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Best Florida Dynasties of all time


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  • 4 weeks later...

Must be alot of young people on this forum...

Florida High School football tradition would not be complete without Merritt Island Mustangs, and they ran the big boy classification fo football in the 1970's. The 1980's still had winning teams and a state champ loss.... the 1990s and on have all produced teams with runs into the playoffs

the school opened in 1967

 

State champs in 72, 78, 79 in the largest classification at the time which was 4a I believe

Undefeated in 72, 78, 79

101-15 for the decade

30 game winning streak

32 years out of 49 years school has made it in FHSAA Playoffs (tied for 3rd all-time with glades central, trailing Bolles with 34 and glades day with 33)

all time FHSAA playoff record 45-29 (9th most wins in FHSAA Playoff history) (7th most FHSAA playoff games played)

4 state champ appearances, 3 wins ( TALLY Leon in 72, Pensacola Pine Forest in 78 and 79) lost in 89 to Dillard

 

heres

some info

http://www.fhsaa.org/news/2007/1211 -

FHSAA announces top teams by decade The 1970s. MERRITT ISLAND Finishing 13-0 and Class 4A state champions, the high-powered 1972 Merritt Island High School Mustangs, coached by Eddie Feely, scored 519 points for a 39.9 point-per-game average, and ran up more than 5,000 yards in total offense. They beat Leon (Tallahassee) 40-21 in the state championship game.The entire backfield – quarterback Jimmy Black, fullback Waldo Williams and tailback “Neon†Leon Bright, a member of the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame – all made the all-state team. It was the first time that’s happened in the history of Florida high school football. And it hasn’t happened since. The entire backfield signed with FSU. On that staff were three future hall of fame coaches – the head coach, Eddie Feely, along with assistants Gerald Odom and Dwight Thomas ( later @ ESCAMBIA- Emmitt Smith), who also eventually became head coaches.

http://spacecoastdaily.com/2013/11/mustangs-72-champs-set-benchmark-for-excellence/

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1985-09-22/news/0330140296_1_mustangs-merritt-odom

 

GERALD ODOM FHSAA announces coaching staff for All-Century football team

ODOM-180.jpg

Gerald Odom

• FHSAA All-Century Team Coach • Back-To-Back State Championships • 268-85-2 Career Record

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Welcome to the site 56Mustang! You are right Merritt Island had some great teams in the 70s, I am sorry that I overlooked them. Three undefeated seasons is impressive, but when you do it in the highest classification? That's incredible!

Pensacola Pine Forest I believe actually won a national title in the mid-late 80s. Either 86 or 87? Cannot remember the year, but I've watched that game and man that team was impressive!

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They had some great teams in the 80's as well but so did vero beach with coach billy livings.... they had some epic showdowns especially in 86 i believe..13-10 vero win in OT at vero in front of 10,000 plus. MI finished 9-1, runner up didnt go to playoffs back then...Growing up in merritt island, it was all about the mustangs, it was a true football community...town shutndown on friday nights in the fall...like friday night lights....the space programs continual decline has hurt the program more than anything

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Also hard to compare private to public schools over time since private schools can recruit, gove scholarships, and arent subject to districts changing and new schools taking away student numbers

 

Take away bolles and glades day above and glades central and MI are tied for number one in playoff appearances among public schools

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  • 1 month later...

Gerald Odom was the coach that changed Cocoa. It started with the hiring of Chuck Goldfarb, ex MI AD, who talked Odom out of retirement to coach at Cocoa. Odom then hires young gun John Wilkenson after MI turned him down. There was a special magic in Brevard from thre 60's all the way up to now. It has always been more than a one team county.

 

Championship teams from Brevard off the top of my head.

 

Melbourne in the 60's

Merritt Island in the 70's

Palm Bay/Titusville in the 80's, 

Rockledge in the 90's

Cocoa in the 00's

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Gerald Odom was the coach that changed Cocoa. It started with the hiring of Chuck Goldfarb, ex MI AD, who talked Odom out of retirement to coach at Cocoa. Odom then hires young gun John Wilkenson after MI turned him down. There was a special magic in Brevard from thre 60's all the way up to now. It has always been more than a one team county.

 

Championship teams from Brevard off the top of my head.

 

Melbourne in the 60's

Merritt Island in the 70's

Palm Bay/Titusville in the 80's, 

Rockledge in the 90's

Cocoa in the 00's

The Rockledge teams of the early 00s were pretty good too. Back to back titles in 2002-03 I believe. Palm Bay had a couple titles in the early 2000s as well. Lots of success from Brevard within the last 15 years. 

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  • 2 months later...

that was the main disagreement, I beilve it has to be entire history to be a dynasty, not have a few years of dominace then fall off

 

So, consecutive winning seasons?  Number of state titles? Playoff Appearances?   

 

Programs that have been around for years usually have periods of dominance followed by years of being down: i.e. Live Oak Suwannee; Bartow; 

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I would rather be in the hunt every year then to only have a few years of being good followed by 2 decades of losing, example wildwood, they were once a champion that competed with the best, now what, they had their football season cancelled and their program is on very hard times, I would rather take our history then theirs because I know one of these years everything will come together and we will end up playing in Orlando for a championship, again

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Down here in the Heartland, the measuring stick for a dynasty has got to be Lakeland.  Bill Castle has never had a losing season and several state championships, including winning 60 straight.  The last several years haven't been as good, but still winning seasons, district titles but no state title.

 

How do feel about Fort Meade?  Since the early 90's they have been arguable the strongest small town team in Florida but only 1 state title despite making the finals many times.

 

Frostproof; been down in recent years but from the early 70's to mid-2000 they were consistently producing winning seasons, district titles, and 3 state titles, plus a couple more finals appearances. 

 

Avon Park:  was a powerhouse in the 1980's winning back-to-back state titles in 1987-1988.  Haven't had but a few good seasons since.  Glad to see them back to winning this year :)

 

Hardee and Lake Wales:  I don't consider dynasties.  Compare the two side-by-side since the 1960's and both have more winning seasons than most other programs do. Neither have won a state title but both have gotten there. 

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  • 2 months later...

Can we start talking about BTW and Miami Central's runs as some of the best dynasties of all time? Booker T Washington now has 4 titles in a row, and 5 since 2007 I think. 

Central has also won 4 straight state titles. If not for a forfeited season it'd be 6 in a row, as they won it all in 2010 and forfeited their 2011 title. 

Trinity Christian has also now won 3 straight titles in 3A. 

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Can we start talking about BTW and Miami Central's runs as some of the best dynasties of all time? Booker T Washington now has 4 titles in a row, and 5 since 2007 I think.

Central has also won 4 straight state titles. If not for a forfeited season it'd be 6 in a row, as they won it all in 2010 and forfeited their 2011 title.

Trinity Christian has also now won 3 straight titles in 3A.

MC lost to Armwood in 2011... Both teams had to forfeit their games...
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