Ray Icaza

I know ultimately it came down to the ruling by the judge presiding the case, but in fact the FHSAA still had to stand and fight for their correct decision.

They don't get much love and don't deserve much, but I got to give FHSAA credit for standing their ground against this form of intimidation to chalk a win up for the good guys. I wasn't confident they had it in them.

Perspective my friend as the OPEN CHAMPION would be declared the only STATE CHAMPION. However, there are still many good, solid programs out there that could compete for a GOLD, SILVER & BRONZE championship award with fair competition in each and every bracket as most observers would declare what we currently have today is closer to your "Worst in History" declaration. Less teams would resign themselves to leave the FHSAA as is happening today due to the lack of hope in reaching a desired goal. But what do I know when disagreeing with the "ALL KNOWING ORACLE OF DELPHI"!

It would have if the number of teams scooped up in that bracket was 16 like I believe it should be and they went with straight MaxPrep rankings.

Thanks for breaking down this legal process and what I found most revealing was you accurately pointing out the TIMING of this. They had fought the ruling previously, though not in court and lost the appeal. Seeing how an injunction works and them not doing it at the beginning of the year rather waiting till the midnight hour smells. Plus, the coaches and administration have been emphatic it isn't their idea but that of the parents, yet they haven't lifted a finger to discourage the actions. What a slimy bunch.

Their wrongdoing is not in question in my eyes due to the fact they took 2 of our starters last year that now currently start for them. They attempted desperately to take more including our 2 D1 LB's as confessed by their fathers. Fortunately, it didn't cave our program though those players were missed but what they did to other programs devastated them. I know other schools delve in this behavior and more need to be made examples of which would remove the defense the lawyers are making to lift the ban.

Agree with you 100% and felt that FHSAA would cave to the pressure. It is an absolute terrible message to send to kids about right and wrong on so many levels, particularly from a private school that cloaks itself in Christianity. SAD!!!

Thanks for that info as I just looked again to see that the normal Tuesday update of the rankings still hadn't been posted. At least that makes a bit of sense and should help us getting some key players that have been dinged up recently back in the lineup.

It has been hard for me to follow your example of not being offensive when it comes to being critical of the FHSAA regarding the playoff brackets for THIS Friday night. They should have done whatever was necessary, working thru the weekend, getting more help, speeding up the computer, anything to post those playoff brackets by Sunday night. No later than Monday noon so each team knew who their opponent was when they started practicing Monday. Criticism isn't driven because the team I like somehow is handicapped as just checking the status of rankings on the FHSAA website it normally gets updated every Tuesday morning but nothing today thus far. As previously stated by others, the higher rankings are pretty much baked in this late in the season so it appears from last week's ranking we will be playing Melbourne again and I imagine our coaching staff is assuming the same and working accordingly. This though is another example that reflects so terribly on this organization. Embarrassing for sure.

Hey, it's 4th down. GOTTA PUNT!!

No doubt, we made plays and ran the ball at will but hurt ourselves like we have all year on the offensive side of the ball. Uncharacteristically, our defense normally can limit even top tier teams to only 2 or 3 scores gave up 35 which was completely out of character. I agreed with your opinion on being competitive in the playoffs if we could clean those mistakes up, but it is awful late in the year to think that will change. Regardless, in our region we should win the first round game and have a good chance even in the second. Just don't see much hope after that going to Armwood. Last year and in 2022, regardless of the rankings, pundits, naysayers, etc.., I felt we had an even chance to beat the very best teams like Armwood, Buchholz, Vero and even Lakeland. We ain't those teams this year. Always pulling for them and hope so much they prove me wrong.

You may be correct, but if they were we never played them from my 8th grade year ('61-'62) thru my sophomore year while in the Ridge before initially joining the OBC during my junior year ('64-'65). Since I was a foreigner in Kissimmee back then only knowing baseball, I started buying the annual yearbook that included Jr. High and Sr. High to familiarize myself with my new classmates. Just verified the schedule in each of them.

You have been pushing this type of solution for a while and I don't have a real problem with any of it other than only one of those classifications is considered a state champ as I don't believe in labeling a losers division winner a state champ. I myself believe in the OPEN DIVISION for the state championship with only 3 other classifications with a Gold, Silver and Bronze division and that would be your championship designation.

Outside of Lakeland and at times Lake Gibson, Lake Wales has historically been one of the best programs consistently in Polk County over the decades. You are correct, we have played them a lot over the years although I am not certain they made up one of the teams in the Ridge Conference you mention but probably did. We played in that conference in the late 50's thru mid 60's before joining the Orange Belt conference that included Apopka, Deland, Longwood, Bishop Moore, Lyman and Lakeview HS (now West Orange). These were bigger schools but I thought the Ridge was tougher overall as it was a trip down Hwy. 27 and included Haines City, Sebring, Avon Park, Fort Meade, Mulberry and Lake Placid. Those little schools seemed to all be tough back then.

Unfortunately, this years squad is not as deep as we have experienced in the past and playing a fairly challenging schedule we have been hit pretty hard by the injury bug and those backups we are depending on to step up aren't quite up to the test. Tonight we played without our 2 starting corners and at times the Purdy kid was able to make big plays against those very backups. Hope by the first or second round of the playoffs we will get some of them back including a couple OL and maybe those corners. One of our top RB's broke a foot and doubt we will get him back this year which forces us to use a talented safety to fill in at times. Against the top tier teams we have to grind out 10-12 play drives which has little margin for error if we get behind the chains with a sack, holding penalty or any negative play. As I previously stated, luckily we aren't in 6A R1 which has a handful of teams that would give us trouble. Thanks for the plug though.

Watching the Pick'Ems for this match, I was surprised everyone picked us as I expected a tight game thinking along the lines of LAZ margin of a 2 pt. victory. It could have easily been that or more had we finished the plays that were there to be made as we dropped 2 easy touchdown passes in the endzone, plus on a separate drive deep in Lake Wales territory we dropped an easy 3rd down conversion pass that would have kept another drive alive around the redzone. Props to Lake Wales as on the flip side every single opportunity they had to make a play they did.......no drops, no missed open receivers and no critical penalties that would jeopardize a drive or keep one of ours alive. Can't really criticize the officiating as my eyesight isn't the best and some of the calls like helmet to helmet on their sideline on a critical 3rd and 6 that one might deem questionable when we got a stop, gave them new life and led to a score. That happened a couple of times. Our coaching staff called a great game and overall our QB did his job well but when you are depending on 16, 17 year olds it is truly unpredictable. Our ground game probably gained somewhere around 250 yards while we pretty much stuffed theirs. The Purdy kid they have at WR and plays both ways is definitely a talent. This will pretty much relegate us to the #3 seed in our region thus requiring travel in the 2nd round probably to South Lake. Haven't reported scores the past few weeks as we won several games we should have easily won and didn't feel a need to crow about it. GO KOWBOYS!!

That is an extremely difficult region, especially after the first round. For us even the first round in 6A R1 would be a difficult game, much less the 2nd round. So to advance it is more manageable in 6A R2 which we are in.

Evans is a dangerous team, but hard to figure out as are a lot of teams. Outside of Lake Mary, Jones and West Orange on their schedule with good resumes, the other teams they have played have a combined record of 12-27 against inferior competition. 6A Region #1 has quite a few teams that will be a challenge for them to come out of it unscathed once they reach the playoffs. Neither Jones or Lake Mary have been as impressive as they were last year either, but those were good wins for Evans having dropped the game vs West Orange. Glad they have that program headed in the right direction.

Your theory, which I agree with, flies in the face of those making the case that it proves that a weak schedule is null and void. Quite the opposite seems to be the case here as when the going gets tough who can dig deeper. There is a difference in losing to strong teams as opposed to weak teams despite the records being identical. The same case is true for beating weak teams as opposed to winning against tough competition despite the records being the same. This is proven out during the playoffs annually. That's why I often refer to some of the 1st and 2nd round opponents you see as "PRETENDERS" thus the lopsided scores.

Locally, the Orlando Sentinel has a Coach's poll for Central FL teams they update weekly. OHS has been in the top #10 all year while South Lake just rose to #16 this week. Their HC as well as ours participate in this ranking along with 12 others so it is pretty accurate.

That SOS is the FHSAA version, yes the one that counts but that I have questioned. According to MaxPreps, South Lake SOS is 7.8 while ours is 21.4, most recently dropping you about 40 spots while elevating ours in the most recent release. I think most avid followers on this forum place more credence in a ranking that places STA in the top 5 in the state as opposed to #64 with over 60 teams rated better including us which I find laughable. Same can be said for multiple teams in the top 10 in MaxPreps. No ranking is perfect, but most seem to be pretty reasonable be it MaxPreps, LAZ, Josh, etc.... with the outlier with many detractors being FHSAA. Just my take and not a smear on your squad, with you being correct about a possible meeting in the 2nd round. I just rather be at home though look forward to it.

Thank goodness your opinions have a track record and "Respectfully" it ain't very good. So we can certainly re-visit this most recent one after the 2nd round in the playoffs. We have suffered with multiple injuries to players in key roles throughout the year which has certainly impacted our performance. My take is if we get most of them back for the playoffs we get thru the first 2 rounds and that is our expectation. We shall see.

Looks at this point in the season that 6A has the best winning percentage overall vs all the classes. Probably a good indication of a high number of solid teams in this classification which is also reflected in the rankings. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of separation in rankings by most sources and those by the wise men at FHSAA. Hopefully that gap will close by seasons end to lend more credibility to the seeding formula for all teams. Somehow in never favors us as evidenced 3 years ago having to travel to Vero for regional championship and winning easily. Same can be said last year having to travel for both the regional (Armwood) and state Semi (Buchholz). Now they have South Lake ahead of us with the #2 seed in our Region. Headscratcher for sure. No offense Beek.

I guess if your threshold for going to the OPEN DIVISION is based on the sheer number of transfers, then yes I would suppose depending on what that number is (5, 10, 20?) there could be 40 teams. That wouldn't be my basis, rather the final season ranking taking those teams to fill out the bracket whatever size it was (12, 16, 24, etc..) with no option to opt out.

We obviously have a different concept of the schools that are truly elite in FL (1-2% in my view) roughly 10-15 schools from year to year. In other words, by years end and final rankings do you really believe that school X ranked 37th will beat school B ranked #3 overall? Or when seeding comes out #40 can possibly defeat #1. We know who the usual suspects are as you rightly listed most of them earlier in this thread. Newbies like a Flanagan or West Boca who I mentioned would be rewarded by getting put into that group for their troubles for those few years they game the system. Just my opinion and wonder what others think the size of the OPEN DIVISION should be. Winner would be the overall state champ while the other 3 classes would compete for a Gold, Silver and Bronze title.