skyway
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Posts posted by skyway
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2 hours ago, Ray Icaza said:
I am sure there are others but Lakeland is the 3rd regular season game on 9/16 at Bryant Denny, so looking forward to that matchup. This is just my preseason analysis of our team with official practices beginning Monday which should slow down the transfer carousel for most teams which gives a pretty clear picture of your own personnel.
The potential of Lakeland and Osceola playing each other twice brings back some memories, some good, some not so much!
Recent experiences informs that we won't have any clue what the rosters will look like until everyone is accounted for Monday afternoon. Still noticing some movement on Twitter, hudl etc. It is the wild west!
- KeemD321, VeniceIndianFan and Jesse
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12 hours ago, Ray Icaza said:
Tonight, these three KOWBOYS made verbal commitments to the schools of their choice. Only surprise was John Walker as I thought he was leaning heavily to OSU Buckeyes or Gators but ended up selecting UCF which is a tremendous get for them as he is rated one of the top 10 DL in the country. Ja'Keem Jackson DB went with Gators over Alabama and Georgia while Derrick LeBlanc DE went with Oklahoma Sooners over Florida and Penn State. Last week it was Bo Mascoe DB selecting Rutgers and LaCory Walker DB seems to be down to Ole Miss, Louisville, Iowa State and a couple of others. With all of them in fold starting practices in earnest on Monday on the defensive side, things look very promising for the upcoming season. In addition, several more players have gotten offers but will wait as they expect those to increase.
Lots of good ballplayers for the Kowboys!
I'm finishing up watching last season's Youtube documentary now. It's interesting to see the coaches be very aware of the disparity that existed between that team's offense and defense. The "self-esteeem" of the defense was much higher than that of the offense. I guess the young OL had a lot to do with that?
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To remind everyone of some of the rules pinned at the top of the board:
"4. No posting foul language.
5. No posting anything that could fall under privacy issues such as maters involving any players. Due to so many broad laws in Florida we have to approach this topic very carefully. We understand when another source reports it, but that is a risk associated on their end that we cannot control.6. No talking politics at all on the forums unless it is placed under the Off Topic Board. If you post in a thread that is one subject and then you start talking politics, it will be locked and/or deleted, no questions asked by the administrators or board mods. The only exception to this rule will be if talking politics relates to something going on with high school football or high school sports in general -- like a bill that is being heard or passed in a state, for example.
7. No posting anything that is not fit to be read by a minor. We have many minors who view this board and do not want posts being created promoting strip clubs, drugs and anything else that can fall under this category.
8. No posting in all caps. Using all caps is fine in moderation, but not an entire post or reply. Using all caps comes off as yelling in the internet world and is considered rude by many people. Please keep this in mind as you post.
9. No attacking other board members. We all have our own opinions and have the right to exercise that opinion."
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7 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
Funny how now Lakeland is the one who got all the transfers
Any Lakeland fan at this point that says anything about any other school getting a transfer is a complete fraud and hypocrite
What's interesting is how you can flagrantly violate several rules of this board, as highlighted in a pinned thread at the top of this board, and not be removed. Proof, it seems, that @Joshua Wilson is no longer with us here.
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1 hour ago, cribboy305 said:
I believe so also, seems all the privates thats tried to get into the picture are fading away in miami. I wonder why
By now, you should realize Columbiafan ALWAYS gets the last word. Probably best, after he responds to this comment, to let him have another last word and just move on from the board.
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I don't recommend anyone drive a long way for an August game in Florida. The threat of lightning cancelling the game is significant.
- DarterBlue2 and Jullian
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5 hours ago, Perspective said:
Nole, if you can pull away from your squabble with ColumbiaFan for just a few minutes, I'd like to ask you a question: What do you mean when you way "football is better" in one place versus another?
Are the players better? Are the coaches better? Are the offensive and defensive schemes more sophisticated?
Or is this all just a product of population? Is football better in South Florida because there's three million (or whatever the number is) kids all within a specific geographic area and, therefore, the number of kids in the top 1% of kids playing football is going to be so much higher than the top 1% of kids playing football in, say, Alachua County? Or is the talent disproportionate?
Let's say, for example, that for every 10,000 high school football players, on average you get two 5-stars, five 4-stars, twenty 3-stars and a hundred 2- and 1-star players. If County A has 10,000 players and County D has 50,000 players, you would expect there to be five times as many 5-star players, five times as many 4-star players, etc. If the kids are sparead out somewhat evenly within the schools located in each county, the teams would be relatively equal in terms of top-tier talent. However, if within a particular county (say Dade) there is a disproportionate distribution of talent, and a disproportionate number of top-tier players go to a small handful of schools (say, Miami Central, Northwestern and Booker T., just to pick three at random), won't those schools have a decided advantage over all other schools?
It seems to me that it is the concentration of talent at a handful of schools that makes the "football better." The folks down in South Florida got a jump on school choice; as a result, the concentration of talent within a small number of schools will inevitably make those schools better. Is that what you mean by "footballs better" in South Florida than other parts of the state?
I agree with you. That's why I cited historical results, when Dade and Broward teams were regularly beaten by teams from other parts of the state. There have always been great players there; there haven't always been such dominant teams.
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1 hour ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
Then why would you possibly want them to share a classification if the classification by enrollment IS SUPPOSED TO PUT TEAMS OF BALANCE TOGETHER BECAUSE ENROLLMENT WAS DEEMED TO BE A WAY TO SEPARATE TEAMS TO MAINTAIN A COMPETITIVE BALANCE!!!
and who the hell is fact checker? Is that a new persona you have on one of those other national boards
Fact Checker is YOUR other persona on the prepgridiron board. Perhaps you wanted to be incognito, having left previously to wash Shyster Joe's balls on his board.
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1 hour ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
There most certainly would
You can't guarantee that a team like Pine Forest couldn't win the north region then have to play Miami Central
In the old system (the one you want back) that could have easily had happened
Hell if Buchholz had not ended up facing STA who's to say they don't make the finals
I'll try one more time to point out that you're mostly just concerned with a couple of "super" teams. Central and STA are responsible for probably 90% of the blowouts you dislike. And it could be argued that most of those wouldn't have happened with consolidation of classes: Why should STA and Central NEVER face off in the playoffs? One could argue the system was a bit rigged to produce the maximum number of state champs from Dade and Broward with the way most of the best teams were in their own classes. (Coming from someone who also hates "metro" and "suburban" classes.)
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3 hours ago, nolebull813 said:
The thing that is most funny to me is enrollment is used in every state in the country to classify teams, and was used in Florida the last 60 years, but the second it starts to benefit the teams that just started gaining success the last decade or so NOW all of a sudden it’s an outdated format???
And the lies and excuses made up to create the metro/suburban split are squashed when plenty of “suburban” teams have enjoyed much success against their metro counterparts recently.
Armwood lost in the finals like 5 years in a row to a Miami team. You can’t blame transfers. Armwood was stocked and ready.
I’ll tell you why and it’s not a secret. Miami football is better overall than Hillsborough.
when ColumbiaClown aka Factchecker says “was AHP vs Baker County and STA vs Buchholz good”? No they weren’t good, but that’s because football is better in Broward than freaking Gainesville and Macclenny. Has nothing to do with transfers. The football is just better. That’s the reason.
Have to push back some here. Obviously, there are considerably more good players in Miami than in Gainesville (or any other city in the state). But, this doesn't necessarily explain the results in state playoff games. Historically, there have ALWAYS been a ton of great players from Miami/Dade. However, they haven't always been dominant in state playoffs. We can go back in time and find MANY examples of teams from many other parts of the state knocking off Dade and Broward in the playoffs. The last 10-15 years has seen a major shift. And that's due to the completely wide open, unchecked recruiting and transferring of players, which has reached levels not at all resembling the way things were pre- about 2007.
South Florida seems to be a more chaotic scene, with so many schools and players and not much oversight. The other areas of the state are not as wild, though it looks like Polk county is getting there. When there is little player movement, meaning not more than 1-2 transfers a season, EVERYWHERE, that is more like about 1995 and then we didn't have the Dade dominance and blowouts like we have now. That's because all of the amazing players in Dade were spread much more thinly across a bunch of schools. Then, you had many good teams but not necessarily any great teams.
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3 hours ago, nolebull813 said:
The word “transfer” doesn’t mean “better”
Not all transfers are created equal. If Columbia got 12 transfers from Ft White, Interlachen, Bell and Branford that’s not gonna make them better.
So to keep using the word transfer as some naughty word that only applies to the 4 and 5 stars is asinine. And there is only so many to go around.
This is true. Transfers and out of state games are two highly overrated things now. Both are often automatically assumed to be upgrades. Often, neither really are that.
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15 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
Well I could definitely make an argument that I would have done the metro/suburban split a bit different but it's still a step in the right direction
What nobody on this board or in the state has been able to give a competent argument for is how in the previous system would we ever have seen state title games become more competitive when the FHSAA HAS NO WAY TO CONTROL TRANSFERS
Again if anyone wants to give me a case go right ahead but I bet right now there isn't a person on this board who can justify how any playoff system was gonna fix that issue and how student enrollment is still the "best" way to determine "competitive balance" in the current wild west of transfers
But If anyone wants to try I'm all ears
I think "Perspective" gives a hint of how it could potentially (not very likely) happen. Someone like Shyster Joe puts together a national tourney, mostly for his pets SFA and IMG, then joined by Mater Dei/SJB and a handful of other programs choose to make themselves eligible. In Florida, that's STA, Central, AH, Chaminade and maybe a couple of others depending on the year (Lakeland may opt in for a year like 2022). So, those few teams would opt out of FHSAA to play in a national tourney. That's not very many teams, but, if those are gone, the blowouts in state title games are mostly gone.
The blowouts are almost entirely from a handful of teams. The remaining teams- the vast majority of the state- aren't likely to blow through state title games. Remember, even Jesuit, an elite team to be sure, did not blow out it's state title game opponent. This all boils down to STA against a 7A without any other power teams (let us not forget that from 2017-2020, STA lost twice and won two hard-fought titles) and Central against a bunch of "suburban" teams in over their heads.
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40 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
And the playoffs won't be competitive unless you have the metros and suburban teams separate
Granted I'm sure there is a way you could get 5 classes and still do that which I would be fine with but if your using student enrollment it will just result in the same blowouts we see in every title game every year
There are just too many "suburban" places where super teams are possible, which makes it impossible to legislate the parity you want. The Pensacola, Bradenton/Sarasota, Brevard and Polk county areas all have the potential for "super" teams that most from any county couldn't compete with. Pine Forest, Bradenton Southeast, Manatee, Sarasota Riverview, Venice, Lakeland have all had nationally elite teams in my lifetime. PF and Lakeland both have national championships following blow-out wins in state title games. Venice blew out "metro" teams in both the state semis and finals just last year. Any of these programs could raid all the other local schools and build a team untouchable in their class (and it looks like one has done just that for 2022.)
The real difference is between programs who are able to build super rosters and those who can't. It's mostly the rural schools that can't do this.
Fun fact: if IMG ever was approved to play for FHSAA titles, they'd be "suburban".
- Jesse, KeemD321 and VeniceIndianFan
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2 minutes ago, Dr. D said:
It is true that the vast majority of states I have reviewed have 50-60 teams per class. So obviously there are a lot of states that are happy with that model, although you have a dissenting opinion. More championship opportunities are typically more popular than fewer championship opportunities. The one outlier is the Texas UIL, which divides 1103 teams into 10 classifications, or 110 teams per class. They even have districts with 10 teams! Adopting that proportional model in Florida would result in 4-5 classifications total. Good luck with getting that idea approved.
We could end up with 20 classes and 20 champions. I think what many want is for those programs that regularly poach players from other schools to all battle it out among themselves.
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We need an "open" division of sorts, where the major powers can opt in to win the really big prize. Then, below that division, they can do as they please.
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13 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
SFL and Orlando have a lot of very good teams in the higher classifications I agree
Tampa I guess you can say that but you also have teams like armwood, Tampa Bay Tech, Jesuit, etc in larger classifications
Jacksonville is clearly favoring smaller classes with TCA and Bolles
But my point was more that it's no guarantee that the metro is the "best" team so immediately writing off suburban as a weaker class because change was needed because of the incompetent decisions made at the state level that created this mess is shitting on how many good teams will be in the suburban divisions that probably could have competed or won state titles had the transfer situation not turned into a compete wild west like it did
There's definitely no guarantee that the metro champ is the best in that class size. Venice (suburban) blew out a couple of "metro" schools in the last playoffs. Lakeland has a long history of beating many "metro" schools, with three consecutive decisive wins over such schools in their last title year alone. Pine Forest very nearly knocked off Jesuit last year. I could go on.
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4 hours ago, nolebull813 said:
Just know now that these aren’t really state titles anymore. They are area titles. You aren’t playing the best from the state.
This change was designed to make inferior teams feel better about themselves that they don’t have to compete with the best.
Hell just calling it the Suburban class takes away the “state title” term. It’s the suburban title. That’s it
I certainly dislike the way the FHSAA has done things. But, if a Miami Central can beat Baker and Merrit island and call that a state title, than whoever wins 3S can claim one, too. I'd agree that both are very watered down and shouldn't be as significant as they are. But, if you're not going to take titles away from a Miami Central, than you can't take one away from the 3S, etc, winner.
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40 minutes ago, THIS_IS_DILLARD said:
Just spent bout a hour watching film on them, they seem to be fairly small and not very how can I put it “ATHLETIC” surprised they gave a team like dematha fits unless dematha is not the dematha I remember.
but nole did say they have been recruiting/ getting a lot of transfers a lot this summer so we will see
Yeah, it's a new program. They need to have a few "tuition payers" initially until they can recruit free agents.
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1 hour ago, THIS_IS_DILLARD said:
Can’t week for week 1. Never heard of them or seen Any film on them.
who would you compare them to?
Looks like it's another one of these new schools popping up mostly just to become football powers. Hard to say what style team they will be, since it's just another recruited up pop-up team. Most likely, the coaches bring little/nothing to the table as far as innovation or style goes. So, it's probably a good bet they will be a "copycat" of the things en vogue today. I suppose one could visit their hudl page and look at the QBs film to get an idea. Sight unseen I assume they're in the gun 90% of the time, field spread, fast tempo. Defense probably has two down lineman, two "Edge rushers" and is fairly basic schematically. LOL
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2 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
Okay well I use 24/7 because it's the only resource that even remotely comes close to what I need for it, it's not like we have a state database that rankings the quality of rosters (and I'm never gonna consider whatever the hell calpreps or MaxPreps claim to use as their system is rarely up to date and have even worse problems than what you point out with 24/7)
The entire point of this is to show that despite a certain poster comments a few months back there isn't just a 2 team race in 3S and anyone who can actually say they know for sure who will win 3S at this stage is either arrogant or a liar
I think that a lot of pollsters are making the mistake of just looking at a teams name and assuming they can pick this classification but the moment you start digging deeper it presents a different story and I think it should force people who are quick to make assumptions on classes and teams way too early may need to be cautious with their picks because they may miss hard if they don't take every aspect and detail into account
The reality is that we don't have any reliable way to examine rosters for teams, at least not until about September. 24/7 should be nothing more than a very basic starting point.
Sure, I can see where all of those teams have a chance in 3S.
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43 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
I've seen plenty of examples first hand of players who never get listed on 24/7 lay out a 4 or 5* player
By that token let's compare something else, has any team on the list won a state title since 2010?
Let's compare playoff seasons or playoff wins
We can pick several measurements for these teams but you will still end up with the same result, there is very little separation between those 5 teams so to say that one or two teams in that list are BY FAR the favorite to win 3S is dishonest
I can confirm that all the Columbia players listed are on the Columbia roster and while I may not be physically at the other 4 schools the fact that one of the players listed for Columbia transferred in less than 3 days ago and is already listed for Columbia makes me think that 24/7 is at least decent at getting the rosters updated but even without that if we are going by a list of "top players" which is normally all that gets listed by 24/7 these teams are all very close, is there actually any argument that you or anyone can present that changes that? If so I'm all ears
I'm not getting into the merits of those teams you listed. I'm just cautioning against over reliance on the 247 player lists. I gave my arguments above.
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13 hours ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:
I posted a link with SFL transfer which was updated as recently as a few days ago by Larry bluestein
If anyone wants they can chart the total inbound transfers and it's highly likely that it will prove what I said to be true
Actual charting of player movement, listed by school, is the only way to begin to make sense of who's really helped or hurt themselves in the free agent market. I don't care to spend the time needed to do that, but it's the only way to really gauge the net impact of the transfers. The occasional link to random players' Twitter feed is unhelpful. Also, making a cute graphic and "announcement" on Twitter does not mean a player is actually any good. I remember last year a kid from New York state made a big announcement about transferring to Lakeland. Watched his hudl. Meh. Poor kid could never get on the field and mostly lost his junior season. He left for Jenkins and now looks like he'll be one of their better players. Point is, Twitter announcement or not, neither he nor Lakeland were able to help each other.
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What stands out to me here is that it appears your "analysis" of teams mostly amounts to going to 247 sports, searching for a school, and then counting how many guys with stars come up. I understand the allure of this approach. I, too, do the above. BUT, once again, I have to caution you about actually using this as THE analysis for teams. And not just because 247 can sometimes be wrong in their evaluation of players. And not even simply because some of the names may be wrong, though they are sometimes wrong. But because the overwhelming majority of players on prep teams do not have a profile with stars next to their names in 247sports. AND, the greatest disparity in quality of players is seen between the best "0 star" players and the worst "0 star" players. None of those zero star players are able to be evaluated via the above approach. I'm seeing more and more players skipping certain recruiting camps, having no profile and no stars, yet the kid takes a trip to major schools, including Big Ten and SEC schools. I've seen such kids then commit on a "committable" offer, and only then do they end up with the profile and stars. On the other end of the stick are zero star kids whose participation against major teams amounts to a safety risk to the player and nothing more.
Using the above approach- counting players with stars in 2023 and 2024 classes- Mater Dei is not able to distinguish themselves from Lakeland. Yet, dare mention that to anyone and they'll lose their minds in objection
The hardest team to project, by far,
in The Huddle
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is Clearwater Academy International. Most all of their players are from other countries, and are complete unknowns within Florida. The team may not win a game at all, or it may be about what it was last year (blew out Raines at Raines, lost in OT at Trinity Christian) or it could be a monster. Looking at their hudl roster, they have more than 20 players with over 1,000 views per player. That's about the same as loaded Lakeland, and is more than most every other team in the state (STA has 36). They also have a unique style of play from what I've seen. They go for two all the time, and kick onsides a lot as well (though maybe they just lacked a reliable kicker last year?). I'm hoping they win all of their early games, and come to Bryant stadium undefeated. Could be a big game!