Ray Icaza

Both teams fought like champions last night and always tough when one has to lose.  You are spot on about the QB for Mainland as we experienced firsthand what he could do and was certainly the main difference in our loss to them in the regular season. Both teams made some mistakes, missed field goals, and any other excuse one can make with difference being Mainland able to finish the job while St. Augustine did not.  Congrats to your Bucs!!

The Bucs kicked a field goal as time expired to win their second state championship in a 100+ year history. Early on after running back the opening kickoff for a touchdown and then blocking a Mainland field goal attempt with then a long scoop and score touchdown, St Augustine appeared ready to blow Mainland off the field 13-0 just like Hollywood Chaminade did to CCC in the day's opening game of the Florida football championships. Only difference was Mainland's defense wasn't having any of that and held the Yellow Jackets too under 50 yards total offense and no more points in the entire first half. Their season scoring average was over 43 points per game.  The Bucs then scored 18 straight points in the second half to finally take the lead 18-13. Mainland's offensive star of the game was QB DJ Murray who passed for more than 200 yards and run for 175 yards. He has lead the way throughout the playoffs and most of the regular season. I sure am proud to be a Buccaneer this morning. Hopefully it doesn't take another 20 years to get that 3rd championship. No way I make it.  
Speaking of 20 years ago..... Almost to the day Mainland won it's first championship 20 years ago in 2003. In the early game (of two) that year Chaminade-Madonna won it's first championship over Madison County. Yesterday Chaminade wins the early game, Mainland the middle game and Madison loses the nightcap.  How's that for a 20year repeat.   

They just need to do it like the College Football Playoffs.  That way, there will be no issues, disputes or arguments about who should be in and who gets left out.   

CCC isn't a bad team. Chaminade is just next level. 

Tv announcers believe that it was acceptable for a CCC player to spike the ball after the referee correctly rules the pass incomplete

The only information that I have seen is what is available on the FHSAA website.  The most recent Board of Directors meeting took place on November 5-6.  At that time, it appears the new classification proposal was discussed, and an official vote planned "at a later time".  It seems that a decision would need to be made fairly soon, so that districts could be determined, and 2024 schedules planned.  I would suspect the FHSAA is waiting for the championships to be completed this week, and then proceed with decisions for next year.  The FHSAA has updated its enrollment numbers for the 2023-24 school year to use in the reclassification process.  For those who are interested, you can check out enrollment numbers here: https://fhsaa.com/sports/2021/12/3/SchoolEnrollmentNumbers.aspx    

You need a hug.

How do you fix it? You stop high school teams from recruiting. Most of the top football teams have a high rate of transfers in. IMG at least admits that they are a school that recruits the best for all sports. As a result of that they are not eligible for the playoffs and are not really considered a standard high school. With recruiting any HS team can become an artificial powerhouse without ever having much more than a few token players from the district that they are in. HS sports have been turned into mini NFL teams with families that come out to see their son do not much more than bench time or they don't come out at all because he has not even joined the team. Sad state of affairs where it's become more important to pad the egos of a few narcissistic teenagers and their coaches than to build character in all players that have  joined the team or the one's that could have joined the team. 

I said from day 1 that the suburb division (which is crap anyway because the leaders cherry picked which counties they wanted to be in Metro and suburb with some bs population density ) was the minor league even though they have some major league programs like Lakeland and Venice. They sold us a bill of goods about parity for suburb schools but only helped a few awesome semi finalist become champs. Rest of metro schools got screwed. 

Just to be clear, the purpose of the 2022 Metro-Suburban reclassification was not to create "parity".  Parity is defined as equality, meaning the intent would be for the vast majority of teams to finish at .500.  The NFL strives for parity using a salary cap, draft in reverse order of best record, a more difficult schedule in the following year for teams with the best records, etc.  The intent of the 2022 reclassification was to achieve "equity", or fairness; also known as "like vs. like" and "a level playing field".  There is nothing in an equity model to prevent a team from winning a title multiple years in a row.  Whether the Metro-Suburban reclassification actually made things fairer for more teams is open to debate.  There are winners and losers in any reorganization, be it in business or high school football.  The fact that the FHSAA is considering returning to an enrollment-based classification system should provide hope for those who see the current system as flawed, given that some of the proposals floated here will never fly in the FHSSA world.   

For all you clowns who said metro suburb plan would create parity, looks like same group of suburb teams who were awesome before and made semi finals regularly are the only ones who benefitted from the plan. But, you crushed many metro schools with a  huge enrollment number which led to more blowouts in district play. Nice. 
Put all cheaters in same couple of divisions with promotion and demotion is only real solution to  the recruiting problem. 
 
Here are the state match ups. Mandarin (Jacksonville) vs. Columbus (Miami) - Gee never saw Columbus in finals huh and mandarin won a couple of years ago.
Homestead vs. St. Thomas Aquinas - Rematch of last years state game
Class 2MBerkeley Prep (Tampa) vs. Miami Norland- Norland new but had many transfers to get  good.   
 1MClearwater Central Catholic vs.Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood) Florida- Chaminade should be in 4m.. 
Class 1RMadison County (Madison) vs. HawthorneDec.  Madison should be in 3 M
 4SLakeland vs. VeniceDec - surprise...never saw these two in state game before.  Lakeland State House Rep started this whole crap. 
.  3SMainland (Daytona Beach) vs. St. Augustine-  these teams were state semi-finalsts regularly before break up and both won state before. 
Class 2SBradford (Starke) vs. Cocoa - Cocoa is such a lock to win state here that even Fanduel would not post odds on it. 
 1STrinity Catholic (Ocala) vs. Cardinal Mooney (Sarasota) - Never saw Trinity before. 

Last season, Lakeland dominated Venice. It was only through some fluky penalties, fumbles and taking a knee at the 1 yard line that it was close on the scoreboard.
This year, Venice will be Lakeland's third toughest opponent. But, the two toughest opponents were home games with coaching staffs that weren't super familiar with Lakeland. So, perhaps all things considered, the game may end up being as tough as the two against better teams. 

Guilty as charged as I certainly did believe that TC should be favored in the game and was even more surprised by the lopsided score.  As Darter mentioned, he was alone in his belief that Deland would win as everyone else put their money on TC which appeared to have been a safe bet.  Obviously, the difference in the game came down to the trigger man in both running attacks and the Deland QB certainly proved to be much more dynamic than George Roberts.  I was pulling for Deland so happy with the results and hope they can continue the momentum vs Venice.  This will undoubtedly be a much tougher task but we have had some crazy results in the playoffs thus far.  

It’s his, 2021 article about his life now:
https://wsvn.com/sports/former-south-florida-football-star-willie-williams-shares-his-journey-as-coach-personal-trainer-mentor/amp/

In fairness to Vanguard, they are alive and well and looking like they may win a state title for Marion Publics for the first time in forever. 

Not quite sure why Deland seems to getting the love in this matchup.  Can they win the game?  Absolutely!!  Is it likely?  That is a whole other question as TC has the better SOS, the higher MaxPrep rankings and finally HOME FIELD advantage.  It will be a 2 hour + road trip for Deland and that usually isn't a plus in your column when you have to get off that bus to play a physical team in their backyard.  All I am saying is it will be no easy task. 

Ray, If I had one iota of a chance, I would snap up Noah in a heartbeat. I am sure Seminole would like to. The sell would be a state championship. But I think that he won't budge as I believe he likes his current situation. 

He's not going anywhere. Family is well grounded in the Lake Mary community. What they need are three replacement receivers, a good backup running back and more strength in their secondary. If they get all or some of these, they will be a contender next year, too.

Based on the Orlando Sentinel reporting, it appears that RB Isaiah Thomas (1000+ yds) was a very important missing piece in their offensive attack.  He was their homerun hitter all year on the ground and got injured in the Boone game the previous week.  Combine that with the fact Mandarin was known for an excellent secondary all year and they forced two INT's, one which was returned for a TD.  Turns out Noah Grubbs was not enough by himself to carry them to victory simply relying on the aerial attack.  Losing "SPECIAL" players against top-flight teams is hard to overcome.  Did not watch the game, so hopefully someone that was there can provide you some additional insight. 

No malice intended. Well... not a gambling man myself, but surely the home team TC is the favorite. Being a Daytona boy, Deland was always the enemy. Baseball, football, basketball, or track, it didn't matter. Getting robbed over there by the Ref's was to be expected, the norm. (Jambun excluded :) For years and years Bulldog87 and I threw team and personal insults back and forth on Rival's FlaVarsity message board. I'd like to say "our maturity" stopped the feud, but when Deland's football team went through 8-10 head coaches in about a decade and a half and their wins disappeared, so did he. That's my version, his might be a little different     

No hate implied my friend as I have reread my post in this thread and ask you to allude where that is coming from.  Outside of this thread most have seem to given the edge to Deland before even the matchup had materialized, thus my comment. The title to your post "TEACHER vs STUDENT" and its consequent follow-up of MASTER vs APPRENTICE in particular, in my simple view implies an advantage of one over the other.  Your questioning my response now shows that wasn't your intent and I can appreciate that just like the respect I described for Coach Darlington.  With all that said it will now be quite interesting to see the picks and consequently the results.  

That element is certainly important and Coach Darlington has the rings, but my opinion after playing TC over the last several years in both regular season plus playoff games is Coach Jones is also excellent. 

Maybe people feel coaching favors Deland, although all of the factors you stated definitely are in TC’s favor. 

Not quite sure why Deland seems to getting the love in this matchup.  Can they win the game?  Absolutely!!  Is it likely?  That is a whole other question as TC has the better SOS, the higher MaxPrep rankings and finally HOME FIELD advantage.  It will be a 2 hour + road trip for Deland and that usually isn't a plus in your column when you have to get off that bus to play a physical team in their backyard.  All I am saying is it will be no easy task. 

Based on the Orlando Sentinel reporting, it appears that RB Isaiah Thomas (1000+ yds) was a very important missing piece in their offensive attack.  He was their homerun hitter all year on the ground and got injured in the Boone game the previous week.  Combine that with the fact Mandarin was known for an excellent secondary all year and they forced two INT's, one which was returned for a TD.  Turns out Noah Grubbs was not enough by himself to carry them to victory simply relying on the aerial attack.  Losing "SPECIAL" players against top-flight teams is hard to overcome.  Did not watch the game, so hopefully someone that was there can provide you some additional insight.