Perspective

Trying to think outside the box: every championship team scored at least 30 points.

If memory serves me correct, he was the first player selected to USF's Football Hall of Fame.

Eddie Feely Gradutated from Gainesville High School, played at FSU. Led Merritt Island, Choctawhatchee and Buchholz to state championships (all undefeated seasons).

Thanks for the shoutout Jambun.

Interestingly, if you listened in on the FHSAA Fall Sports Task Force zoom call the other day, the FHSAA seems to be inclined to punt on any and all health issues. While that may be a smart legal position to take, and while there may be some merit in leaving Covid-related decisions in the hands of the local health officials, the end result is going to be an inconsistent set of rules and policies. Personally, I think the FHSAA needs to take a more vocal role in setting up some basic standards on big-ticket issues, such as: (1) will fans be allowed at games (if so, under what circumstances)?; (2) what should/must a school do if one of their kids tests positive? I threw out a bunch of questions in a prior post; I'm not saying that all of these questions have to be answered the same for every school in the state, but there needs to be some guidance and consensus on the major ones.

No offense to the scientists on board, but I'm going to try to get this back on the football track. So, let's all pretend that there's going to be high school football in the fall. Before it happens and before it happens to a particular school or county (such that we might have a predisposed bias one way or the other), let's address a few questions. Assume fall practice has started up and perhaps the season already has started: 1. What happens when a single member of a team tests positive? He could be a starter or he could be a bench-warmer; does it matter? What should a school do? Quarantine the kid? Require all members of the team (and coaches) to self-quarantine for a specified period of time? How long? One week? Two weeks? Realizing of course, that each week off likely will cost the team a game. 2. If you don't require the whole team to be quarantined (but only the single player who tested positive), aren't you now subjecting the next opponent to exposure of the virus -- perhaps through asymptomatic players? Of course, that's always going to be a risk, but the risk increases with a known positive result. Assuming some form of team quarantine, what effect does that have on the next game or two? Do those opponents get Covid forfeit wins? 3. What if there are multiple teams in a particular geographic area that are forced to take a week or two off? Can or must "clean teams" in that area play each other instead of getting a Covid forfeit win? Absent an agreement, perhaps the clean teams would have to be within 2 or 3 classifications of each other, so that a 2A team doesn't get matched up against an 8A team . . . unless the 2A team is Madison. 4. Or, how about this: put someone at the FHSAA in charge of 'last minute scheduling.' Say by 3:00 on Wednesday, the last-minute scheduler knows who all the virus teams are and who all the clean teams are, who was supposed to be playing who, who had a home game scheduled and who was supposed to be on the road. The scheduler then matches up the clean teams against each other (based on size, location, etc.), allowing home teams to keep home games as much as possible for both the gate receipts and referee scheduling. 5. Should Covid forfeit losses count against team RPI's? Going from 10 games to 8 probably wouldn't be a problem, but what if the virus hits again and a team loses two more games to the virus? Could a team qualify for the playoffs having only played six games? 6. Speaking of the playoffs, what happens if Covid hits then? At this point, I'm guessing the clean team gets a bye and the team with the virus, well, their season is over. 7. What happens if a team tries to hide the fact that their 3rd team long-snapper, son of a prominent booster had tested positive prior to a game, but the team chose to keep quiet? What should the punishment be? Fines? Suspensions? Death penalty . . . at least for the rest of the season? I'm curious what your answers are to these questions, but regardless, someone needs to start thinking about these questions (and more) now. FHSAA Task Force, are you out there?

Cool. I could relate to your bat boy story. When I was a single-digit kid, I was the bat boy for my dad's fast-pitch softball team. His team had its share of success, as well, winning a state championship or two, but never a national title. Lots of weekends and late nights at the ball park . . . I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Fast pitch softball or slow pitch?

Go ahead Badbird . . . and then I want to hear the softball story.

Maurice Wells. Sandlewood High School THE Ohio State University Got beat in the playoffs by some team from the Orlando area . . . Darter, can you give me some help?

Hmmm, I'm not sure . . . but he looks like a Nice guy.

Which is easier to do when you're using multiple footballs.

I'd Love to take a crack at this one, but I'll give others a shot first.

Perhaps in anticipation of social distancing, some of the defenses I've seen lately won't have any issue at all with getting too close to opposing players.

The only thing that could reasonably be done prior to game would be to temperature check all participants (players, coaches, refs, chain gangs, etc.) as they walk through a singular entrance point onto the field. I think the thermal thermometers cost less than $100. Anything more than that (swabs/testing/etc) is going to be price-prohibitive.

That was part of the Task Force's discussion at today's meeting. One of the members make a short presentation that included several steps that could be taken to create a safer environment from the field to the press box. On a related note, there was some discussion at the end from the FHSAA Director regarding liability concerns when the FHSAA uses words like "must" and "shall." So, be prepared to see a whole lot of "this is what we recommend."

I'm afraid said deranged person may have to change the imaginary team's name to have a second season . . . I'm pretty sure MaxPreps finally caught wind of what was going on and removed Randazzo from their website. Disappointing to say the least; I was really looking forward to seeing how some of those underclassmen progressed.

Dang, that's a whole lot of school board commissioners who won't get reelected. Just curious, districts all around the state or just the ones near metropolitan areas like Houston? If the former, that's a pretty big domino (which is what you would expect from Texas).

Dang, now I've lost all respect for him... /s/ Proud Buchholz Bobcat alum.

They're a tricky bunch. I'm pretty sure that use more than one football on some of their plays.

Admiral Farragut, a private boarding school in St. Pete, has cancelled their 2020 football season based on the uncertainty associated with the Coronavirus pandemic. This is a team that has had recent success (10-2 in 2018 and 8-4 last season). But, they are a boarding school, so I'm sure they're facing a good bit of uncertainty as to how they're going to handle their domestic and international student population this coming year. But, they're made the decision to cancel football. I would expect to see a number of kids transferring out over the next couple of weeks and who can blame them? This will especially be true for all of the kids who think they may have a D1 scholarship in their future -- which will be the vast majority of them (not that they actually have that chance, but they're 16-18 year old kids, so they all think they have that chance). Outlier or the first of many dominoes to fall?

OK, I think I've got it narrowed down to one of three teams: (1) Merritt Island (in the '90's), (2) Vero (in the 90's or between '08 and '15), and (3) Frostproof (between '82 and '87, after finishing runners-up in '81). I'll have to do some more digging to figure out when each of those teams got knocked out during the time periods noted.

Fixed that for you.

17 running plays? Sounds like something Apopka would do. Actually, sounds like something Apopka did. Over and over.

Going to throw out a total guess: Lakewood?