Perspective

Don Latimer.  Fort Pierce Central.  ?

Ok, so assuming the games listed are "Final Four" games, that pretty remarkable that over a two-year period, a single school would have three girls teams (volleyball, basketball and softball) and four boys teams (football, soccer, basketball and baseball) making it that far.  And, based on my recollection, the last two years is not an aberration.   The overwhelming majority of public schools would be lucky to have one or two (or, in a very, very good year, three) teams make it that far. 
The only way to win a state title is to make it to the championship game.  STA appears to get to this point more often than just about any other school in the state, regardless of classification.  State championship talent just doesn't show up at public schools year in and year out.  But, as your list demonstrates, getting to the final four and coming home with the gold medal are two different things. 

I think most coaches do their personnel shopping during the off-season and at summer 7 on 7 tournaments, based primarily on what players on their team just graduated and what their primary position needs are.  
And the fact that there are coaches out there that are doing the laundry for their whole staff sure doesn't leave the coaches much time to do their 'personal shopping' or 'personal laundry.'      
(Apologies in advance, gatorman, but I just couldn't pass up the chance to play grammar police). 

Ouch!   Not sure I'd want to be sitting at that dinner table right now.  

Ouch!   Not sure I'd want to be sitting at that dinner table right now.  

I want to be careful here, because I don''t know anything about "Hester and Jackson" other than what I've read on this board and the linked film that I've watched.   I don't know who their coaches are or what their coaches have or have not done.   I do know there are some schools and coaches that place a premium on the academic side of the NCAA eligibility process.  Other schools and coaches don't.  Personally, I think one of the greatest services that a high school football program/coach can provide to an athletically-talented kid is to start working with him in the 9th or 10th grade to explain the eligibility process and then track the performance and status of the kids as they work their way through high school.  It is an absolute waste for a kid to have P5 talent, but not be able to get offers because of bad grades and/or inability to satisfy the minimum standards necessary to become an NCAA student-athlete. 

Mid Florida (Gainesville , Ocala) either. 

I don't know anything about MTI other than what I have just read on this board.  However, as I'm sure most of you know, prep schools are very common up in the northeast.  The biggest obstacle facing a newly-founded prep school in the south would be scheduling --- because there just aren't very many of them around.  
There's a lot to be said for prep schools for certain kids . . .  kids that need to improve their grades, kids that are young/relatively small for their high school graduating class, etc.  Stick a "young" 17 year old high school senior in a prep school and give him another year to develop could make all the difference in terms of earning a college scholarship. 

In the early part of your career, you're right, Peezy.  But, things changed in the early '70's after Bama got its butt kicked by USC and Sam Cunningham.  Here's a wikipedia except that explains it better than I can:
"For years, Bryant was accused of racism[16] for refusing to recruit black players, but he merely said that the prevailing social climate and the overwhelming presence of noted segregationist George C. Wallace, first as governor and then as a presidential candidate, did not let him do this. He finally was able to convince the administration to allow him to do so after scheduling the Tide's 1970 season opener against a strong University of Southern California team led by black fullback Sam Cunningham. Cunningham rushed for 150 yards and three touchdowns in a 42–21 victory against the overmatched Tide. After that season, Bryant was able to recruit Wilbur Jackson as Alabama's first black scholarship player, and junior-college transfer John Mitchell became the first black man to play for Alabama. By 1973, one-third of the team's starters were black, and Mitchell became the Tide's first black coach that season.[17][18][19][20]
In 1971, Bryant began engineering a comeback. This included abandoning Alabama's old power offense for the relatively new wishbone formation. (Darrell Royal, the Texas football coach whose assistant Emory Bellard virtually invented the wishbone, taught Bryant its basics, but Bryant developed successful variations of the wishbone that even Royal had never used.)[citation needed] The change helped make the remainder of the decade a successful one for the Crimson Tide. That season, Alabama went undefeated and earned a #2 ranking, but lost to #1 Nebraska, 38–6 in the Orange Bowl. The team would go on to split national championships in 1973 (Notre Dame defeated Alabama 24-23 in the Sugar Bowl, and the UPI thereafter stopped giving national championships until after all the games for the season had been played – including bowl games) and 1978 (despite losing a regular season matchup against national co-champion USC) and win it outright in 1979 after a 24-9 Sugar Bowl victory over Arkansas.
Bryant coached at Alabama for 25 years, winning six national titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1979) and thirteen SEC championships. Bryant's win over in-state rival Auburn University, coached by former Bryant assistant Pat Dye on November 28, 1981 was Bryant's 315th as a head coach, which was the most of any head coach at that time. His all-time record as a coach was 323-85-17."

for some odd reason this video reminds me of 3A 
 

Thanks.  I feel better now.  I know teachers and coaches are underpaid, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't that bad. 

Thanks.  I feel better now.  I know teachers and coaches are underpaid, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't that bad. 

What?  You mean Pahokee's weight room doesn't look like this?  

What?  You mean Pahokee's weight room doesn't look like this?  

"Haven't recruited" or "haven't signed?"
Does that include the ones that started out at UF and ended up elsewhere (like Grier)?

Fantastic ending made all the better by the announcers. 

What?  You mean Pahokee's weight room doesn't look like this?  

IMG just poached a kid from CCC, too. 

Um, that sounds pretty messy. 

With respect to public schools, and with rare exception, you won't see an average Hillsborough County team playing an average team from any other county in the state.  In fact, you won't see a superior Hillsborough County team playing a superior team from any other county and you won't see a rotten Hillsborough County team playing a rotten team from any other county.  Perhaps I can make this easier:  you won't see a Hillsborough County team playing a team from another county. 
This is, admittedly, Hillsborough County's cross to bear.  It's the way the County AD wants it.  Centralized funding.  HC teams play HC teams and all the money from all the games stays in Hillsborough County.  Perhaps this is good from a financial standpoint, but it's already had a detrimental affect on HC teams and will continue to do so with the new RPI system. 
So, take this a step further.  How can you compare the strength of a Hillsborough County team with the strength of a non-HC team?  Yes, there are a small handful of private schools that play a small number of games against non-HC schools, in addition to the games they play against HC schools.   Aside from those games, if HC schools aren't playing non-HC schools, how do gauge the relative strength of the teams under an RPI format?  If my math is right (and excluding the relatively small number of games between HC teams and non-HC teams), at the end of the regular season, there should be an equal number of cumulative wins and losses.  Within the county, you'll know who the best/better teams are.  But how, for example, do you compare an 8-3 HC team with an 8-3 team from outside HC for purposes of determining the 7th or 8th seed in a region (vs. the 9th or 10th seeds who are home cleaning out their lockers)? 
And, yes, I understand that playing for the 8th seed in a region is a bit like being the team in the NCAA basketball tournament who surprises everyone to win their conference tournament and slide into the Big Dance as a number 16 seed.  Odds are, it's a one-and-done tournament for that team.  But, they can say they made the playoffs and build on that in the future.  Not too many 8 seeds are going to go on the road and knock off a region's number 1 seed.  So, perhaps the RPI system isn't that big of a deal from that standpoint.   Where I think it is a big deal comes in determining the power rating (or, now, the RPI) of the top 4 seeds if this is going to continue to be the way that home-field advantage is determined and,  conversely, who has to travel 3 or 4 hours for a playoff game.  
I'm assuming that the vast majority of folks on this Board aren't Hillsborough County guys or gals, so I suspect the vast majority of you really won't care.    But it will remain an issue for the HC teams for the foreseeable future. 
 

For academic reasons, right?  

Personally, for the larger classifications, I like the concept of districts and I like that district champions are assured of hosting at least one home playoff game.   As long as there are 8 classifications, public and private schools playing together, free transfer rules, and areas of the state that put more emphasis on youth football than others, there are always going to be blowouts in the playoffs -- especially in the opening rounds.   It's inevitable. 
But Districts change.  Some teams move up a class and other teams move down a class.  Coaches retire or get fired.  One school or another becomes the "hot" school for a certain period of time and then, for whatever reasons, they cool off again.  Regression to the mean.   Winning a District title ought to get a team a little more than just some stitching on their varsity letter.  It won't surprise me at all if, over time (and so long as the current system - or one like it - is in effect), 5 seeds have a better winning percentage in the state playoffs than 4 seeds, at least in 5A-8A.   In a match-up between the winner of a relatively weak district and the best team in the other three districts in that same region that doesn't end up winning their district, I'd take the non-district winning team on the road most of the time. But, I still think the district winners should continue to host the first-round games. 

Personally, for the larger classifications, I like the concept of districts and I like that district champions are assured of hosting at least one home playoff game.   As long as there are 8 classifications, public and private schools playing together, free transfer rules, and areas of the state that put more emphasis on youth football than others, there are always going to be blowouts in the playoffs -- especially in the opening rounds.   It's inevitable. 
But Districts change.  Some teams move up a class and other teams move down a class.  Coaches retire or get fired.  One school or another becomes the "hot" school for a certain period of time and then, for whatever reasons, they cool off again.  Regression to the mean.   Winning a District title ought to get a team a little more than just some stitching on their varsity letter.  It won't surprise me at all if, over time (and so long as the current system - or one like it - is in effect), 5 seeds have a better winning percentage in the state playoffs than 4 seeds, at least in 5A-8A.   In a match-up between the winner of a relatively weak district and the best team in the other three districts in that same region that doesn't end up winning their district, I'd take the non-district winning team on the road most of the time. But, I still think the district winners should continue to host the first-round games. 

Personally, for the larger classifications, I like the concept of districts and I like that district champions are assured of hosting at least one home playoff game.   As long as there are 8 classifications, public and private schools playing together, free transfer rules, and areas of the state that put more emphasis on youth football than others, there are always going to be blowouts in the playoffs -- especially in the opening rounds.   It's inevitable. 
But Districts change.  Some teams move up a class and other teams move down a class.  Coaches retire or get fired.  One school or another becomes the "hot" school for a certain period of time and then, for whatever reasons, they cool off again.  Regression to the mean.   Winning a District title ought to get a team a little more than just some stitching on their varsity letter.  It won't surprise me at all if, over time (and so long as the current system - or one like it - is in effect), 5 seeds have a better winning percentage in the state playoffs than 4 seeds, at least in 5A-8A.   In a match-up between the winner of a relatively weak district and the best team in the other three districts in that same region that doesn't end up winning their district, I'd take the non-district winning team on the road most of the time. But, I still think the district winners should continue to host the first-round games. 

Here is is folks.."Just ask RIPI" for up to the minute RPI numbers, guaranteed 50% or less margin of error.   And for a small fee you can get with one with your team logo.  
One can also pay extra to get the special "bitch and whine" feature.  When coach complains to RIPI about the numbers, RIPI will console you by making statements like "You're right , coach.  This new system sucks."