Opinions Needed-Breakdown of State Title Winners

[gatorman-uf]

In the lower classes, the removal of districts was supposed to bring back "rivalry" games, I actually never think the true rivalry games left, but the 2nd tier rivalry games vanished. I think the point system though damages rivalries as a whole. Let's use Columbia-Suwannee since Columbia Fan already brought up that rivalry. 

Columbia has beaten Suwanee 9 , 10, 11 years in a row? Suwanee has some decent seasons, but is mostly mediocre. Do you drop them to keep Bolles, Trinity Christian, or Madison County on the schedule? Probably not because both schools know the history, money involved, but Columbia has played Gainesville and Buchholz for a number of years, if the districts increase in size does CHS drop them instead?

I think there is a way to allow neighborhood rivalries, districts, power points, and make every game count.

[OldSchoolLion]

Interesting article about the great Manatee-Southeast rivalry game that did not happen this year.  It's a good read.

http://www.bradenton.com/sports/article156800989.html

I don't understand.  A school of 2300 vs a school of 1700 and some feel this is too much of an advantage?  I think we sometimes forget that these games serve a function beyond wins and losses, and that is the social aspect of the game.  When worrying about losing and rankings take precedence over the community, we've lost perspective.       

Here are a few more scenarios that puzzle me.  It would be interesting to know the motivations/barriers behind these. 

Bolles-I would think every year they would play at least one of the good private schools like University, Trinity and/or Bishop Kenny, but that seems to be more the exception than the rule.

St Thomas Aquinas-Catholic vs Catholic can be great angle.  Used to play Cardinal Gibbons but stopped.  Played Columbus once a number of years back-close game but never happened again.  Never play Pace, Chaminade or Archbishop McCarthy.  When Chaminade had those state championship teams under Coach Guandolo back in the early 2000's, everyone in south Florida wanted to see this matchup, but I heard Aquinas would not play them-something about nothing to gain and everything to lose.  Not sure if that is true or not.           

Lakeland-Does play Kathleen and Jenkins regularly(which is nice), but will usually schedule one of the really weak teams from south Florida in lieu of playing Lake Gibson.  In 2004, Lakeland won 5A and Lake Gibson was runner-up in 4A.  What a game that would have been!  Instead, Lakeland played a mediocre Miami team and blew them out by about 40 points.  

Vero Beach-Great teams north and south, but until recently have not strayed too far from home. 

Deerfield Beach-Had a great rivalry with Dillard but have only played 2 of last 5 years.  

 

[DisabledAccount]

4 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

In the lower classes, the removal of districts was supposed to bring back "rivalry" games, I actually never think the true rivalry games left, but the 2nd tier rivalry games vanished. I think the point system though damages rivalries as a whole. Let's use Columbia-Suwannee since Columbia Fan already brought up that rivalry. 

Columbia has beaten Suwanee 9 , 10, 11 years in a row? Suwanee has some decent seasons, but is mostly mediocre. Do you drop them to keep Bolles, Trinity Christian, or Madison County on the schedule? Probably not because both schools know the history, money involved, but Columbia has played Gainesville and Buchholz for a number of years, if the districts increase in size does CHS drop them instead?

I think there is a way to allow neighborhood rivalries, districts, power points, and make every game count.

They will never drop Suwannee simply because they signed a lifetime contract for the game and our older residents who were around when the rivarly meant something would probably try to get every coach fired if they tried to drop Suwannee 

 

Out of Gainesville and buchholz odds are they would opt to drop buchholz bc the rivarly isn't as long standing as Gainesville is,  heck our first recorded game in our entire history is Gainesville and while we dont have a trophy if you ask anyone at either school involved in sports they will tell you it's a rivarly

 

Also it's currently on 10 years and at this rate and the fact Columbia last few years has gotten several of good players from Suwannee through transfer it might go on for a while 

[DisabledAccount]

4 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

In the lower classes, the removal of districts was supposed to bring back "rivalry" games, I actually never think the true rivalry games left, but the 2nd tier rivalry games vanished. I think the point system though damages rivalries as a whole. Let's use Columbia-Suwannee since Columbia Fan already brought up that rivalry. 

Columbia has beaten Suwanee 9 , 10, 11 years in a row? Suwanee has some decent seasons, but is mostly mediocre. Do you drop them to keep Bolles, Trinity Christian, or Madison County on the schedule? Probably not because both schools know the history, money involved, but Columbia has played Gainesville and Buchholz for a number of years, if the districts increase in size does CHS drop them instead?

I think there is a way to allow neighborhood rivalries, districts, power points, and make every game count.

If Gainesville can jump 100 students then they could join 7a and we could have this District 

 

Lincoln 

Leon 

Chiles 

Columbia 

Buchholz 

Gainesville 

 

 

Wouldn't be permanent fix but might lock in those 2 games for a while 

[gatorman-uf]

To answer about Bolles vs Trinity Christian 
http://jacksonville.com/sports/high-schools/2017-09-14/after-nearly-20-year-wait-bolles-and-trinity-ready-clash

1700 vs 2300... no, not much of a difference.
If we really do the math, it is 587 difference, assuming half to be female, you are down to 293, if we assume 5% play football you are talking maybe a 15 person difference in roster size. I am not buying size in this case. It probably has more to do with Southeast not being competitive.

I believe is was Jenkins, who turned Lakeland in about some transfers. When the FHSAA investigated and punished Lakeland, this is when our fantastic state legislature decided to meddle in high school athletics because if you look who led the charge it was people with connections to Lakeland. Lakeland and Vero both have the $$$ to bring teams to their stadiums, so they use that to their advantage to bring some Miami school who has no chance of winning to get some money. I am surprised they don't play Lake Gibson though.

 

[FloTech]

8 hours ago, OldSchoolLion said:

Interesting article about the great Manatee-Southeast rivalry game that did not happen this year.  It's a good read.

http://www.bradenton.com/sports/article156800989.html

I don't understand.  A school of 2300 vs a school of 1700 and some feel this is too much of an advantage?  I think we sometimes forget that these games serve a function beyond wins and losses, and that is the social aspect of the game.  When worrying about losing and rankings take precedence over the community, we've lost perspective.       

Here are a few more scenarios that puzzle me.  It would be interesting to know the motivations/barriers behind these. 

Bolles-I would think every year they would play at least one of the good private schools like University, Trinity and/or Bishop Kenny, but that seems to be more the exception than the rule.

St Thomas Aquinas-Catholic vs Catholic can be great angle.  Used to play Cardinal Gibbons but stopped.  Played Columbus once a number of years back-close game but never happened again.  Never play Pace, Chaminade or Archbishop McCarthy.  When Chaminade had those state championship teams under Coach Guandolo back in the early 2000's, everyone in south Florida wanted to see this matchup, but I heard Aquinas would not play them-something about nothing to gain and everything to lose.  Not sure if that is true or not.           

Lakeland-Does play Kathleen and Jenkins regularly(which is nice), but will usually schedule one of the really weak teams from south Florida in lieu of playing Lake Gibson.  In 2004, Lakeland won 5A and Lake Gibson was runner-up in 4A.  What a game that would have been!  Instead, Lakeland played a mediocre Miami team and blew them out by about 40 points.  

Vero Beach-Great teams north and south, but until recently have not strayed too far from home. 

Deerfield Beach-Had a great rivalry with Dillard but have only played 2 of last 5 years.  

 

Vero Beach doesn't like to travel too much but they are starting to tho went to Oscar Smith last year and now they are travelling to Venice this year but I wish they will man up and go South they need to play Northwestern Central CC Norland etc.... 

[OldSchoolLion]

4 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

To answer about Bolles vs Trinity Christian 
http://jacksonville.com/sports/high-schools/2017-09-14/after-nearly-20-year-wait-bolles-and-trinity-ready-clash

1700 vs 2300... no, not much of a difference.
If we really do the math, it is 587 difference, assuming half to be female, you are down to 293, if we assume 5% play football you are talking maybe a 15 person difference in roster size. I am not buying size in this case. It probably has more to do with Southeast not being competitive.

I believe is was Jenkins, who turned Lakeland in about some transfers. When the FHSAA investigated and punished Lakeland, this is when our fantastic state legislature decided to meddle in high school athletics because if you look who led the charge it was people with connections to Lakeland. Lakeland and Vero both have the $$$ to bring teams to their stadiums, so they use that to their advantage to bring some Miami school who has no chance of winning to get some money. I am surprised they don't play Lake Gibson though.

 

...concerning Manatee/Southeast, here are the scores in the recent past.  In 2007, Southeast had a losing year, but still managed to keep the game relatively close.  I know I am Monday morning quarterbacking, but I cannot see abandoning the ship after a few rough years, especially when the past 2 out of 3 games were not terrible losses. 

There has been some turmoil on the coaching front, so I think Southeast should expect some rough times until a new coach gets settled in for a few years.  My concern is that we are becoming less and less patient with losing at a high school level and not giving new coaches enough time to establish a solid foundation.   

Manatee's program has been on the decline.  That plus a new coach should give the folks at Southeast some hope of winning in the future.  Wouldn't it be a marvelous accomplishment for a new coach to say he was the first one to beat Manatee in 10+ years.  ...maybe no chance of that now.  

Manatee won unless noted below

2016   42-24

2015   47-0   John Warren, coach of Southeast, steps down after 2 seasons. 

2014   39-26

2013  62-0  Legendary coach Paul Maechtle of Southeast, coach for 33 years, steps down.  He won 283 games, took the Seminoles to five state championship games and won two state titles.

2012   52-13

2011   48-6

2010   31-24

2009   30-26

2008   16-14

2007   28-16  Southeast was 4-6 this year

2006   28-21  Southeast won   

2005 13-6  Southeast won

[OldSchoolLion]

5 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

To answer about Bolles vs Trinity Christian 
http://jacksonville.com/sports/high-schools/2017-09-14/after-nearly-20-year-wait-bolles-and-trinity-ready-clash

1700 vs 2300... no, not much of a difference.
If we really do the math, it is 587 difference, assuming half to be female, you are down to 293, if we assume 5% play football you are talking maybe a 15 person difference in roster size. I am not buying size in this case. It probably has more to do with Southeast not being competitive.

I believe is was Jenkins, who turned Lakeland in about some transfers. When the FHSAA investigated and punished Lakeland, this is when our fantastic state legislature decided to meddle in high school athletics because if you look who led the charge it was people with connections to Lakeland. Lakeland and Vero both have the $$$ to bring teams to their stadiums, so they use that to their advantage to bring some Miami school who has no chance of winning to get some money. I am surprised they don't play Lake Gibson though.

 

"Since we were always in different classes, Coach Rogers would not play anyone under [what class Bolles was in],” Belger said. “It wasn’t because we were afraid to play, look at who we’ve played over the years. It’s just he wasn’t going to play anyone smaller."

This is the exact same reasoning I heard when St Thomas would not play Chaminade back in the early 2000's, when both were probably amongst the top 10-15 programs in the state, regardless of classification.  I guess the thought is, "If we win, folks will say we were expected to win, but if we lose, we are over-rated."  

It's not like losing would have cost Coach Smith or Coach Rogers a trip to the playoffs.  And I hardly think either's job would have been in jeopardy with such a loss.

Remember what happened around 20 years ago?   ...the internet exploded, Beef O'Brady's football bowl....  We went from state classification rankings showing up once per week in small print on the back of the sports page to "all classification" rankings front and center on the internet.  We went from obscurely referenced mythical national champions at the end of the season to weekly national rankings.

So, we are going to deny our local communities and players the joy and excitement of fantastic high school football games because... we are afraid we might drop in the rankings?  I'd bet the farm that players on these teams would have chomped at the bit to play each other.  And I am convinced it is this kind of stuff that keeps some of those on the fence about our game from becoming more dedicated fans and that allows the game's critics to claim we have lost perspective. 

If there is anything more to this stuff than ego, I have an open mind and will take my crow extra crispy, please.  30 years ago, I never remember hearing coaches worrying about "playing down" as long as the competition was solid.    

    

[OldSchoolLion]

2 hours ago, FloTech said:

Vero Beach doesn't like to travel too much but they are starting to tho went to Oscar Smith last year and now they are travelling to Venice this year but I wish they will man up and go South they need to play Northwestern Central CC Norland etc.... 

...just curious.

What reasoning is given for teams making these huge trips nowadays?  Is it "fun," "teambuilding." "see the world," other?

Not sure how much "other" stuff Vero did on their trip, but I would find it pretty ironic if there was a kid who had never been to DC and missed out on seeing some incredible stuff to play a football game instead.  

 

[FloTech]

18 hours ago, OldSchoolLion said:

...just curious.

What reasoning is given for teams making these huge trips nowadays?  Is it "fun," "teambuilding." "see the world," other?

Not sure how much "other" stuff Vero did on their trip, but I would find it pretty ironic if there was a kid who had never been to DC and missed out on seeing some incredible stuff to play a football game instead.  

 

For it being Vero this shouldn't be in question this is the first time Vero ever played a game this far away if u seen Vero over the last 10 or so yrs most of Vero's games have been at home 

[OldSchoolLion]

4 hours ago, FloTech said:

For it being Vero this shouldn't be in question this is the first time Vero ever played a game this far away if u seen Vero over the last 10 or so yrs most of Vero's games have been at home 

I understand FloTech.  It seems like more and more teams are following the trend of traveling far away to games.  Was just curious if there was any common thread amongst the teams as to why they are doing it-not just Vero. 

No doubt it is a great experience for the kids, but it is very expensive and probably looks a bit funny to the public when they hear so much about limited resources.

 

   

[FloTech]

17 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

I understand FloTech.  It seems like more and more teams are following the trend of traveling far away to games.  Was just curious if there was any common thread amongst the teams as to why they are doing it-not just Vero. 

No doubt it is a great experience for the kids, but it is very expensive and probably looks a bit funny to the public when they hear so much about limited resources.

 

   

Last year was the first year Vero did that