I’ve spoken to, texted with and read on message boards stating the same thing.  Practically everyone is in disbelief about Vero’s coaching decisions late in the 4th quarter.  I attended Vero’s semifinal and state final games. IMO,  Vero’s coaching made crucial misjudgments late in both games. The Palmetto game should have been over early in the 4th quarter but Vero must have decided to pretty much shut down the high powered offense that led to a 2 TD lead.  At that point Palmetto had no answer for what Vero was doing.  Then Vero played right back into Palmetto’s style of play resulting in 2 OT’s with Vero fortunately pulling out the 1 point victory.  Against Lake Mary I call into question sending the field goal kicker out to attempt an approximately 35 yarder in the rain.  The poor kid hooked it just like he did against Norland in the kickoff classic and Palmetto in the semifinal.  Yes, it was 4th and about 10 against Lake Mary but you have very talented receivers going against a tired and smaller secondary.  That is the main strong matchup Vero had in the game.  Of course the Vero final debacle was the mismanagement in the final minutes.     Vero had a really talented team that came away one play short of and the 7A title and a perfect season.  You have to give a lot of credit to the Vero coaching staff for achieving this.

That's as bad of a coaching meltdown as I've seen in high school....maybe any level of football. I texted @MarkECannon even before the roof caved in on Vero and said that maybe the rain was short circuiting Jankowski's brain out. He channeled his inner Mike Watkins (FPC coach) by not understanding that there was too much time left to be taking three quick knees for chunk losses when your opponent has two timeouts left. Unlike Mike Watkins, who at least understood he needed to punt the football away, Jankowski compounded his poor decision on the three quick kneel downs by forfeiting two points of his EIGHT POINT LEAD by having White run out of the end zone. That call can actually work under certain circumstances, but this wasn't one of them.   What would have been the correct sequence? Well.... * Run Hillsman (who had 238 yards on the night) three times, telling him above all to secure the football and stay in bounds. * Run Hillsman twice, then have Monds run on a keeper after faking a third run to Hillsman, and stressing to Monds  to secure the football and stay in bounds. * If that doesn't pick up a first down, you PUNT the football away.  * You do those things because even if the worst case scenario happens like a scoop and score if you fumble or the punt is blocked and they score or recover a fumble and score in one play or they return the punt for a TD....you still have an EIGHT POINT LEAD, and they will STILL have to convert a 2 point PAT just to get the game to OVERTIME. Vero had what, close to 500 yards of offense on the night? I'd like their chances in OT. When Jankowski gave up two points of that 8 point lead, it automatically put Vero in danger. Yeah, it took a Hail Mary and a sheer miracle by the LM player to hand that off, but they were going to need a miracle play regardless. Did you want them to have one shot when you had an EIGHT POINT LEAD, or when you have a SIX POINT LEAD?  As for the rest of the game, I really had no problem with the coaching. Vero had multiple explosive plays on offense that caused their defense to be on the field a lot more than normal, but most people find that to be an acceptable tradeoff. They also had some guys injured down the stretch, but that's just part of the game.  In summary, this loss was 100% on Jankowski, and while I haven't seen any quotes from him yet, I hope he accepts the responsibility for that. He's a good coach with a lot of experience, but there is no way to polish up that final sequence. 

His game plan up until the end seemed to be working for them.  Offensively, it seemed they could run at will so I think he could have done more of that, especially when using EJ White at QB as that would have limited LM time of possession, total plays they could hurt you with.  When we played them this year, that was the strategy to keep their offense off the field so they could have managed that a bit better.  Defensively, daring them to run while trying to take away the pass also seemed to be effective for most of the game as it led to 3 INT's.  Special team punting unit wasn't instilling a lot of confidence throughout the game and with the rain it probably played into his thinking.  Just my two cents. 

What a night. I was replaying a loy of stuff while trying to get at least 4 hours sleep. Sadly, two missed kicks, Grubbs knee being down on one of their drives, and a prevent offense all comes down to a betted away pass, where maybe he should have caught it. I cant blame refs....unless we were Cocoa play St Thomas Aquinas, but they did miss alot. Hats off to Lake Mary, who made one more play than we did..... Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is never fun....

The last game put the finishing touches to a number of games who's ending left me me saying WTF just happen!  Compound that with game changing officiating, coaching decisions that evening Ray Charles could see made no good sense....... something strange was going on in fort lauderdale....just a off the cuff reaction ????