PinellasFB

Out of curiosity I watched some of their highlights on hudl. They look like a Florida JV team size-wise and no speed that I could see. I'm guessing Kansas football isn't very good.

Pinellas is playing a bunch of games tonight. Monday football is weird.

Maxpreps proprietary formula is orders of magnitude better than the simple RPI formula that was in place. However, taking away margin of victory for the FSHAA rankings degrades the accuracy to the point of is it any better than the previous RPI? I suppose we will see. The problem I had with the RPI was it ended up being regionalized vs properly relating the relative strength of teams in different regions which is what maxpreps does. Thus a weak region would get more teams in the playoffs than a strong region but all those weak teams would get bounced in round 1. I have a great example in 5A from last year.

Columbus looks unstoppable this year.

You might have too high of expectations of high school ball. It's not like college where they can practice and watch film all day and execute with high precision. High school ball is supposed to be basic football. Now some teams, especially the high profile teams, will have high level coaching and it will show on the field. The complexity of the packages they run is pretty sophisticated for HS level. Of course this comes at a price and the kids are more focused upon football than school and they will pay a long term consequence for this unless they are good enough to play in college. I do worry these programs don't have the kids educations as their priority. Clearly we aren't going to see eye to eye on this and I am not going to lie that I too find a HS game on ESPN with loaded teams is fun to watch but unlike you I also enjoy seeing a couple of no-name teams going out there on Friday night and playing their hearts out. For me, the raw emotion, the band and the atmosphere is high school ball. The talent level on the field is irrelevant.

I suppose this is personal taste. I personally prefer to see a 4-star QB throwing to whomever luck had as his teammate that year, not some hand-picked 4-star stolen from the neighboring school. That's the purity of high school sports. Even college is tainted with the transfer free for all and NIL. Yes you can see a few NFL teams playing at the college level but that's not competition. I think it's stupid to load a single team with cherry picked players from other teams. What's the point of that in high school ball? Of course you will bash the heads in of non-cherry picked teams. I like it where your school will rise or fall depending upon the kids moving through your program in any given 4-year period. Once in a while you are loaded and go on a run. Other years you are between strong classes and you fall back for a few years. This is how it's supposed to be. Some teams will always be good because they are in a talent rich zone while others will struggle for the opposite reason. However, even the low talent areas can have some good kids running through it for a couple years where they have special seasons that will be remembered for years. This is just not possible anymore and who enjoys seeing the same teams in the playoffs year after year now?

Well their schedule has been as weak as you can get in the Tampa area high schools but any other year they might go 1-3 with the same schedule. They went 5-5 last year after years of 1-9 or 2-8 so they may have finally turned the corner.

Alonso in Tampa is a surprise 4-0 this year and the biggest surprise in the area is 4-0 Strawberry Crest HS, a traditional doormat school.

8-man is intended for low enrollment, low participation schools. I know for sure some of the schools on that list have enough players to even field a JV squad so their challenges are not due to participation but rather *transfers out* and demographics of their school zone.

I feel so good for them. I can't imagine how good those kids feel that have been in that program through the previous winless years. Congrats!

The problem with this system is it will create even more of a haves vs have-nots where players will transfer to the "premier league" teams, creating an even worse situation where the weaker teams cant hang onto their players. If we cant shut down the transfer issue then there really isn't any solution that will work.

Did I miss something where champgnat catholic is not fielding a team this year?? Edit: I just googled and Champagnat closed it's school due to illness of its director of operations? They couldn't just find a replacement?

Wrestling and football programs don't correlate to each other because wrestling has only 9 or 10 weight classes and most of them are under a threshold that translates to football. Heavyweights, 220 lb and 195 lb weight classes tend to be football players and wrestling greatly improves their football skillsets. It's just a numbers game where only a few football players will be in wrestling so it doesn't tend to help the football team overall, just a couple of individuals. edit typos

This is really the only thing the weaker teams can do in this current environment. In Pinellas County, it appears that most of the lower tier teams have decided upon this model and are scheduling each other, leaving the tough games (i.e. unwinnable games) for their district games. This will likely keep you from ever making the playoffs as an at large bid but it is better for the kids and the fans to feel like you have a fighting chance in most of your games.

FHSAA has to do something about transfers. It really is killing any chances for competitive balance.