Forums

Miami Central vs Northwestern Cardinal Mooney vs Clearwater Central Catholic  Cocoa vs Norland  Mainland vs Deland Manatee vs Columbia  Pace vs Madison County Royal Palm Beach vs Boca Raton Stranahan vs South Plantation Calvary Christian (Ft Lauderdale) vs Monsignor Pace Lake Gibson vs Bartow

Osceola is a program that builds the right way, IMO.  They have a very strong youth program that feeds into the school, which is in a talent-rich area.  Hence, why you guys lose a lot of talent to the recruiters.  And yes, West Boca literally does not have a starter that actually attends the school this year.  I think all 22 (or at least 15-16+) are Rise Preparatory Academy "attendees."  I use that word loosely because remote learning is literally up to the drive of the attendee.  If they wan to train all day and take bullshit classes to stay eligible, they can do that.  At least RPA encourages them to take their studies seriously, even if it is basket weaving for most of them.   My point is even if RPA is a legit learning experience, this is total abuse of the rule that allows a student to play for another school if their school doesn't have a team.  This is RPA's design, which is to intentionally not have a team so they can place their mercenaries at their school of choice, all the while RPA profits from the voucher program.  Abuse of the system all around and I hate it.

Since there is no statistically significant difference in the 2024 won-loss records of the 7 classes (by chi-square test), it implies that there are "good", "average", and "mediocre" teams within each class.  The first step to achieve competitive balance is to redistribute all the "good" teams into their own classes, the "average" teams into their own classes, and the "mediocre" teams into their own classes; either by past performance, computer rankings, promotion/relegation or, however.  Florida actually has more teams per class than just about any state besides Texas and California.  And for the reasons @nolebull813  correctly points out, the likelihood of the FHSAA reducing the number of classes is basically zero.  So let's at least try to be realistic, and move away from the enrollment-based classifications to improve competitive equity, which in the long run would be much better for the health of Florida high school football.

The 2 hardest things keeping Florida from cutting down the classes like they should are the FHSAA, because more brackets means more gate money from extra playoff games. And the coaches/AD’s who want an easier road. Coaches and AD’s are going to want the path to least resistance because it’s job security and legacy on the line. Hell they would probably all be for more classes!    The only positive I can find is the extra games with there being extra brackets is more exposure for kids for college.    The negative is it makes a lot more wasted blowouts and teams advancing further than they ever would if the brackets were trimmed down like they are supposed to be. So bottom line is the extra exposure for kids worth the poor product and wasted blowouts?

Miami Central  Cardinal Mooney Norland  Deland Columbia  Madison County Royal Palm Beach South Plantation Monsignor Pace Bartow