Perspective

Covid is an isolated event (hopefully) and 2020 is an outlier year (hopefully). With the amendment allowing teams/schools/counties to "opt out" this year and basically do whatever they want in terms of a season and a post-season (and, oh by the way, the FHSAA staff will even assist in the process), why would South Florida schools need to leave the FHSAA? Just opt out this year. If South Florida schools opt out, they won't be able to win a State Championship. If South Florida schools leave the FHSAA, they still won't be able to win a State Championship -- only a South Florida Championship. Either way, and through no fault of their own, they don't get want in 2020. Probably the case for most of us this year. Classic "I'm not getting my way, so I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude. Not exactly the ideal life lesson to be teaching kids.

Well, they hadn't quite finalized their 2020 recruiting class as of the ranking publication date. JK.

Well done, Josh. Nice summary.

Wait, you're allowed to do that??!?

Hornet, I agree with your thinking. However, if I remember correctly, in one or two of the FHSAA meetings from last month, some of the board members discussed the problem that schools were having with getting on the golf courses they traditionally have used. I don't know if they were talking about public courses, private courses or both and I don't know whether that situation has gotten better over the last month or so. But I do remember golf and bowling being somewhat problematic because of venue concerns.

So, I was just joking around (suggesting that someone caused the whole coronavirus pandemic just to help keep a high school team's regular season home winning streak alive). That said, your response has me wondering: how could/did the FHSAA force any school to play local area teams only? Unless they put you in a 10-team district. Otherwise, I wasn't aware that the FHSAA really had any control over scheduling. I was under the impression that scheduling was handled on a county-by-county basis. Again, just curious.

Bingo.

One of the Board Members (John Gerdes) apparently sent out a tweet late this afternoon announcing that the FHSAA board meeting on Friday will be live-streamed after all. Details being worked out.

If Deon Sanders can go from the football field to the baseball field (in a helicopter!), then so can high school kids. I agree with you on this one. Let kids play multiple sports (perhaps with a limit on the number of "contests" per week; or one sport per day).

Did anyone else read the Orlando Sentinel article on why the FHSAA wasn't going to livestream the meeting this Friday? The explanation made no sense to me. It was, basically, "well, that's just not the way we usually do our meetings." Um, this is an emergency meeting, specially called to deal with the impact of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and that's the excuse you want to give? The president of the FHSAA board wants the meeting livestreamed (just like the past two were) and FHSAA staff essentially said "F*#% you; we're not going to do it that way." Am I missing something? Can anyone defend Tomyn's position on this issue? Josh, are you planning on attending? How early do you think you'll need to get there in order to insure that you get one of the twenty or so spots available to the public?

That works fine for the larger class sports. Sure, you'll get a handful of kids who play multiple sports who will have to choose which sport they want to play. But, as FHSAA Board Member (and immediate past-President) Bobby Johns, Athletic Director at the small panhandle Wewahitchka High School, pointed out at the last meeting, if the football players don't get the chance to play spring sports like baseball and track, they simply won't have enough athletes/kids to field those spring sports. This was just one of the many reasons Johns was pushing so hard to keep the fall sports calendar the way that it was.

I'm pretty sure this was the Athletic Directors Advisory Committee. If you want to see who is on that committee, click on the link: https://www.fhsaa.org/gov/ad

Point well taken. I based my comment purely on the in-person eye-test: how they played the one night I saw them compared to how the two other teams played the nights they played Plant. But, again, your point is well taken.

So, in trying to figure this one out (I'm pretty sure I know the answer now, as does Skyway), I stumbled upon what could be another interesting trivia question: What is the best set of brothers named "Darren and Troy" to ever play high school football in Florida?

As athletic as they may have been, I'm guessing it wasn't the Pouncey twins.

Dwyer in 2013 is the right answer. But two years before that, East Lake suffered another heartbreaking overtime loss in a playoff game. On a cool, foggy night in 2011, East Lake lost 28-21 in OT at home to Plant in the State Regional Finals. Plant then went on to beat Fletcher (26-7) and Miramar (31-20) to claim the first 8A state title. In hindsight, the two best teams in 8A that year were Plant and East Lake.

Badbird, I don't know you well enough to ask, but I am wondering which coaching club is more exclusive.

Probably the second best RB from the state of Florida with the last name Henry to ever play.

Just wondering if he works for SpaceX now?

I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but I can't imagine going from a higher high to a lower low more so than this team from Texas. Gotta have the sound on at the end to truly appreciate it.

Well, even though he's not from Tampa, they still named a bridge after him. Oh, wait, turns out the Gandy Bridge is named after somebody else. Wayne Gandy. Haines City H.S.; Auburn; drafted by the Rams, but also played with a couple of other teams.

Well, I didn't know you were going back to the leather-helmet days. (By the way, I still have mine).

I'll go with 25%.

So, if one guy bet the kid would break the FL record and one guy bet the kid would not, wouldn't the guy who bet the kid would not break the record be right? Just curious, if the kid had stayed at Madison, had a terrific year, but got hurt in the semi-finals and wasn't able to play in the championship game, would the bet have been voided?

Someone sure went to a lot of trouble to keep that streak alive.