Ray Icaza

Yup, it isn't about APK it's that he contradicts himself from one thread to the next. He claimed you "SHOULDN'T" throw a team into the top 20 because of 1 good win but did exactly that with West Orange. A simple admission that polls this early are nonsense is my point. Admitting that they are "Evolving" tends to confirm that.

Point being, 21 is a far cry from 1 yet they remained. Spin as you may, at 2-3 weeks in they are ALL NONSENSE but will get a reaction from those left out who think they should be in. But I suppose that is human nature.

By the way, this isn't meant to be a slight against APK as the season is still early and they have time to gel enough to be considered at top 25 or top 50 team. These comparisons of teams that are in the top 10% or top 50 teams as opposed to the one's in the top 1% (top 5-6) to justify if they are excellent teams is asinine. Everyone knows the top 1% will pretty much dismantle the other 99%.

This isn't my fight but consistency is worth pointing out. What does this have to do with either Boone or Ocoee being good? To early to tell but WE shall see, they have enough challenges to see if they are which doesn't require them to be in anyone's top 25 OPINION poll. WE being the operative word includes you. Take Ocoee as an example; they lost to Apopka (Your #9 at the time) and only lost by 1 away from home. You only dropped APK then to #13 before they turn around and lost to unranked West Orange where you moved them to #25. By your own words if they couldn't beat Ocoee by 21 they don't deserve to be in the top 25, but there they sit even after losing to the unranked WO. Again, anyone reading this should come away with the conclusion these early polls are NONSENSE just another opinion.

Boone is similar to Winter Park competitively, so should provide them with a good test. You are correct that they are in an extremely weak district, but to their credit they scheduled Dr. Phillips, Jones and Edgewater so I commend them on that. Of their 2 wins, the one vs Timber Creek might reflect well going forward as that team did beat Dr. Phillips so will have to see how their season plays out as they also have scheduled some excellent teams.

I have watched some of the WP games this year to see how one of our kids would perform for them. They do seem to have a better team than last year and my reasoning for thinking the win in GA was impressive was due to the fact that they weren't expected to win. Again, their schedule is not as challenging as they should strive for with the kind of team they have to prepare to challenge the top teams in the area for the 4M playoffs. By the way, our kid probably our most complete returning Slot/WR that transferred there has been a difference maker. He ran back a kick-off about 90 yards for a TD plus a punt for over 50 to the half foot line against Lake Nona plus a handful of receptions. He then backed that up with a solid all-around performance against the Georgia team. We knew him as ZAY, #13 - Izaiah Jean-Baptsite. A weapon that would have certainly benefitted us this year.

That my friend, is the way TO GET BETTER.

No doubt, those thinking we have no more games we can lose (except if we play Lakeland and get blown out) seem to be picking up the slack for Jesse with non-sensical pronouncements. By the way, the lightning capital of the world by most standards is in Maracaibo, Venezuela or Africa. Florida is considered by some with Oklahoma as the top in the US, but Orange county ranks higher than Polk. So, I think this person just throw things out there to annoy and try to get others wound up.

Should be another great game, but as I mentioned on the other thread I don't put much stock in these national rankings as they have Jones, Edgewater and Cocoa all in the top 100, but Seminole not a sniff even though the local reporters watching these games all viewed them as the best in the area. By the time they reach that Cocoa game some of this nonsense will sort itself out.

Didn't see that game but have watched several involving these "SO-CALLED" elite national teams to know these rankings are a JOKE!! As many sober people have pointed out, let's get a body of 5, 6, 7 games before we start claiming teams are Elite. I do agree that refs can cost a team a game, just hard to chalk it up to that when you lose by 3 TD's and give up almost 50 points no matter how you try to paint it. Even if all of it were true, nothing is learned if you aren't willing to take ANY responsibility for an outcome like this.

They missed their first one, then went for 2 on their 2nd TD and failed which gave us 14-12 lead. It remained that way for most of the 2nd half and with under 2 minutes left we thought we had the game won a one of our DB's lost his footing and gave up about a 70 yard pass play. They went for 2 and were successful on this attempt and took a 20-14 lead with about 90 seconds left in the game but decided to taunt our players and gave up a 15 yard penalty assessed on the KO. We got a great return as we had all night from Taevion and managed a short drive to quickly punch in a TD with about 6 seconds remaining to tie the game. We have a reliable kicker so they knew they had to get a block to force OT and they made that play. In OT, both teams got quick scores and they decided to go for 2 and again made that play. That is why I stated earlier in this thread they made the plays to WIN the game. Both teams committed mistakes and got their share of penalties called, but they deserved to win because they made one or two more plays than us. The type of game that you hate seeing either team lose but it was a classic.

By the way Cocoa will have their crack at Seminole a few weeks down the road to see what they can do. Jones beat Cocoa at their place and all our local reporters rank Seminole higher in our area than Jones. Seminole still have Treasure Coast, Venice, Apopka and again under the radar team in Lake Mary remaining on their schedule so they will be battle ready for the playoffs. On a side note, Coach Malzahn was at our game last night checking out the talent on both sides and I am sure he was happy with the performance of his prize recruit, DL John Walker who I think ended up with double digit tackles again. He might also had his interest peaked with the performance of several other players on both sides including our soph RB Taevion Swint (all 4 of our TD's, 167 yds rushing, at least 100 on kick returns and more receiving) as well as Michael Key from Seminole with 226 yards receiving another tremendous talent.

It is tough losing games like this, but I feel Seminole did what they needed to do to go WIN the game. Last year against Cocoa the difference being I thought we LOST the game. In my eyes, this Seminole team is better than last year's Cocoa team and it isn't meant as a slight just my opinion.

Florida weather is not a problem that only affects Polk. Last week they played more games there than we did in central FL (31 cancellations). I am the eternal optimist so will be keeping my fingers crossed so I can make the trip to that awesome venue. Sounds like CAI is awful good in your eyes, just don't know enough about them to comment. Our KOC with APK got cancelled due to weather and I think it has affected the production on the offensive side for both of our teams. Again, I will avoid the hype this early in the season and just look forward to playing some football.

Any game your defense gives up almost 50 points should be cause for real introspection and try to focus on things you can do to improve while ignoring the outside noise. The hype means nothing if you learned nothing as you can be staring at another night like this in another couple of weeks as you face another juggernaut.

I think the Lakeland game will happen as this weather pattern usually last the first couple of weeks of the season. As you and others have pointed out the Dreadnaughts are going to blow everyone out during the regular season plus we still have Rockledge, Mainland and West Orange who have all looked great so NO GUARANTEES!! Tonight's game did have a weather delay for about an hour and a half. Rain or shine, we will look forward to all those games.

First two games they have rotated each of them equally and like I said last week a clear winner hasn't been determined. If they were both 4-5* it would be understandable to utilize both. I think we will be better off when a decision gets made and one of them gets the job. It will instill more confidence in whomever they decide on plus more continuity with the WR group. We do have a bye next week and that extra week can be the thought process for making a decision.

Billed as the game of the week in Central Florida, it lived up to its billing. A back and forth game that we had a chance to win in regulation but hats off to them blocking the extra point to send the game into Overtime 20-20. They won the toss and of course decided to go on offense last. On the first play of OT from the 10, Sophomore sensation Taevion Swint punched his 4th TD of the game and we hit the extra point for a 27-20 lead. On their possession, one of their receivers caught a short pass around the 5 on second down and managed to drag one of our secondary defenders into the endzone. After a timeout they elected to go for 2 and dialed up an excellent pass play to score the winning 2 points. Fans on both sides definitely got their monies worth and Seminole offense will definitely be problematic for anyone. They ended up being the better team making a couple more plays than us and certainly deserve their ranking at the top of 4M. Most pundits didn't think we could win or even be this close. We will see how we can continue to improve for the remainder of the season to come out on top in these type of games.

Commodores may have a very good team, just don't think Keem posted this as a compliment.

You ain't wrong there as it is surely a wasted opportunity to schedule a much worthier opponent. Though talented, he is only a freshman QB (Sabby Meassick) led Toho HS last week to a 48-0 blowout of Liberty. Liberty has new staff and probably are scrambling to just field a team; always a tough position for team. Hope they are able to put it together as the season progresses.

Very heartwarming story and by the way, good luck tonite.

Coach you most likely are correct in your assumption as those 2 new schools, Horizon and Lake Buena Vista went 2-18 in 2021; both were placed in 5A district #6 to bolster a 3 team district. Obviously, they probably knew it would be advantageous to go Independent like Poinciana in our county but BOTH got placed in that district. With the new Metro/Suburban configuration for this year, Horizon has been thrown in with Edgewater, Jones and Wekiva in 3M district #3 so their prospect can't be good; again strong reason for going Independent. As for Lake Buena Vista, they are assigned to 2M district 4 with a single opponent .... Bishop Moore for a total of 2 teams. None of this makes any sense.

From those 2 convincing wins you would think AHP would be in the top 5 and their challenging schedule will give them a chance to prove it going forward. But it goes to show you how inconsistent Maxpreps can be when Central (top 5 team) beats the #1 team IMG and only goes to #2 in the STATE rankings behind CMD #1 . Yet the same Maxpreps from that same showing moves Central to the #4 spot NATIONALLY and CMD to #12. Hard to understand that logic.

It may balance itself out in the future as the portal limits the number of times you can use it to transfer, so the practice may diminish. Yes, for some schools it may balance itself out though not for all. But currently, it is definitely affecting the number of scholarships available to HS kids. It is not a zero-sum game.

I think I had mentioned him earlier in this thread as he also seemed to be highly recruited and then the offers started disappearing where in previous years that would not have been the case.