HornetFan

I'll try. Suppose you are a fan, possibly an alumni, of a school that is in the same county as Lakeland or Cocoa and you have to play them each year. You have kids come up through the youth football leagues in your town and expect them to go to the local high school. Cocoa or Lakeland come raiding your programs and recruiting your best players. Your team become non-competitive, fan support disappears, and soon you may have trouble even fielding a team. Several schools in our Central Florida no longer have full programs (Freshmen, JV, and varsity), others have depleted varsity rosters. Then, you have the added chance that teams with smaller rosters are risking injury to their kids because the kids have to play more, growing tired, adding to their injury chances, especially when they have to play the teams that have loaded up on recruits. Simply stated, the competitive balance has been destroyed.

Exactly, and they are putting out overtures to players all the time.

The things that restricted transfers here in Central Florida was the student had to stay in the county in which they lived and they couldn't transfer to a school that was considered "full" unless it had a magnet program in which they were enrolled. Winter Park, for instance, is the only "A" rated HS in Orange County and is considered full, so transfers in to that school were very difficult and were closely monitored. Last year, a transfer in from Timber Creek had to sit out about four games before they ruled on his transfer. Parents still try using phony residences to get around the policy because if you live in that school district, you have to be admitted.

Here in Orlando, it has become prevalent in the past couple of years. Before that, most talent was "home grown" and kids played for their local high school. We only have a couple of schools in Central Florida that have gone all in on recruiting and it has upset the balance of competition. Jones (5A) and Edgewater (7A) are loaded with transfers. They've pulled a bunch of kids from 8A schools and are beating up on the other 7A and 5A schools in the area. Lakeland is doing the same in Polk County and Cocoa on the coast.

There are about 15 HS teams in Baltimore area; six are very good; all recruit, but not to same level as St Francis. Starting last season and continuing now, none of the high schools in Baltimore area will play football against St Francis because they are considered an all-star school similar to IMG. St Francis has to play a national schedule. This is what is happening in Florida with the free transfer policy of state legislature passed.

BM will be hosting a very tough Archbishop Spaulding (Baltimore) team this week. Spaulding beat them pretty bad last year up in Baltimore. I hope BM can keep it respectable for first half. After that, it will be tough as Spaulding is another of those teams full of recruits and having great depth. They'll probably wear BM down in second half. Spaulding is ranked 2nd in Baltimore to St Francis, who spanked Miami Central last week making them look like a Pop Warner team. Winter Park actually led Pickerington Central (Ohio) at half, but faded in 2nd half. PC is ranked in top 20 nationally, so loss to them isn't a disaster for WP. Edgewater/Jones game this week will be for #1 in Orlando area. Both teams loaded with transfers, have great speed at skill positions, and big lines. This should be a great game.

Lakeland is a public school and they're out of control on the transfers. Also the 300# kid playing for his local high school may crush an opposing player on a "traditional " high school team. Playing schools like Lakelenad, the kid will get crushed by five of these behemoths and chances of serious injury will be increased exponentially.

I agree with you 100%, but I have always enjoyed HS football in its purest form. We're not seeing that now, and I'm afraid it will result in HS football's eventual demise. And, yes it is dude.

I realize the state legislature has the FHSAA is a unwinnable problem area. One would hope that HS coaches would be ethical enough to police all transfer situations and self-identify transfers that are not a result of a family move. There is a Sunshine conference in this state that doesn't follow FHSAA guidelines and as such are not eligible for state playoffs. Here in Orlando, we have several teams that play in that conference. One for instance is the Masters Academy. They're a small school in Oviedo that has an all-star recruited team. I watched a scrimmage between them and Winter Park (7 on 7 type) and Masters played them even. In their 1st game of regular season last week, starters were pulled at end of 1st quarter leading something like 48-0. Is this what we want HS football to look like? Participation is dropping in football because parents fear injury to their kids. These all-star teams are going to result in more kids being outclassed and injured.

If not for their weak secondary, I may be able to agree with them being potential top 10 in Central Florida. But, I've been to all their games this season. I have watched each team they played run deep patterns and have wide open receivers over and over. Part of this is on lack of size, talent, and speed, part is secondary coach putting them in situations they can't win. A CB should not be playing a WR tight at the line of scrimmage if it's apparent to everyone in the stadium that the WR is too fast for the DB. The coach puts them in this situation too often at the same time he plays his safeties up against the run threat; he leaves the DB on a island without a raft.

Is it fair to call this team Lakeland HS or should it be referred to as the Polk County All-Stars. FHSAA playoffs are losing any semblance of credibility that they may have had in the past. It has become an argument of "can my all-start team beat your all-star team for a fabricated state championship after we finish "bitch-slapping" all the teams we stole players from?" The same question goes for the STA's of Florida.

Bishop Moore barely escaped Gainesville Eastside last night 45-44, winning on a last minute field goal. The Eastside QB, a UF commit, was very good and picked apart a very weak BM secondary. It appears that BM has become a first half team, especially on defense. The defensive coaches try to ride their defensive line starters the entire game, making little or no use of reserves even when their starters are burned out mid-3rd quarter. This has happened in their pre-season game against West Orange, and their first two regular season games. With Archbishop Spaulding and Jones up the next two weeks, this spells disaster for the Hornets. BM's offense is capable of scoring points; their run game is good, especially on sweeps and their passing game is better than average. The problem they have is their secondary cannot defend the long pass, getting beat deep multiple times in every game so far. Last night, they had 2 occasions where receivers were open by 20-25 yards with no defender in sight. The D-Line starts well but burns out after halftime. If the defensive coaches continue to use their starters throughout the game, the next two games will be blowout losses (may be anyway) and tired kids may suffer injuries related to being over-tired. Time to put in the reserves early in the game; it would also improve morale of kids watching the game from the sidelines. I don't think BM deserves to be in Central Florida top 10 at this time based upon performance in first two regular season games.

The only way to correct the transfer problem is for schools to refuse to play teams that accept transfers unless such transfers families have actually relocated to that school district. The nonsense of a student-athlete residing in another students home is absolute BS and should not be allowed. I see comments here trying to justify "cheating" schools out of their better players so unethical coaches can build their resumes and keep their local fans happy. If you recruit them as 9th, 10th, or 11th grade students, it's no better than recruiting them as seniors. Lakeland, with this army of transfers should be declared ineligible for state playoffs. Let them play the IMG's of the world.

North Gwinett, Ga. Osceola (Kissimmee) Miami CentralMiami Northwestern Hoover, Ala.RockledgeSt. Thomas Aquinas Dillard CrestviewFort Myers

First game jitters. Good to have it out of the way and UT-Martin game should help.

They sure tried to give it away.

Jones is for real. They have recruited heavily in Central Florida and have great speed and depth. I wouldn't buy State Championship tickets this year if I was a Raines fan.

Thank God for UF's D-line. Franks looked like the Franks of old; not like the Franks in the last 4 games of last season. OL has a long way to go; running game was non-existent. It looks like Manny Diaz is doing well at rebuilding the U. Hopefully, Gators will resuscitate against UT-Martin.

Winter Park started out strong in the 1st quarter going up 14-0. They got bit by the turnover bug, had two fumbles returned for Wekiva TD's, and a 40 yard kickoff they failed to field that Wekiva recovered and converted to a TD. They never recovered giving up 35 straight points. We'll have to see what happens this week when they travel to Georgia to play a nationally ranked team from Ohio.

Both my grandsons have gone to football camps at IMG the last two Summers and have received excellent instruction. They have definitely improved their skills and confidence at those camps. IMG isn't for every kid and they don't claim to be. They're a sports factory for high school kids. Their elite team seeks out games against the best teams in the country; they're not out to beat up on local Florida schools.

Talk about a beat down!! By end of game, MC QB was looking for license plate number of truck that ran him over. It was entertaining watching a Miami-Dade powerhouse be humbled, no let's say humiliated. I haven't seen Lakeland this year, but I just watched a Miami-Dade team that wouldn't do so well against Lakeland.

I give IMG a lot of credit for admitting what they are; an all-star team, full of recruits, playing a national schedule, and not beating up on traditional high school football teams that are trying to make FHSAA playoffs. There are too many schools doing very much the same thing that IMG does with the exception that those teams are recruiting away other teams best players, beating up on those teams they poached, and still playing in FHSAA playoffs. Recruiting and transfers have destroyed the competitive balance in Florida high school football, and I don't think that is for the betterment of the sport or for the preservation of traditional rivalries.

I don't know about Lakeland not being so dominant, but right now, I'm watching St Francis of Baltimore make Miami Central look like a Pop Warner team, and they're ranked as #15 team in country. Miami finally scored to close the gap to 23-7 St Francis with 2:22 left in first half, but St Francis (#6 in country) just marched down the field to make it 29-7 at halftime. The SF QB is only a sophomore and he's shredding MC's defense.

Edgewater's team is big and fast. When you say they don't have as many recruits as Lakeland and Cocoa, that's still a competitive problem. The past two years of recruiting has them with more than half their starters being recruited players; then you add to that the players that actually are zoned to that school, and it puts schools that don't recruit at a severe disadvantage. That showed in yesterday's game where BM played them even up to half way through the 3rd quarter. By then, BM players were tired and Edgewater was still sending fresh players in. It may be a good topic for this forum: "Is the new open transfer policy going to be detrimental to HS football?" We've seen free agency destroy the competitive balance in professional sports like basketball and baseball. College QB's change teams as often as their underwear; and the transfer portal is like a swinging gate. I'm afraid that traditional HS football rivalries may become a thing of the past as more and more IMG's are established.

Winter Park lost to Wekiva tonight 35-21, a surprising loss for WP. I don't know how the game went, but will check with my grandson tomorrow (he went to the game) and try to offer some insight. Seminole put it to Dr Phillips 35-13. Seminole is loaded with talented players and should be a top 5 team in Central Florida this fall.