You had me until you threw in the DEI stuff out of left field. No this is not about diversity or inclusivity. Rather, it's about fair play as clearly some teams operate on a different set of rules than most other teams in the state. I agree that it would be equally unfair to punish West Boca, for example, for having a dream season like this year. Therefore the simplest solution is a private school set of playoffs and divisions within private schools. I believe other states (Texas?) do this if I am not mistaken. This solves 90% of the problem, leaving just Venice, Central, Lakeland , MNW and whomever else I'm not thinking about as a smaller problem to deal with.
Perhaps the easiest solution is to have an open division and teams voluntarily sign up for it? Most of the all-star teams want to showcase themselves against elite competition so perhaps this is more important than winning a state title against Joe Public HS?
Well said! In watching and listening to the BoD meeting last December, you could tell by the discussion who the target of this plan was. One member essentially said, "we know who they are", in reference to those schools perceived to be ruining it for everyone else. Although never explicitly said, you could read between the lines and infer that Chaminade, and to a lesser extent, STA, were on their minds. I believe that if Chaminade was in 7A instead of 1A, this whole Open Division concept might never have come up.
The irony of the whole plan is that relying on the goofy MaxPreps rankings to identify the top 8 teams could exclude the very teams that they are trying to include, while sweeping up teams that had a single unprecedented year. The teams this year would have been:
Nease (6A)
Venice (7A)
Gadsden County (2A)
West Boca Raton (6A)
American Heritage (4A)
Chaminade (1A)
Jones (4A)
Cardinal Newman (1A)
Not a bad list, but no Lakeland, no STA, no Cocoa, no MNW -- teams who would at least be worthy of discussion. But absent the human element, this is what you would get.