion at the end.   The two teams met again in the state finals, which Bolles won 6-0.  For a while(maybe still), it was the only state championship game in which no touchdown was scored.  Future pro bowler Jon Beason played in those games.
I think the regular season game actually added some intrigue to the state finals, ie chance for revenge.  Am sure Coach Rogers knew there was a good chance they would meet in the finals, so it was a gutsy move to schedule the regular season game.