Ray Icaza

SPARE ME!!

Your scheduling plan is absolutely the right thing for your team. As I have expressed in other threads the coach should manage who they play so they can provide success for the kids. Over time it will not only motivate them to work harder as well as BELIEVE they can win plus the benefit of hopefully slowing down the transfer of good players. I believe in this system of promotion/relegation to be absolutely a good process, I just don't believe in rewarding a team pulling themselves up from the bootstraps with a ranking of 350 a State Championship designation. Toho is obviously doing some of that also and I am okay with that just not leaving a star QB in a game with a running clock to the final horn padding stats as opposed to giving another kid that is working hard some reps. That is why I singled them out.

Agreed that we have kids in honors (the highest classification) that are achieving at a high level. I am referring to kids in the bottom rung that are just promoted from one grade to the next who graduate with a second grade reading level instead of being challenged so we don't hurt their feelings. This reward which you think is helpful actually hurts them in the end. Your track analogy just proved my point as this time in the 4X100 was basically in the top 10% in the state that year. That is achievement regardless of the size of the school. But you want to give a sense of accomplishment to those in the bottom half instead of working to improve their performance. Many (not all) in the bottom rung of your proposed system will come to believe by winning that class that they are good and will be content to perform poorly and still be recognized. It does them no favors in the real world.

Not nearly as familiar with all those teams as I am Toho and yes they are working hard and feeling good about themselves. In the first 3 games they have outscored their opponent 144-6. The highly rated QB I have mentioned named Sabby Meassick has thrown for 998 yards, 18 TD's with O INT's at a 77% clip . So his HC (AirDiso), is certainly helping him pad his stats as to me the most important stat is their "Strength of Schedule" a -33!! Don't believe they will make much noise in the playoffs.

By the way, just to be clear I hate the free transfer rule and wish those in power would return to the old system. At the same time i want to be clear that as I see it kids overwhelmingly transfer to not sit on the bench, not the other way around.

Ouch!! Getting a little heated so best to lay down your weapons.

I used the public education analogy because this kind of thinking has created poor performing schools (not all mind you). In a classroom you have A students, B students, C students, D students and F students. So we don't hurt the feelings of the F students let's put them all in the same class and award an A to the best in the group so they have a "SENSE of ACCOMPLISHMENT". Use the bell curve on the rest and promoted them along. The one's that got A's we will move to the D group and so on and so forth. Sounds like a brilliant idea to me.

I am not opposed to Suburban/Metro change so no need to keep trying to sell me on that. It is a step in the right direction as I am not arguing the advantage of Metro areas when it comes to transfers. Columbia didn't just beat the state champion, they beat a previous years state champion but lost to them the two previous years. Be it Madison County, Hawthorne, Baker, etc.... my contention was clearly they could beat teams ranked in the bottom half of all FL teams and now the example you want to throw out implies that is where Columbia is ranked. I repeat "GET REAL". Plus you are focusing on the smallest classification knowing 2A-8A would clearly put a running clock on those bottom feeders. You decidedly have ignored my basic premise that state champions in the current system are excellent teams, all of them. State champions in the Promotion/Relegation system would include several pitiful teams. Thus my opposition to calling them that. Give them a trophy, give them 5 trophies just don't call them a state champion.

No it isn't. What you are implying is that the classifications (2 or 3 of them) in the bottom half of that proposed system could beat even the 1A champ currently much less the 2A thru 8A. I think both you and I know the answer to that. In the system from the 60's we have been awarding a state championship to the best team based on enrollment numbers. That seemed to be a fair way of doing it and the winner regardless of class was in the top 10% of teams in the entire state. Now you also want to pretend this is the same thing when you are awarding a championship to the top shitty team, teams that aren't even in the top 70% in the entire state. Get real. As I previously stated , give them a trophy but call it something other than a state champ. You may want to keep arguing this point, I have no interest in that as no matter how you want to justify it I will never think it is a good thing to reward poor performance.

It ain't about making me "FEEL BETTER" and I am okay with giving them trophies; bottom dwellers champion, one step up champion, mediocre champion, etc... Just don't call it a State Championship as your comparison of a trophy for a shitty district with a trophy for a State Championship is not a worthy argument. I would be fine with a scenario like you lay out with having a SINGLE state champion in the upper division only, however a team gets into that "Classification". It should be decided by whichever schools feel they can compete and want to compete at that level; let in whomever wants.

Seems to me we used that formula in our public schools by doing away with meritocracy and not pushing to improve poor performance. What I described for coaches to do is what you propose without awarding a championship to the best poor performers. Basically a participation reward. Metro/Suburban doesn't solve the problems but it levels the playing field to some extent and every team winning a championship in this formula is among the top 10% overall in the state. The other system would hand out trophies for schools in the bottom 30% When it comes to cheating, that system won't eliminate that practice either only perfect who can do it best.

I said those other opponents, especially BTW are solid teams but not on the same level as any of the wins CMD has. For example, a common opponent of BTW and MNW is Edison (decent team). BTW won by a single possession whereas MNW blew them out. MaxPreps computer strength of schedule for Central despite being heavily skewed by IMG, also favors CMD by almost 15 points and almost 10 points better than even IMG's strength of schedule. Central may very well be the best team and they have remaining games on their schedule which you indicated to earn the "ranking". Dillard as a common opponent next week will give us a better idea and I don't think IMG's schedule for the remainder of the year is that tough until they play SFA which has beat them up two straight years. My guess with IMG relying on the backup QB will be on the short end of the stick again.

Not a thing. At present the only viable solution I see is for HC to be realistic in where their team is competitively among the 570-580 so schools under the FHSAA umbrella. You don't have control of the district you will be placed in, but you do have control in scheduling the remaining 5, 6 or 7 games. Are you in the top third, the middle third or the bottom third whereby you choose opponents in your "Classification" for lack of a better term. You will win some and lose some, but most importantly your kids can compete with teams at the same level. Most scheduling requires a two-year commitment (home and away), so re-evaluate every couple of years to determine whether to increase/decrease the level of difficulty. Yes, I know this formula can go completely out the window when someone poaches several of your players.

A good example is the Lakeland team we just played Friday night. I don't consider Winter Haven nor Clearwater as poor programs as they generally are pretty good, yet the average margin in those two games was 36-0 . Wait for it, AT HALFTIME!! Thank goodness the staff there showed good sportsmanship and empathy by not scoring hardly at all in the second half I imagine getting reps for those deep on the bench.

This trend will continue or even worsen as time goes on, so yes it should be concerning to everyone. Unfortunately some don't see it as a problem and without strong support for change it will persist. Your stats basically reflect a running clock in a third of those games reported. That ain't good for anyone, but I am all ears if you have some solutions in bringing this ship back to shore. Thanks for the research and your effort in presenting a factual analysis.

Is it being televised?

Just saw your post and I guess we have the same argument. Let's see if we get a response to this line of thinking and the question I flipped on him. The most recent national polls had AHP either a spot behind or slightly ahead of IMG in the present rankings, not a guess in preseason. Will also be interesting to see how far up these pollsters move CMD after Friday's win.

No, I am basing it on CMD's overall body of work. Their four wins are all against top ranked opponents. Central has one impressive win, the other 2 against good teams but not on the level as the other resume. Why, do you think Carol City or BTW are better than MNW, Dillard, St. John's College (DC) or AHP?

Will be in attendance next Friday as usual.

Cormani played the whole game for them and did make a crucial play on a 50/50 ball with Ja'Keem. It was like a 20-30 yard pass play, they both went up and simultaneously caught the ball then went to the ground and for whatever reason Ja'Keem released his grip which resulted in an INT as opposed to a tie that goes to the offense. Wet conditions contributed to both teams suffering 4 TO's apiece during the game which as expected was hard hitting.

I stated at the outset of the season, we could possibly navigate the early schedule with 1 loss, 2 losses, 3 losses or NO losses. We lost by 1 to the #1 team in 4M in OT, then to the #1 team in 4S by 3 at their place. We don't see these as moral victories, just preparation for "Who's Next".......Rockledge, the #2 team in 3S again an away game. Should be another slobbernocker.

Props to CMD for a tough win over AHP. I haven't had the pleasure to watch Madonna though I have watched AHP twice and thought they would win with all the weapons they could attack you with. If I did have a poll they would certainly have earned #1 after tonight.

You must not have watched much as I saw every game and we always played tough, though we do have a bunch of really nice guys. I will spell it out again for you a 2ND TIME. We returned 1 starter on the offensive line with the rest of the bunch being freshmen and sophomores basically with zero varsity experience. Those kids got beat up vs the top teams with a strong defensive fronts. We essentially got them all back plus a couple of transfers and additional new freshmen. Next year we will literally have them all back except for McCrimmon. The three new freshmen playing mostly JV are in the 6'4" -6'5" 280-290 range. Our OL will be a tremendous strength going forward.

My biggest takeaway which I failed to mention is we had been rotating the 2 QB's the first two games. When asked who would be the starter, I answered honestly that I didn't know and indicated the staff was still evaluating and would use this bye week to nail that down. They did just that and decided on David Buggs who has been playing only 8 man football the past couple of years at a Christian school. My feeling is that either could get the job done and for the first game out of the box as a starter in a hostile environment he performed as well as could be expected. The passing game will continue improve going forward as that will allow him to get more reps with the receiving group. We have been plugging a tiny freshman in to help and the one interception Lakeland got was that young man turned the route in rather than out and it went straight to the defender. Drops, mistakes like these are all areas of improvement which game experience will fix.

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