Who are the biggest cherry-pickers you know of in the state???

[OldSchoolLion]

1 minute ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

During their 3 peat reign they dominated STA at state 

 

As i already stated it's easy for SFL teams to travel 20 minutes and play elite teams, North Florida can't just drive 6 hours every week to South Florida and teams are too spread out up here 

You are absolutely correct, Columbia.  Polk County was arguably as good as it got in central FL in the mid 2000's, with Bartow, Lakeland, Lake Gibson, Kathleen, Winter Haven and Fort Meade all fielding good-to-excellent teams.  Armwood and Plant were just coming around at that time.  Jefferson was good.  The Orlando teams were nothing like today.  Edgewater was very good.  Osceola was in Lakeland's district.  Apopka was not as strong as today.  To the south, Manatee was excellent.  All-in-all, central Florida was not loaded with great teams.  

[DisabledAccount]

3 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

You are absolutely correct, Columbia.  Polk County was arguably as good as it got in central FL in the mid 2000's, with Bartow, Lakeland, Lake Gibson, Kathleen, Winter Haven and Fort Meade all fielding good-to-excellent teams.  Armwood and Plant were just coming around at that time.  Jefferson was good.  The Orlando teams were nothing like today.  Edgewater was very good.  Osceola was in Lakeland's district.  Apopka was not as strong as today.  To the south, Manatee was excellent.  All-in-all, central Florida was not loaded with great teams.  

Central Florida had good teams but they were spread out

 

It ain't like South Florida where you had 10 of top 25 teams in FL within 1 hour of each other 

 

People need to understand there a reason SFL teams are able to play so many good games on the schedule

 

When North Florida had better teams the schedules teams have today would look a lot better than they do now

 

Used to be a team like Lincoln or Suwannee on the schedule was a big challenge 

 

Used to be Orange Park was a good game, Terry Parker used to be a good game, Fletcher used to be a state ranked team 

 

 

Teams are playing similar schedules they did for years,  the teams just aren't as good as 10 or 20 or 30 years ago 

[OldSchoolLion]

5 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Central Florida had good teams but they were spread out

 

It ain't like South Florida where you had 10 of top 25 teams in FL within 1 hour of each other 

 

People need to understand there a reason SFL teams are able to play so many good games on the schedule

 

When North Florida had better teams the schedules teams have today would look a lot better than they do now

 

Used to be a team like Lincoln or Suwannee on the schedule was a big challenge 

 

Used to be Orange Park was a good game, Terry Parker used to be a good game, Fletcher used to be a state ranked team 

 

 

Teams are playing similar schedules they did for years,  the teams just aren't as good as 10 or 20 or 30 years ago 

Good points, Columbia.  You could have some regular season schedules in the Panhandle back in the 1980's that were fantastic, and today would be yawners.   Likewise, if folks today saw some of the schedules in south Florida 30+ years ago, they might find them incredibly boring.  This was St Thomas Aquinas' schedule in 1987.  Double asterisk = district games.  

Game 01	AL		Thursday	September 10, 1987	Stranahan Dragons(Fort Lauderdale)	Loss	0	9
Game 02	A1		Friday	September 18, 1987	McArthur Mustangs(Hollywood)	Win	14	12
Game 03	A2		Friday	September 25, 1987	Western Wildcats(Davie)	Win	24	15
Game 04	A3		Thursday	October 01, 1987	South Broward Bulldogs(Hollywood)	Win	14	6
Game 05	HB		Friday	October 09, 1987	Deerfield Beach Bucks	Loss	28	31
**Game 06	HB	D	Friday	October 16, 1987	Nova Titans(Davie)	Win	21	7
Game 07	HB		Friday	October 23, 1987	Ely Tigers(Pompano Beach)	Loss	19	20
**Game 08	A1	D	Friday	October 30, 1987	Fort Lauderdale Flying L's	Win	17	7
**Game 09	AL	D	Thursday	November 12, 1987	Dillard Panthers(Fort Lauderdale)	Loss	7	22
Game 10	HB		Friday	November 20, 1987	Cardinal Gibbons Redskins(Ft. Lauderdale)	Win	43	7

[OldSchoolLion]

 

23 hours ago, Floridatech said:

What good public schools does Dwyer have to play with every year smh Atlantic whenever they get a lil squad together challenge sometimes and now maybe PB Central smh and Lakeland ain't no excuses we KNOW flat out is a cherry picker and secondly I would tell them coaches to their face that they play weak teams.....

Are u really from Florida I really think you're from the Nawf loool

Concerning Lakeland...they have played 8 public schools from Miami-Dade in a total of 15 regular season games since 2004.  Sure they have played some weak teams, ie Hialeah and Dr Krop.  But they have also played each of the past Miami-Dade state championship teams twice....Carol City, Norland, South Dade, Killian.  They played both South Dade and Killian in 2007 and 2008.  

St Thomas Aquinas has played a total of 6 Miami-Dade public schools during the regular season in the past 50 years.  What team outside Miami-Dade can say they have even come close to playing as many Miami-Dade teams as Lakeland?...even teams much closer than Lakeland.

  

  

[badbird]

Lakeland use to play very few road games.  If it wasn't a district or county game that they were forced to play on the road they would pay teams to come play them.  Not many really good teams are willing to give up a home game and go travel two years in a row for $4-5K.  Maybe that is changing now with Lakeland traveling to Apopka this year.    

[OldSchoolLion]

In 2007, 5A state champion STA played non-district games against South Plantation(5-6), Ely(6-5), Cardinal Gibbons(6-5) and Everglades(3-7).  That same year, Lakeland played South Dade(8-5), Killian(4-6) and Boyd Anderson(9-2).  

....bizarre that a central Florida team arguably played a tougher south FL non-district schedule than a south FL team.

 

 

 

[Floridatech]

5 hours ago, OldSchoolLion said:

 

Concerning Lakeland...they have played 8 public schools from Miami-Dade in a total of 15 regular season games since 2004.  Sure they have played some weak teams, ie Hialeah and Dr Krop.  But they have also played each of the past Miami-Dade state championship teams twice....Carol City, Norland, South Dade, Killian.  They played both South Dade and Killian in 2007 and 2008.  

St Thomas Aquinas has played a total of 6 Miami-Dade public schools during the regular season in the past 50 years.  What team outside Miami-Dade can say they have even come close to playing as many Miami-Dade teams as Lakeland?...even teams much closer than Lakeland.

  

  

But only ONE team won states when they played during the regular season 

 

[OldSchoolLion]

4 minutes ago, Floridatech said:

But only ONE team won states when they played during the regular season 

 

My point for mentioning that those teams were former state champions was simply to demonstrate that they are quality programs capable of being very good, not to imply that they were the best Miami-Dade had to offer at the time. 

I would like to see some team schedules from other teams in central or north FL during that time frame(2004-2007) that clearly demonstrate how Lakeland's non-district schedule was inferior in terms of competitiveness.  I've already stated their schedule was no barnburner, but I do not think there were many teams at that time in central or north FL who were doing much better.

 

    

[DisabledAccount]

43 minutes ago, Floridatech said:

But only ONE team won states when they played during the regular season 

 

And apparently schedules don't always matter when creating competitive teams

 

It shows that you don't have to play state champs to win state yourself since they easily defeated STA in 04 and 05 and beat them again in 06

 

 

[DisabledAccount]

24 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

My point for mentioning that those teams were former state champions was simply to demonstrate that they are quality programs capable of being very good, not to imply that they were the best Miami-Dade had to offer at the time. 

I would like to see some team schedules from other teams in central or north FL during that time frame(2004-2007) that clearly demonstrate how Lakeland's non-district schedule was inferior in terms of competitiveness.  I've already stated their schedule was no barnburner, but I do not think there were many teams at that time in central or north FL who were doing much better.

 

    

Flotech don't realize that teams from North Florida can't drive 6 hours every week just to play South Florida teams 

 

 

It's easy to play south Florida teams every week when you within a hour of them

 

 Not so easy when it's 6+ hour each way (meaning 12 hours) on the road for each game to play all South Florida schedule that some of them want

[OldSchoolLion]

9 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

And apparently schedules don't always matter when creating competitive teams

 

It shows that you don't have to play state champs to win state yourself since they easily defeated STA in 04 and 05 and beat them again in 06

 

 

I'm sure Dan in Daytona could comment on the quality of the 2004 and 2006 Mainland teams that Lakeland beat in the state semis each year, not to mention an undefeated Hillsborough team Lakeland beat in 2004. 

Those Lakeland teams were absolutely nasty.