Rattlin Steele

Your guy just made a play when it was needed. Agree that Matthews wasn't 100%. We weren't sure he'd even play. I don't think he returned after the strip.

Thanks for your post! The strip-six was a great play by your big DE. He just mauled Matthews (who is one of our strongest guys) and yanked that ball out and up. On the 2 pt conversion in regulation, it was close, but I guess we have to defer to the official who was right there. Great hit by the DB. I hated the idea of going for 2 at that early of a point. Maybe no OT if we would've kicked it. I hated going for 2 on the final play with that call. I've never seen a jump pass attempted where the receiver(s) are outside the hashes. Credit to Lakeland for stopping it. I'm devastated but not angry. I was worried we might get embarrassed.

Regardless of next week's results, I think you have to say this game was worthy of the state title game. After 3 overtimes, I'm emotionally worn out. Hard to believe our usually very good kicker missed 3 (maybe a 4th) FGs, 2 of which would have been walk-off wins. Somewhat disappointed in our offensive play calling, did not see much new in this game. The TE up the hash for a TD was a great call and something I haven't seen all year. Also stupid to call TO in 2nd OT when we didn't have one. Do not know why our QB #11 cannot throw the ball away and gets sacked instead. He's done that a lot this year. I'm super disappointed for our defense as 2 Lakeland TD's in regulation (ended 20 all) were given up by the offense and special teams. They played their hearts out. Niceville 423 yds to Lakeland's 152. Tough loss for us. But, I'm very proud of them overall, we have 1 guy going to Navy and 2 or 3 more going to little schools so I'm thrilled they came that close against Lakelands numerous P5 recruits. Malik Morris is a GAM among men! Congratulations to Lakeland. Good luck in Miami! PS - the reason our band (or part of it) weren't there was due to a prior commitment to play in a Christmas parade tomorrow.

Our bowled U-shaped stadium isn't that large but we generally pack the house including most of the visitor side if able. Seems not too many schools travel well these days. Our home seating from 20 to 20 is all season ticket holders and 20 to the closed end goal line is the raucous student section. The closed end also has additional seating for our 300+ band members and their sound projects well throughout the stadium. I have season tickets and frankly too many of them are too reserved to yell & scream as much as we need. I've had mine a long time so I don't care if I act the fool! I just asked and apparently we are not taking the band, not even a pep band. Disappointed by this. Can understand the expenses associated with taking 300+ members, but not even a pep band of 50 or so Seniors? Finally, if LL fans at the game were already thinking this semifinal would be a cakewalk, they must've just been assuming because it was supposed to be STA at LL based on the published rules, unless they think STA is a cakewalk too.

Same to you! Will you be there in person? Hope it is a well fought tightly contested game with the best team winning!

Thanks! We'll have our radio crew streaming as well to keep up with. Hopefully there won't be to much lag between the two.

Thanks, someone, perhaps you, mentioned HUDL uses a robo-cam. Can you confirm, and if so, is it much like highlight footage on HUDL and there will be no sound and no score or time graphics? Here's the link NHS is giving out. They've said there will be a fee, but no more details than that. https://fan.hudl.com/usa/fl/lakeland/organization/9125/lakeland-high-school/schedule?date=2024-12-01T06%3A00%3A00.000Z&range=Week&s=U2NoZWR1bGVFbnRyeVB1YmxpY1N1bW1hcnk2NzRiMTc4MTcxMzNlYjk3MjUwZWJjNWY%3D Looking at that page I see a "Tickets" choice, but it says "No Tickets Published Yet". I'm thinking that might be for longer term subscription options. HUDL help pages seem to indicate there will be a "purchase" button for that particular livestream event once we get closer the event. It's not showing one yet and I'm hoping it's not going to show up right at game start. Can you shed any light? Thanks!

Love it! Re: winners, I absolutely hate to admit but I don't think NV has the horses to stay with LL. Ya'll have a number of D1 recruits and we don't, and it usually comes to bear this time of year. From what little highlights I seen, #0 and #9 are beasts on D and I don't know if we can deal with that. Same when you put #0 in the O backfield. I honestly don't have the confidence I need in our O coaching staff. Some of the play calls in our 1 loss were real headscratchers. I'm hoping they've just been keeping some stuff under their hat. They've been known to do that before. I can't pick against STA, but I wouldn't be surprised if Manatee pulls it out. Don't have much real knowledge of either of them. Seems STA might not be on the same level as usual this year.

Looks like Lakeland vs Niceville will be livestreamed there. Just have some general questions. Anyone?

Not trying to promote NFHS, but FYI: NFHS Network is currently showing all FL state title games in their "upcoming games" listing. FHSAA website still says TBA for 1A-7A but does show NFHS for Rural and Rural FIT. Semifinals shown as of 12/4: DP @ Lake Mary Columbus @ Venice Osceola @ Buchholz Naples @ Jones St Aug @ AHP TCA @ Chaminade Madonna BTW @ Gasden Co Cocoa @ Cardinal Mooney

Some more thoughts, sorry for not taking the time to quote. Obviously the FHSAA computes other factors even if they do incorporate the MaxPreps rankings. I've noticed they've not been the same all year and the numbers significantly vary. This unpublished policy didn't change much as already noted. No host sites changed. In 6A, obviously Osceola is happier to travel to Gainesville instead of Boca Raton and I'm sure Southridge is happier to only travel 65 miles to play WBR. In 5A, it's a wash travel wise, Niceville was headed to Manatee, now Lakeland. Not a big difference distance wise. Same for STA's travel. In 4A, I bet St Aug would've preferred going to Orlando instead of the outskirts of Ft Lauderdale and Naples would have rather traveled 95 miles east to AHP instead of Orlando. So again nothing major, but consider this: In 5A, Niceville was 3rd seed going in. Although they finished 3rd after the regional finals calculation, the ranking margin was only .103 points. behind Lakeland, who originally was first. What might it have taken for them to overcome that margin and move into 2nd? Maybe they don't botch a read option hand-off at their own 30 that popped upward and was snatched out the air by Lincoln and returned for their only TD of the night, or don't give up a controversial fumble that led to Lincoln's only FG after being stone-walled by the defense. Maybe a better margin of victory or shutout overtakes that .103 difference and suddenly Lakeland's travelling 415 miles to the panhandle. 'Naught fans would be up in arms about the rule change I'm pretty sure. Going from a 1 seed to 3? You know the Lakeland Ledger would be all over it then! BTW, I have the 8 Nov rankings because they were on the FSHAA site up until the 29 Nov rankings came out late that night. I went ahead and scraped them to an excel sheet just to compare later.

I did the comparison for all the classifications. The FHSAA "Football Sport Manual 2024-25 Edition" date 9/24/2024 clearly states that semifinal round seeding and host site determination will use the rankings from the end of the regular season: 4.7.2.2.2 State Semifinals (a) Dates and Times. See the football webpage at FHSAA.com. (b) Bracketing. Teams will be seeded based on the FHSAA MaxPreps Rankings at the conclusion of the regular season. The one (1) seed will play the four (4) seed and the two (2) seed will play the three (3) seed. (c) Host Schools. Teams with the highest regular season FHSAA MaxPreps Ranking will be designated “home” team. As posted above they did not adhere to that rule and continued to re-compute rankings after each round. The rankings from after the regional finals on 11/29 were used instead. Matchups in classes 6A, 5A, and 4A were affected by this change. However, host sites are generally the main concern and nothing changed here as luck would have it. Only the opponent at the host sites changed. 1st # after school name is ranking of 11/29. 2nd # is ranking at the end of regular season. 7A 1 Venice 1 1 2 Lake Mary 2 2 3 Dr. Phillips 3 5 4 Columbus 5 8 6A 1 W Boca Raton 1 2 2 Buchholz 3 4 3 Osceola 4 7 4 Southridge 6 6 5A 1 Manatee 1 2 2 Lakeland 2 1 3 Niceville 3 3 4 STA 4 10 4A 1 AHP 1 1 2 Jones 2 2 3 Naples 4 7 4 St Aug 5 5 3A 1 Raines 1 1 2 Eau Gallie 2 2 3 Northwestern 3 3 4 Booker 8 18 2A 1 Gasden Co 1 1 2 Card. Mooney 2 2 3 Cocoa 3 5 4 BT Washington 5 8 1A 1 Cham-Madonna 1 1 2 Card. Newman 2 2 3 Clearwater Cen 3 4 4 TCA 7 11

Alas I won't be able to make it. Hope our radio crew is and holding out hope it might be streamed on NFHS network. Not showing that at the moment, but I know Venice always seems to stream their playoff games there and so far not showing for them either. Not sure how it works but neither N'ville or Lakeland are NFHS network schools so maybe not. I do know that in 2020 during covid I did not attend the Edgewater @ N'ville playoff game in person and yet the game was streamed on NFHS using an independent broadcast crew and publisher was listed as FHSAA (usually it says the home school's name). I know our radio guys were not thrilled they had to give up their inside booth. Fingers crossed.

Have a buddy who is related to someone in the school who is definitely "In the Know". He inquired on my behalf and told me this: () = my comments The rankings have been recomputed after every round and it seems the schools had this info (but it wasn't updated on the FSHAA site). Going into the regional finals last night, 5A had Manatee clearly at the top followed by Lakeland, Lincoln, and Niceville tightly bunched in that order. So close that Niceville thought they might overtake Lakeland if they won against Lincoln. The rankings were recomputed after last night's results. Niceville finished 3rd behind Lakeland by .103 pts. ---- These new rankings are now shown on the FSHAA website. So contrary to the FHSAA rules that were cited in an earlier post, they did not use the end-of-regular-season rankings. From our Nicevillian POV it didn't matter much really. We thought we would travel to Manatee, instead we're visiting Lakeland, although personally I would have preferred Manatee as we all know that playing Lakeland at home is brutal. Unsure of Manatee's fan fervor. Last night at the conclusion of the game I knew something wasn't adding up with regard to the cited rule, because the stadium announcer and radio crew said we won't know what's happening next for the team till later despite the fact that all the regional final results were known by then. So now I understand why -- the FHSAA was going to do another round of rankings later in the night and those ranking would determine the semifinal host sites. It worked out well for those clamoring for an Lakeland/STA championship game since that possibility now exists (and is likely). When I get some time I'm going to try and re-compare for the other classes out of curiosity.

Based on previous posts it was supposed to be STA @ Lakeland and N'ville @ Manatee in 5A based on the end of season rankings. Now-published matchups are STA @ Manatee and N'ville @ Lakeland! So it appears they did not seed based on the "end of regular season" rankings which were: 1 Lakeland 2 Manatee 3 Niceville 10 STA

Niceville over Ponte Vedre 21-20 in OT. PV down 7 in OT, scored, went for 2 and were unsuccessful. What a nail-biter!

If we were fortunate to get to the semifinal and host it at home, I'd consider it a nice consolation prize. I'm not confident we can compete well with the other region winners.

Assuming we (Niceville) can win R1, I was hoping for a Manatee loss so we'd get the semifinal at home. Your post made me realize the opponent would likely be STA if that happened. Yikes!

The above is contrary to what's shown on the bracket, which shows R1 vs R2 and R3 vs R4 in the 5A semifinals. As a Niceville fan, however, I much prefer the scenario you posted. We might have a chance to host a semifinal then, assuming we make it that far, with a Manatee loss. Pretty confident Lakeland will win R2. Also, can anyone explain the discrepancy between the FHSAA final regular season rankings and the Maxpreps version on their site? I thought they were one and the same, but not seeing that.

I'm thinking of getting a free trial of the FUBO service which does carry Bally Sports. The issue for NJ, and elsewhere, is whether the Sports Sun or Sports Florida "channels" are viewable for them. Bally restricts viewership based on your local area. Link below tells what your eligible for. https://getmyhometeams.com/

2 weeks in row BT making that trip

Thank you for the complete explanation. Given the converse of your example above, a #7 district champ hosts against a #2 non-champ, which is the case with my favorite team (#2 Niceville). Good to know the latter statement as well. We should host next round if we get by Nease.

Can someone fill me in or provide a link on how hosting sites are determined? I was under the impression that district champions would host 1st round. Apparently not? Thanks!

Basically the Ch 3 Prep Football Final View Area. Any other folks here from area?