HornetFan

The transfer system is the tool they use to recruit. In a city like Orlando, where schools aren't that far apart, it's easy for a kid who can drive to move from one school to another as long as that school has available capacity, Coaches are using that free transfer policy to poach athletes from neighboring schools. I'm sure it's the same way in South Florida and Tampa. Where coaches get in trouble is when the destination school doesn't have available capacity; then, phony addresses have been used to facilitate the transfer. It's not my responsibility to uncover violations that all coaches are already aware of.

It is illegal for coaches to approach players from outside their school district. It doesn't prevent players talking to players from other teams and then manipulating the open transfer policy our state legislature recently adopted. Suddenly, you have several players with different last names living in one home. Hmmm! It can't happen unless the coaches encourage and accept it.

Bishop Moore Catholic HS plays in 5A without the benefit of transfer recruits or scholarships. If an athlete wants to attend Bishop Moore, they have to pay the $14K tuition each year. Still, their schedule includes teams like 7A Edgewater and 5A Jones, the top two ranked teams in Central Florida (both recruit the area heavily), as well as nationally ranked Archbishop Spalding (Maryland/DC), who also heavily recruits the Mid-Atlantic area. Without a change in scheduling philosophy, it will become increasingly more difficult for BM to compete successfully in non-district 5A games. Recruiting will eventually destroy football at the "regular" high schools.

The cancellation of games was not left to the discretion of the coaches. School district administrations and decisions of state and local governments made it impossible for teams to practice when the schools were closed. Coaches and kids would rather play the game and possibly lose than to shorten their season by a game.

The first half of BM's schedule is ridiculously difficult. The second half should have them favored in every game. Jones will win their 5A district, but BM will probably sneak into playoffs under the new FHSAA formula. Their opponents schedules will give them a big boost. I'd rather see the kids play a reasonable schedule; I think they would enjoy it a lot more.

South Sumter beat South Lake 42-14.

I wouldn't go so far as to say BM is garbage. They have played 7A Edgewater (full of recruits and the #1 ranked team in Central Florida), Gainesville Eastside (Anthony Richardson - UF commit and #1 QB in state of Florida), and nationally ranked Archbishop Spalding. Next u is Jones (#2 ranked team in Central Florida), and then South Sumter (unbeaten and unscored upon). I'll agree that their secondary is absolutely terrible and drags the team down every game. There's some very good talent on this team, but none of it is in the secondary. I think that maybe even FSU could score on BM's secondary.

AS didn't pull their starters until the 4th quarter and they were still throwing the ball downfield trying to burn BM's Pop Warner level secondary.

I sat through the entire Bishop Moore - Archbishop Spalding mismatch. I think AS was up 14-0 by the time the young lady finished the national anthem. This is a game that should not have been scheduled. You cannot take a 5A private school that doesn't recruit or give athletic scholarships and put them on the field with the second best prep school from Maryland, a team full of recruits. BM was outweighed across the lines by at least 75 pounds per player, but the BM lines played hard and gave up yards grudgingly. AS has at least 7 lineman that weigh in over 300 pounds. On top of the physical disadvantage, the AS QB threw at will against BM's weak secondary. This is the 4th game in a row that BM secondary has been taken apart by opposing QB's; it's getting real old. They get beat deep for TD's at least 3-4 times a game, and once the other team discovers they can't tackle either, running sweeps go for big gains, often for long TD's. The BM secondary needs a total overhaul or this is going to be a long season. Next up is Jones and then and undefeated, unscored upon, South Sumter team.

One of the problems here in Florida is that many old time coaches are still running the offenses they learned in high school. Most of the coaches here in Central Florida are teachers first, coaches second. OCs and QB coaches are often teachers with less teaching seniority. We do have some coaches that are running RPO offenses, younger and if you're lucky a recent college QB. There aren't too many available. Excellent QB training is available, but the best training is expensive and out of reach for most kids in the city schools. This often results in coaches using the most athletic kid on the team as QB and letting him wing it. If you win, the fans are happy, but you haven't really developed the kid's QB skills. The prep schools up north and out west and the IMGs have the resources to hire coaches that can recruit a kid who has the proper training; they polish his skills and run the fast paced offenses.

The best teams from up north and out west pay their coaches more than coaches here in Florida make; that doesn't make them better coaches. Let's look at SFA in Baltimore. There's a reason in-state teams will not play them in football. They're the IMG of Maryland/DC. Their players are scholarship players, all recruited from other teams in their area with some coming from other neighboring states; some are prep players that have already completed high school studies. They board their players; the kids on most Florida teams go home to their family each evening. They are playing Florida teams because no honest team in their area will schedule them. They'll play South Florida schools that thrive on transfers and beat up on transfer-weakened teams in Broward/Dade. The problem South Florida teams have is that you're sharing all those star transfer players among a half dozen schools. IMG, SFA, and other national teams like them don't share; they have a single team monopolizing the talent in entire states. They're better cheaters than the South Florida schools. As a fan of a couple of high school teams that don't play the transfer or scholarship game, I find it refreshing that the IMGs of HS football are spanking many of the teams that used to dominate football in Florida. At least the IMG's don't pretend to be local HS football teams while beating neighboring schools that have home-grown talent.

USF has problems that a coach can't easily fix. First, they don't have their own stadium; they get almost no revenue from their games at Raymond James Stadium. Second, the AD is scheduling 2 and 1 (away/home) agreements with Power 5 teams; that's hurts twice, less home games and the away team fills up Raymond James making it like an away game for USF. Also, teams like UCF, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Houston are all having more success in recruiting and on the field. Charlie Strong has a tough job trying to build that team.

They have a better coach at USF in Charlie Strong.

I don't think there are any other games in Central Florida Friday night.

My grandson plays for BM and as of noon today the kids have not been advised the game has been cancelled. Archbishop Spalding was supposed to have arrived in Orlando on Monday. BM practiced Monday and will again this afternoon. I'll keep you posted.

Let's not bash UCF. They beat everyone that would play them two years ago. The Power 5 will never invite a Group of 5 team to their "invitational" National Championship playoff. The NFL made that mistake in 1969 and the AFL Jets beat the mighty Colts; the merger wasn't far behind. It's all about TV money and the Power 5 would hate to see UCF get $40 million a year to invest in their football program. They'd rather give that money to the "jokes' in the bottom half of their conferences; teams that will never be competitive.

Five years ago, Nole fans would have run the coach out of town if they lost to a "respectable" Boise State team. Willie Taggert is still there only because his buyout would be $17 million and FSU can't afford it with pissed off alumni withholding support and attendance going down the toilet. Why they ever hired Taggert amazes me; the guy never proved himself to be a top coach.

The game between Bishop Moore and Archbishop Spalding (Baltimore) at BM has not yet been moved from Friday night.

Another problem they face is that most of the public high schools are being used for shelters during the storm. Getting everyone out and getting the schools cleaned up for classes will make Friday games all but impossible. Most Orlando area JV and Freshmen games for Thursday have already been cancelled.

How good can it get? Noles and Vols both lose to Group of 5 opponents.

In Central Florida, they're talking possible reschedules to Saturday, possibly Monday. Coaches would like to avoid Monday; they don't want to play two games in one week.

And strangely, none of them had the same last name as the homeowner.

Jax doesn't have the same reputation that South Florida does. It's also a much smaller area.

That's simple. Anyone interested in Florida HS football knows that South Florida schools have been cheating for decades. I know that every time I hear someone brag on South Florida high school football, my filter goes on and I just figure that's the South Florida school that happens to be the best cheater at the time.

That's true, and most of the time, the whistle blower is another coach. It doesn't go unnoticed though; the kids on the team know the coaches are cheating. What does that say for the integrity of the people coaching our kids?