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Top team each year from 1907-1962


nolebull813

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I wanted to put together a list of the number 1 team in the state for every year before the playoffs started. Back in the day teams would claim mythical titles. I will be working on this to put together the all time list. I request it be pinned and highly encourage historians to state the case for any year from 1907-1962

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This is So far. Will put them in order 

1915 Bradenton High 9-0

1918 Hillsborough 5-0 (beat the 5 other teams that played flu/war)

1921 Duval High 8-0 won MNC

1922 Gainesville 11-0 won state 

1923 Lakeland 10-0 state champ

1927 Jax Jackson beat Hillsborough in the title game 

1925 St Pete 10-0 state and S.E. Champ

1928 Hillsborough 11-2 State Champ (lost 2 postseason games)

1930 Miami High 11-1 only L was to college team 

1935 Lakeland 10-0-1 

1939 Miami High 9-1 (lost MNC game to Garfield,NJ 13-16)

1941 Miami High 10-0-1 tied GA champ 

1942 Miami High 9-0 won MNC

1943 Miami 9-0 won MNC

1960 Miami 8-0-2 won MNC

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16 minutes ago, gwdrum75 said:

1935 - Lakeland goes 8-0-1 and beats an All-Star team from Miami to be named State Champion. The tie was a scoreless game against Orlando.

Yes I got a couple of Lakeland seasons i want to compare. In 1935 it’s highly likely Lakeland will be it. Want to check Orlando’s results. See if they went undefeated and if so check the comparison scores. 

Also keeping an eye out for Lakeland in 1929 (9-0-1) 

1933 (8-0-2)

1949 (9-1) 

1961 (9-1)

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19 minutes ago, gwdrum75 said:

1935 - Lakeland goes 8-0-1 and beats an All-Star team from Miami to be named State Champion. The tie was a scoreless game against Orlando.

You sent me most of Lakeland results a while ago. I have been chopping them down to almost have them all. This is all I’m missing 

1908

1909

1910

1911

1912 

1920

1921

1922

1924

1925

1926

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35 minutes ago, nolebull813 said:

You sent me most of Lakeland results a while ago. I have been chopping them down to almost have them all. This is all I’m missing 

1908

1909

1910

1911

1912 

1920

1921

1922

1924

1925

1926

I'll should have most of that. Will check later tonight. I have also collected newspaper articles with game recaps for almost all games going back to the first game in 1907. Pretty interesting stuff.

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Year 1933        
Hardee Score Opponet Score W / L    
1 Okeechobee 0 W    
7 Mulberry 0 W    
7 Ft. Myers 0 W    
13 Clearwater 0 W    
26 Bartow 6 W    
34 Bradenton 7 W    
6 Winter Haven 0 W    
7 Sarasota 0 W    
19 Plant City 7 W    
40 Arcadia 0 W    
       
South Florida Conference Champions
 
Head Coach Cale Keller
         
10 Wins 0 losses; Game with Okeechobee was a forfeit; Okeechobee had won 7-6
         
Source - The Florida Advocate Newspaper
         
Coach Keller hired as coach 1 week before 1st game
         
1st two games scheduled was Sebring & Ft. Meade but cancelled and then replaced
         
"Mythical State Champs" per Poll
         
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11 minutes ago, Perspective said:

I'm looking forward to seeing the posts from all the new 80 and 90-year old guys debating  who's grandfather played on the best team in Florida back in the early 1900's.   B)

 It’s not about remembering who played in a game or season.  It’s about researching and looking back at history to debate who the top team was during those times 

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3 minutes ago, Hwy17 said:

 

Year 1933        
Hardee Score Opponet Score W / L    
1 Okeechobee 0 W    
7 Mulberry 0 W    
7 Ft. Myers 0 W    
13 Clearwater 0 W    
26 Bartow 6 W    
34 Bradenton 7 W    
6 Winter Haven 0 W    
7 Sarasota 0 W    
19 Plant City 7 W    
40 Arcadia 0 W    
       
South Florida Conference Champions
 
Head Coach Cale Keller
         
10 Wins 0 losses; Game with Okeechobee was a forfeit; Okeechobee had won 7-6
         
Source - The Florida Advocate Newspaper
         
Coach Keller hired as coach 1 week before 1st game
         
1st two games scheduled was Sebring & Ft. Meade but cancelled and then replaced
         
"Mythical State Champs" per Poll
         

 Well they got a good case.  Some of those teams they beat were namebrand at that time. Plant City, Bartow, Clearwater, Bradenton and Ft Myers 

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1915 Manatee County High School football team was undefeated and was  unscored on. They played 6 teams, playing Playing Hillsbourgh HS and Plant City Twice that year. The played post season St Pete High and defeated them having to travel by boat to play the game. At that point they were considered the best team in the southern region of the state, Gainesville HS was considered the best team from the Northern region of the state. They traveled 2 days to play Gainesville HS for the mythical state title defeating them 10-0.

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Just now, FL_HS_football said:

1915 Manatee County High School football team was undefeated and was  unscored on. They played 6 teams, playing Playing Hillsbourgh HS and Plant City Twice that year. The played post season St Pete High and defeated them having to travel by boat to play the game. At that point they were considered the best team in the southern region of the state, Gainesville HS was considered the best team from the Northern region of the state. They traveled 2 days to play Gainesville HS for the mythical state title defeating them 10-0.

Yep. That’s why I got them on the list. I have Manatees history I from a book but they were missing some early years. I do have the 1915 results at home 

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37 minutes ago, nolebull813 said:

 Well they got a good case.  Some of those teams they beat were namebrand at that time. Plant City, Bartow, Clearwater, Bradenton and Ft Myers 

The same news paper article I got that from stated that promoters wanted a bowl game between Wauchula and Lakeland as both were unbeaten but Lakeland refused.   Wauchula and Lakeland have only ever played twice 1935 and 1926; Lakeland winning both.  

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1 hour ago, nolebull813 said:

 It’s not about remembering who played in a game or season.  It’s about researching and looking back at history to debate who the top team was during those times 

Just jerking your chain a little.   :D   That said, I know how hard it is to agree on which team is better than another team when people have seen those teams play a season of games (even when two of the team have played each other!).  I've got to think it will really be tough to do it based on newspaper reports.  Hey, I'm not going to go down the "fake news" route (I'm sure that didn't exist 100 years ago), but what's the likelihood that a Jacksonville sports reporter in 1926 traveled down to Miami to watch any of the Dade County teams play?  My biggest concern in this exercise is going to be bias.  Bias back then and bias now . . .  along with the temptation to subconsciously think a team from the 20's was better than another team from the 20's simply because the team wearing the same name in 2019 is better than the team wearing the other school's same name in 2019. 

All that said, good luck with your endeavor.   I'm sure it'll make for an interesting read and lively discussion. 

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Here’s the thing about 1933 Wauchula. They played in a smaller class than Miami. 

Miami went 9-2 only losing to 2 OOS powers and beating the NY champ on Christmas Day.

Wauchula and Miami don’t have any of the same opponents. 

Thats gonna be a tough call. Will need to break down the opponents more. This is the great part of the project!!

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1 minute ago, nolebull813 said:

Here’s the thing about 1933 Wauchula. They played in a smaller class than Miami. 

Miami went 9-2 only losing to 2 OOS powers and beating the NY champ on Christmas Day.

Wauchula and Miami don’t have any of the same opponents. 

Thats gonna be a tough call. Will need to break down the opponents more. This is the great part of the project!!

Something I left off - The 7-6 loss to Okeechobee was reversed the next day and given as a forfeit win due to Okeechobee having players who were in their 20s.  

The prior 3 seasons for Wauchula

1930 :  9-0-1

1931:   8-1-1

1932:   6-2-3  

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51 minutes ago, Hwy17 said:

Something I left off - The 7-6 loss to Okeechobee was reversed the next day and given as a forfeit win due to Okeechobee having players who were in their 20s.  

The prior 3 seasons for Wauchula

1930 :  9-0-1

1931:   8-1-1

1932:   6-2-3  

Did you know Hardee County had a second team back in the early 40’s? 

Bowling Green High. They beat the Wauchula “B” team in 1940, and then they played the Wauchula varsity in 41 losing, then winning the other game in 42

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Here’s a debate. In 1930 Lakeland went 12-0 and Miami High went 11-1. The loss was to the University of Miami Freshman team. So you can’t really count that. 

They played 4 common opponents. Miami outscored the 4 teams by a combined 72 points, whereas Lakeland only outscored them by 46 points. 

And  Miami capped the season off beating the Midwest and Ohio Champion Dayton Stivers 18-0. 

Sounds like advantage Mia High 

 

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5 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

Did you know Hardee County had a second team back in the early 40’s? 

Bowling Green High. They beat the Wauchula “B” team in 1940, and then they played the Wauchula varsity in 41 losing, then winning the other game in 42

Yes, I know that.  Here's what I had: 1941 Wauchula 19 Bowling Green 9. 1942 was a Wauchula 12 Bowling Green 12 tie.

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14 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

Your right. Bowling Green beat the B team in 1940. 

The tie in 1942 kept Wauchula from going 0-10. Went 0-9-1 instead. Lol

So who was champs in 1927?  There was a playoff that year between conference champs.  Wauchula was champs of their conference at 8-1 but lost to Hillsborough in the playoff.  I don't know who Hillsborough played after that or if they were crowned champs of the state that year.  

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3 hours ago, Hwy17 said:

So who was champs in 1927?  There was a playoff that year between conference champs.  Wauchula was champs of their conference at 8-1 but lost to Hillsborough in the playoff.  I don't know who Hillsborough played after that or if they were crowned champs of the state that year.  

Yes Hillsborough beat Wauchula 13-0. 

Hillsborough then played Andrew Jackson High from Jacksonville and lost 0-6. 

So Jax Jackson was the champ. 

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19 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

I have Lakeland at 10-0-1 this year 

Yeah. So do I. Not sure where I got 8-0-1 from.

1908 - These results are kind of spotty. From what I can find, Lakeland went 3-1-1 with wins over Tampa (11-0), Orlando (Unknown score), and Plant City (unknown). Loss was to Tampa (5-12) and tie was to Orlando. 

1909 - Spotty as well. I have 2 Wins over Wachula (41-0 & 37-0), And a loss to HIllsborough (0-16). There were a couple of other games....but I haven't found scores yet.

1910 - I don't think there were any 'official' games in 1910

1911 - I don't think there were any 'official' games in 1911

1912  - I found one game they lost against Ft. Meade. Not sure of the score

1920 - Found three games, all losses. Plant City (0-25), St. Pete (0-34), Palmetto (0-53).

1921 - New team nickname was "The Orange & Black". Record I have found is 6-3
10/1/21 Lost to St. Pete 20-28
10/7/21 Lost to Plant City 0-13 (Plant City later forfeited due to ineligible players)
10/14/21 Beat Arcadia 57-0
10/21/21 Beat Lake City 26-0
10/28/21 Beat Orlando 26-0
11/4/21 Beat Ft. Meyers 26-0
11/11/21 Lost to Bartow 21-3
11/19/21 Palmetto claims a forfeit game after Lakeland doesn't show up to play them.
Thanksgiving - Game scheduled against Ft. Meade cancelled
12/2/21 Beat a 'Town Team' 20-0

1922 (6-1)
9/29 Beat Bradentown (Manatee) 72-0
10/6 Beat Arcadia 38-0
10/13 Beat St. Pete 12-0
10/22 Lost to Gainesville 0-7
11/11 Beat Bartow 20-6
11/17 Beat Clearwater 57-0

1924 (5-3-1)
9/26 Beat St. Leo 19-9
10/3 Beat Clearwater 40-0
10/10 Beat Sacred Heart 13-0
10/17 Lost to Stetson University 6-0
10/24 Tied Palmetto 0-0
11/1 Beat Arcadia 19-7
11/14 Beat Brooksville 28-0
11/21 Lost to Plant City 3-2
11/27 Lost to Bartow 0-44

1925 (7-0-1) Lakeland and Duval claimed state title (State Athletic Board ruled St. Pete ineligible for state title due to ineligible players)
10/2 Beat St. Leo 51-0
10/9 Beat Clearwater 16-0
10/16 Beat Palmetto 19-0
10/23 Beat Gainesville 27-12
10/30 Tied Arcadia 6-6
11/11 Beat Plant City 34-0
11/21 Beat Ft. Meade 7-0
11/26 Beat Summerlin (Bartow) 13-0

1926 (8-1)
Beat St. Leo 68-0
Beat Ft. Meade 39-3
Beat Plant City 28-0
Beat Gainesville 20-0
Beat Arcadia 89-0
Beat Ft. Myers 13-6
Lost to Tampa 0-7
Beat Clearwater 69-0
Beat Kissimmee 29-0
St. Pete - Game cancelled by request of both team's players

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