Been around athletic's long enough to know that penalties don't always stick for schools with rich pockets. And it looks like the First Academy, which has as deep of pockets has anybody in Florida, is finding out that they will be allowed to be in the playoffs this season.        One of their lawyers made a valid point that there is inconsistency in the way the fhsaa handles violations across the state. Nobody would argue that with them. The state organization is comical in their failure to do much of anything that is logical or consistent.      However, the First Academy absolutely blew past many of the norms, policies and rules that many schools do their best to follow. The old adage /excuse that everybody is doing it is not a defense. (Especially for a school that is run by a church. And on another note, I have personally witnessed interventions on behalf of their track and field athletes, that screamed of impropriety and the influence of money.) So regardless of what happens with other schools, in inconsistencies, to lawyer up and get to play is not a great lesson for kids or the community. Community. But such is life coaching in Florida.  I'll be curious to see what other people think about this. But sadly it's not the first time.

This is always an interesting topic and subject for debate. Years ago, everyone said, "just add 3 points to the home team." What I've learned is that this is inaccurate.  It became obvious that each team has its own home field number. Some teams may have a 10 or 12 point advantage, while others perform at -10 or -12 when playing at home. Well, I really don't like subtracting points for home teams because I found in college, about 58-60% of home teams do win each week so there has to be an advantage somewhere. What I did was look at the difference in Road Power Rating vs. Home Power rating and come up with an average. I also tried this with high school and the Home Field Advantage turned out to be about 1/3 of a point. I used to add .34 points to the home team's power rating when predicting games. This was basically a waste of time and didn't make much of a difference so today, I no longer calculate a home field advantage for our high schools because there really is no advantage. However, College is a different story. Colleges do have a home field advantage, just not as big as we may think. And they change week to week. Here are the current home field advantage averages by division: Div - # Teams - Home Field Adv FBS P4 70 1.4 FBS G5 66 2.8 FCS 129 1.9 D2 161 1.1 D3 240 0.9 NAIA 94 1.2 TOTAL 760 1.35        

I feel your pain, but Florida, as a state, got very lucky this year with weather.  Unlike last year, we didn't have any significant hurricane events so, for the most part, and with the exception of a few early-season thunderstorm/lightning cancellations, all games were played.  As pointed out, I think any make-up games had to be played by Tuesday of this week.  I suspect the top 6 or 7 teams in each region like the idea of a bye week leading into the playoffs.   It gives teams a chance to get healthy before they enter the playoff run.  But, you're right about the teams on the bubble . . . the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th teams are sitting out there not even knowing if they're going to be playing in the playoffs.  But at least we can figure out who's likely to make it and who's likely to be left at home, because we all know the formula that gets used to determine the rankings, right?  

Now we'll look at college intra division games and it's easy to see why they're tougher to predict. Especially FBS P4 and G5 where over half of the games are rated Excellent to Good.   FBS-P4 14.6  avg      Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 47 21% 21% A  Really Good 4-8 49 22% 42% B+ Good 9-12 23 10% 53% B  Pretty Good 13-17 32 14% 67% C+ Somewhat  18-21 15 7% 73% C  Not Really 22-26 26 12% 85% D+ Poor 27-30 5 2% 87% D  Bad 31-35 17 8% 95% F Horrible 36+ 12 5% 100%       226       FBS-G5 14.7  avg     Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 42 21% 21% A  Really Good 4-8 35 18% 39% B+ Good 9-12 21 11% 50% B  Pretty Good 13-17 28 14% 64% C+ Somewhat  18-21 21 11% 75% C  Not Really 22-26 17 9% 83% D+ Poor 27-30 12 6% 89% D  Bad 31-35 10 5% 94% F Horrible 36+ 11 6% 100%       197       FCS 16.9  avg     Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 71 15% 15% A  Really Good 4-8 109 23% 38% B+ Good 9-12 43 9% 47% B  Pretty Good 13-17 57 12% 58% C+ Somewhat  18-21 51 11% 69% C  Not Really 22-26 41 9% 78% D+ Poor 27-30 37 8% 85% D  Bad 31-35 20 4% 90% F Horrible 36+ 50 10% 100%       479       Division 2 19.3  avg     Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 88 13% 13% A  Really Good 4-8 145 21% 34% B+ Good 9-12 49 7% 41% B  Pretty Good 13-17 86 12% 53% C+ Somewhat  18-21 60 9% 62% C  Not Really 22-26 60 9% 71% D+ Poor 27-30 61 9% 79% D  Bad 31-35 41 6% 85% F Horrible 36+ 102 15% 100%       692       Division 3 23.5  avg     Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 105 12% 12% A  Really Good 4-8 135 15% 27% B+ Good 9-12 59 7% 33% B  Pretty Good 13-17 89 10% 43% C+ Somewhat  18-21 86 10% 53% C  Not Really 22-26 79 9% 61% D+ Poor 27-30 62 7% 68% D  Bad 31-35 78 9% 77% F Horrible 36+ 208 23% 100%       901       NAIA 23.8       Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 43 11% 11% A  Really Good 4-8 61 16% 28% B+ Good 9-12 24 6% 34% B  Pretty Good 13-17 43 11% 45% C+ Somewhat  18-21 30 8% 53% C  Not Really 22-26 33 9% 62% D+ Poor 27-30 20 5% 67% D  Bad 31-35 33 9% 76% F Horrible 36+ 91 24% 100%       378       TOTAL 20.1 avg       Grade Interest Point Margin Games Pct Cumul. A+ Excellent 1-3 396 14% 14% A  Really Good 4-8 534 19% 32% B+ Good 9-12 219 8% 40% B  Pretty Good 13-17 335 12% 52% C+ Somewhat  18-21 263 9% 61% C  Not Really 22-26 256 9% 70% D+ Poor 27-30 197 7% 77% D  Bad 31-35 199 7% 84% F Horrible 36+ 474 16% 100%       2873      

Well there was some make games played on Monday and Tuesday. So maybe that is why.