State Semi Finals pick em

[nolebull813]

2-seed @Perspective

3-seed @nolebull813 

4-seed @KeemD321

5-seed @DarterBlue2 

[nolebull813]

Madison County vs Bozeman

First Baptist vs Ocala Trinity Catholic

North Florida Christian vs Cardinal Mooney

Clearwater Central Catholic vs Jax Trinity Christian

Bradford County vs Pensacola Catholic

St Augustine vs Dunbar

Mainland vs Vanguard

Homestead vs Jones

Buchholz vs Lakeland 

Venice vs Deland

Monarch vs Mandarin

[DarterBlue2]

1 minute ago, nolebull813 said:

 

2-seed @Perspective

3-seed @nolebull813 

4-seed @KeemD321

5-seed @DarterBlue2 

I am obviously overperforming, as I am the lowest seed remaining. The goal was, and is, to win it all. I am thankful to be in the penultimate round and hope to have another stellar week. 

[DarterBlue2]

1 minute ago, nolebull813 said:

Madison County vs Bozeman

First Baptist vs Ocala Trinity Catholic

North Florida Christian vs Cardinal Mooney

Clearwater Central Catholic vs Jax Trinity Christian

Bradford County vs Pensacola Catholic

St Augustine vs Dunbar

Mainland vs Dunbar

Homestead vs Jones

Buchholz vs Lakeland 

Venice vs Deland

Monarch vs Mandarin

You have both St. Augustine and Mainland playing Dunbar. One plays Vanguard. So, you may want to make that correction. 

[nolebull813]

Just now, DarterBlue2 said:

I am obviously overperforming, as I am the lowest seed remaining. The goal was, and is, to win it all. I am thankful to be in the penultimate round and hope to have another stellar week. 

You killed it last week. 15 of 20 is great. 

[nolebull813]

Just now, DarterBlue2 said:

You have both St. Augustine and Mainland playing Dunbar. One plays Vanguard. So, you may want to make that correction. 

Done

[DarterBlue2]

Just now, nolebull813 said:

You killed it last week. 15 of 20 is great. 

I initially had 16, but switched Mandarin for Seminole at the 11th hour. I could not find video on Mandarin's wins over Winter Park or Lake Mary, and in their most current I found, they did not look that good against Bartram Trail. So, I switched. Fortunately, it didn't make a difference.  

[nolebull813]

1 minute ago, DarterBlue2 said:

I initially had 16, but switched Mandarin for Seminole at the 11th hour. I could not find video on Mandarin's wins over Winter Park or Lake Mary, and in their most current I found, they did not look that good against Bartram Trail. So, I switched. Fortunately, it didn't make a difference.  

Mandarin is having a similar year to the one when they lost a ton in the regular season but then turned it on in the playoffs with Carson Beck. Not sure if they have another Beck though. 

[nolebull813]

Trinity Catholic is 4-7 right now. There record says 5-7 but they got a forfeit win for a game they never played. So they are 4-7.

 

So they can actually win a state championship and finish under .500 at 6-7.

That is so embarrassingly pathetic, that there are no words in the English dictionary to justify it. 
 

@Joshua Wilson I need you to politic on everyone’s behalf to the FHSAA to make changes and consolidate the classes by at least 1 or 2.

[DarterBlue2]

1 hour ago, nolebull813 said:

Mandarin is having a similar year to the one when they lost a ton in the regular season but then turned it on in the playoffs with Carson Beck. Not sure if they have another Beck though. 

They did not lose a ton of games. I believe it was two or three. And those losses were close and to quality teams. That Mandarin team was at least 17 better than this one, which is not bad, but does not measure up.

That year only: Lakeland, Mandarin and Wekiva beat Apopka. And Lakeland and Mandarin beat us at home. Both Lakeland and Mandarin won state titles while Wekiva lost a very close Regional Final to Mandarin. 

[nolebull813]

14 minutes ago, DarterBlue2 said:

They did not lose a ton of games. I believe it was two or three. And those losses were close and to quality teams. That Mandarin team was at least 17 better than this one, which is not bad, but does not measure up.

That year only: Lakeland, Mandarin and Wekiva beat Apopka. And Lakeland and Mandarin beat us at home. Both Lakeland and Mandarin won state titles while Wekiva lost a very close Regional Final to Mandarin. 

They lost 3 and one was to Creekside! They must have had half their team out on that one 

[DarterBlue2]

21 minutes ago, nolebull813 said:

They lost 3 and one was to Creekside! They must have had half their team out on that one 

I am pretty sure Mandarin did not play Creekside the year they beat Columbus to win the state title. They lost to Creekside this year. I am clearly stating that the Carson Beck Mandarin team was significantly better than this one. Probably by about 17 points better. 

[nolebull813]

4 minutes ago, DarterBlue2 said:

I am pretty sure Mandarin did not play Creekside the year they beat Columbus to win the state title. They lost to Creekside this year. I am clearly stating that the Carson Beck Mandarin team was significantly better than this one. Probably by about 17 points better. 

Sorry I was responding to this year. That year they lost 5 games 

[DarterBlue2]

Madison County vs Bozeman

First Baptist vs Ocala Trinity Catholic - Difficult pick. OTC's record is deceptively bad. They have played stellar competition. They could easily beat First Baptist. But I like FB's up tempo offense. 

North Florida Christian vs Cardinal Mooney

Clearwater Central Catholic vs Jax Trinity Christian - Another difficult pick. I think CCC has just enough to win. 

Bradford County vs Pensacola Catholic

St Augustine vs Dunbar

Mainland vs Vanguard - My most difficult pick. If Vanguard has a good run stop defense it wins. If I just went off the two teams most recent game, I would pick Vanguard. But I think Mainland has faced overall better competition. 

Homestead vs Jones - Jones gets revenge. Homestead has been giving up too many points recently. Jones in a shootout on the road. 

Buchholz vs Lakeland - Lakeland gives up too many points to good offenses. At Bryant Stadium, I would pick them. On the road, I think the Bobcats have enough to end their season. 

Venice vs Deland - My heart says Deland. But I think Venice is overall too good. Venice by about 10.

Monarch vs Mandarin - Mandarin's playoff run on the road continues to the state title game, at least. 

Picks are bold underscored. 

[nolebull813]

2 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

Madison County vs Bozeman

First Baptist vs Ocala Trinity Catholic

North Florida Christian vs Cardinal Mooney

Clearwater Central Catholic vs Jax Trinity Christian

Bradford County vs Pensacola Catholic

St Augustine vs Dunbar

Mainland vs Vanguard

Homestead vs Jones

Buchholz vs Lakeland 

Venice vs Deland

Monarch vs Mandarin

Mad Co

OTC

C Mooney

CCC

Pensacola Cath

St Aug

Vanguard

Jones

Lakeland

Venice

Monarch

[shredstar]

Ok, time to clear up some Mandarin debate.

In 2018 they lost a total of four games to Godby, Raines, Lee (Riverside) and Fletcher.  Carson Beck was injured early in the Godby game and missed most of it.  He also missed the following game vs. Lee.  The Raines game he played and they lost on the last play of the game and they lost out here at Fletcher the end of the year because their seeding was locked in and a bunch of starters were sat for the game.

 

As far as 2018 vs. the current team, there is quite a bit more talent there now than there was in 2018, especially on defense.  Their current QB is good, but not at the level CB was at this point.  The major difference between the two is that the 2018 team was senior dominated while this current team will return next year pretty much intact and will likely be even better.  That 2018 team kind of crept up out of nowhere where while this current team has been a major talking point up here since the summer because everyone knew they were stacked.  Is Mandarin better than the seed they were given?  Yep.  They were penalized because their schedule had two games with "forced" opponents (one district and one through the Gateway rotation).  The combined record of those two was 0-20.  So, while everyone is aghast and coming up with excuses why Mandarin rolled through Seminole and Orange counties the last few weeks, up here it was just kind of expected they would do exactly what they did.  No one really batted an eye.

 

As far as regular season wins and losses go, who cares as long as you make the tournament.  It's a long season and we are talking about kids, so lots of stupidity happens along the way.  Applying the distributive property to this never works.  It's all about individual match ups.  At this level, just one player can take an otherwise 5-5 roster and turn it into 10 plus wins. Every team matches up with another differently.  That is the one thing that will never change no matter how hard people try to compare a>b and b>c so a>c.  It just never works out that way.

[KeemD321]

Madison County

First Baptist

Cardinal Mooney

Jax Trinity Christian

Bradford County

St Augustine

Mainland

Jones

Lakeland 

Venice

Mandarin

[Proseteye]

On 11/25/2023 at 12:56 PM, nolebull813 said:

Trinity Catholic is 4-7 right now. There record says 5-7 but they got a forfeit win for a game they never played. So they are 4-7.

 

So they can actually win a state championship and finish under .500 at 6-7.

That is so embarrassingly pathetic, that there are no words in the English dictionary to justify it. 
 

@Joshua Wilson I need you to politic on everyone’s behalf to the FHSAA to make changes and consolidate the classes by at least 1 or 2.

Trinity played a pretty rough OOD schedule against some championship type higher classification teams. They lost 3 games by 1 or 2 points. Yes, won their district against pathetic opposition. Believe me, they are a much better team than their record indicates. I would not be surprised if they defeated last year's champion First Baptist.

[nolebull813]

50 minutes ago, Proseteye said:

Trinity played a pretty rough OOD schedule against some championship type higher classification teams. They lost 3 games by 1 or 2 points. Yes, won their district against pathetic opposition. Believe me, they are a much better team than their record indicates. I would not be surprised if they defeated last year's champion First Baptist.

They did play a tough OOD schedule probably because their district and class is so atrocious. I was not trying to rag on OTC, I was trying to imply if there was a better system in place, OTC wouldn’t have the opportunity to win state at 6-7. They would have long been bounced in a more competitive bracket 

[Perspective]

Several "heart vs head" games for me this week, but I'll go with the following picks:

 

Madison County

First Baptist

Cardinal Mooney

Clearwater Central Catholic

Pensacola Catholic

St Augustine

Mainland

Jones

Buchholz

Venice

Mandarin