Are we really to believe that the talent in Dade county in 1994 was waayyyy down? Of course not. The talent was just much more diluted or diffuse then, due to attendance boundaries being enforced much more.

Just went back and verified that Miami Southridge was not only unbeaten and defending state champs in 1994 (with everyone drooling over and obsessed with their win over Manatee in 1993), they were ranked number one in the country by USA Today (the gold standard for national rankings then). Washington, on the other hand, was 1-9 the previous season and failed to win their district in 1994! They then beat that Southridge team by two scores.  Watch the full game here

Oh, sure, they're all trying at this point. There are just several factors that have kept anyone from totally running the area. Niceville is an hour plus from Pensacola. They've gotten some kids from there I'm sure. Just not enough. Niceville lost to Mosley and had a pretty competitive win vs. Choctaw, so it's unlikely Niceville had that much of a monopoly on local talent last season. Now, if we start seeing them easily running-clock all of the other teams in the area, then we'd have reason to look closer and see if they have gotten most all of the best players. The panhandle schools did very well historically when the top schools never had more than one or two transfers. Anyone can see this if they check the record books. In 1980, Cantonment Tate beat Miami Columbus- necessarily the best team in Dade that year as no other Dade school played for a title in any class- in the large school state title game, 35-7. In 1982, Pensacola Woodham beat Columbus in the same large class title game, 23-14. In 1984, Woodham beat Miami Southridge for the big school title. In 1991, Fort Walton Beach dominated STA 39-14 for a state title. In 1994, Pensacola Washington beat undefeated and reigning state champion Miami Southridge by two scores. There are also many seasons in which no Dade team played for a state title because all the schools were knocked off in early rounds by a school in a different county. You'd be abosultely crazy and wrong to allege that there weren't a TON of great players in Dade county in the 1980s and 1990s. Dade was the most talent-rich county in the country in those years, too. The difference, of course, was that transfer mania wasn't a thing. And, while the stronger programs no doubt got a key transfer here or there, for the most part the rosters were dictated by narrow attendance boundaries.

Not so fast my friend. Niceville for the longest was the go to place for players. Kids weren’t going to Choctaw and they dang sure weren’t going to FWB. Don’t let the good ole boy mantra fool you. North FL has had some “magnet schools”. The talent just isn’t as good as the South. It’s not for the lack of trying. 

They certainly could produce a state power that hangs with anyone in the state. But, in the current climate, that would require one program to compile most of the top talent. And that area has seen many schools have great teams, but no one school that can lay claim to being head and shoulders over others. And, I think the culture of that area is more traditional or less keen on the new age transfer mania. Perhaps the strongest program in the broader area, Niceville, is too far from Pensacola to attract enough players from there to become good enough to beat a mega power.   The sad thing is, nothing said above means the quality of football is less in that area. They just aren't trying to build all-star teams built on attracting players from far and wide. If the variables were reversed, and Pensacola had a program that went "all-in" on monopolizing local talent, while Dade/Broward schools were somehow forced to strictly use players within a small set of boundaries (like it was in, say, the 1980s), then the Pensacola powerhouse would dominate the Dade and Broward teams. You'd still have a completely uneven playing field, but now that uneven field would work for the Pensacola team and against the Dade and Broward teams. Of course, in current reality, things are reversed from my hypothetical.