Lee County, Georgia's reigning two-time Class AAAAAA champion, is playing a 2-year-old football program tonight that went 2-6 in its first season. A mismatch? Maybe not. Life Christian of Virginia is playing a national schedule. The school is playing in five states and will revisit Georgia on Sept. 13 to face Buford. The 2019 roster includes four of Virginia's top 50 senior recruits, according to 247Sports. They include Penn State-committed cornerback Joseph Johnson and James Madison-committed quarterback Antonio Webb. Most have transferred from other Virginia schools to increase their exposure and college opportunities. "Everyone's trying to go D-I," Webb told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Freedom Bowl begins; two games canceled
Milton defeated Alpharetta 45-0 on Thursday night to kick off the second Freedom Bowl, which has six out-of-state teams meeting today and Saturday at Milton. Teams include Brentwood Academy, the Tennessee DII-AAA champion, and Hoover, the No. 1-ranked team in Alabama's Class 7A. Two games had to be canceled. Bishop Sycamore of Columbus, Ohio, was thrown out this week for breach of contract. According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the first-year varsity program failed to book accommodations by a deadline and was found to be sketchy. So Mainland High of Daytona, Fla., is out of a game. Mainland coach Scott Wilson, whose team was part of the event last year, was said to be furious but didn't blame the organizers. "In 18 years of coaching, it was one of the most well-run venues I've ever been a part of," Wilson told the News-Journal. "Those guys that run [the event] are great guys." Then on Wednesday, Western High of Miami canceled because of Hurricane Dorian. That left UMS-Wright of Alabama without a game. "Their school system wouldn't let them travel, and I don't blame them," UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis told AL.com.
Revised schedule:
Today
5 p.m. - Pickerington Central (Ohio) vs. Winter Park (Fla.)
8:30 p.m. - Cocoa (Fla.) vs. Hoover (Ala.)
Saturday
1 p.m. - Clearwater Central Catholic (Fla.) vs. Brentwood Academy (Tenn.)
It's Georgia vs. Alabama in C1N showcase
Westlake, Griffin, Mays and Cedar Grove are representing Georgia this weekend in the C1N Georgia vs. Alabama football showcase at Lakewood Stadium. The event is sponsored by C1N Enterprise, owned by Cam Newton, the former Westlake and Auburn quarterback with strong ties to both states. All eight teams are traditionally strong, but Central of Phenix City and Cedar Grove are defending champions in their states.
Schedule:
Today
7:30 p.m. - Jeff Davis (Montgomery) vs. Westlake
Saturday
2 p.m. - Fairfield (Birmingham) vs. Griffin
5 p.m. - Carver (Birmingham) vs. Mays
8 p.m. - Central (Phenix City) vs. Cedar Grove
It's Florida vs. Georgia elsewhere
Four games this week feature Georgia teams vs. Florida teams. North Gwinnett is home against Armwood, the alma mater of North Gwinnett coach Bill Stewart, a member of the school's first graduating class in 1986. Stewart also was the team's defensive coordinator from 1998 to 2003. Armwood coach Evan Davis played under Stewart during that time. Aside from that, it's a chance for North Gwinnett to play a strong team. Armwood is No. 2 in Florida's Class 7A rankings, according to MaxPreps, and is "by far the most loaded team in Tampa Bay," according to the Tampa Bay Times, which reports the team has 13 players with Division I offers. "You want to play that caliber of an opponent because when you get to the playoffs, you've got to play at other places that you're not familiar with, so it's better to start dealing with that now," Stewart told Adam Krohn of AJC.com. Meanwhile, Lowndes is playing at home against Champagnat, the No. 3-ranked team in Florida's 2A, per MaxPreps. Johns Creek is at home against Jones of Orlando (No. 7 in Florida's Class 5A), and Brunswick is at home against Bartram Trail. Florida held a 13-7 edge over Georgia teams in 2018 and is 2-0 this season.
Heritage (Ringgold) coach suspended
Heritage (Ringgold) coach E.K. Slaughter has been suspended from football activities this week, including tonight's game against Ringgold. Slaughter shoved a player from the back of his helmet while sending the player into the game last week against Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe. "Coach Slaughter quickly realized that his actions were wrong and apologized to the player involved and his family," principal Ronnie Bradford told WTVC-TV in Chattanooga. "We addressed his actions, and he will be suspended from football for one week." Heritage won the game 17-16. Defensive coordinator Jeremy New will serve as interim head coach tonight.
Class A headmaster agrees with GHSA rationale
In an article Wednesday, GHSF Daily questioned a GHSA reclassification committee's rationale for limiting how far a school might move up in class beginning in 2020.
Georgia's private and city schools are especially vulnerable to new guidelines that could move up in class schools that get high numbers of students from outside their attendance zones. GHSA president Glenn White stated this week that schools forced to move up more than one class could face safety issues. The committee voted 11-4 to prevent schools from being jumped more than one classification.
Zach Young, the headmaster emeritus at Wesleyan, agreed with White's safety concerns.
"The aspect of safety that I have not seen highlighted in your articles is the offensive and defensive lines, where enrollment size plays a huge role," Young said. "All schools have only so many players large enough to play line positions, but larger schools always have more of them than smaller schools just because they have a higher population of students from which to choose."
Young noted that high school linemen weighing 275-300 pounds are fairly common today.
"When a big body gets hurt at an A school, there is rarely someone of comparable size to replace him," Young said. "Oftentimes at Class A schools, the substitute for a first-string lineman is a freshman or a sophomore who might weigh 100 pounds less than the first stringer they are replacing and the first stringer on the other side of the ball. It is simply not safe for a 175-pound sophomore offensive guard, who might be up from the JV, to go against an opponent who weighs 275 pounds or more. The weight disparity is just too great and it is unsafe."
Young continued: "Football is already under attack about safety and concussions and other injuries. Football is the only sport where this size difference - school population and player size - matters. Parents are not allowing their sons to play football, and it is hard to blame them. It would be a wrong move for the GHSA to give them another legitimate reason to disallow the sport in their family.
"The GHSA should recognize the reality of this lineman size disparity problem that all schools face to some degree but is most apparent in the smallest schools in their association."
As reported in Wednesday's article, Wesleyan played Meadowcreek of Class AAAAAAA just last week. Wesleyan won 30-19, avenging a 21-3 defeat from the previous season. Meadowcreek's enrollment is about 3,200. Wesleyan's is about 480.
"But a steady dose of region play is more dangerous than a one-off at the start of the season when you hope you are at your healthiest," Young said. "That said, I don't know the injury report from the game."
Coach finds public-private issue 'exhausting'
Most private schools want to continue competing against public schools, but some of their coaches are getting weary of the debate. Count Westminster football coach Gerry Romberg among those this week.
"The public/private-city debate is so very exhausting," Romberg told GHSF Daily. "You can make a case for every situation. Then main issue, that will continue to be an issue, are the country club sports. For example, if you put Westminster in 7A, we would still be successful in the country club sports. The Directors Cup has created and magnified this problem.
So while Westminster can win in any class in sports such as golf and tennis, it would be at a great disadvantage in other sports, Romberg said.
"The schools that don't or can't recruit in sports like football or basketball [meaning Westminster] will be the ones that will suffer the most," he said. "In 28 years, I have never recruited a player to Westminster to play football. I couldn't if I wanted to. Our average two-part SAT score is like 1340. We continue to have this dialogue about moving up one class, two classes. Just separate public and private already and be done with it."
As pointed out in a GHSF Daily article last year, private schools are already relying heavily on each other to fill out their football schedules. Westminster hasn't played a public school in a non-region game since 2015 (Elbert County), largely because many public schools aren't eager to play the Wildcats or any private schools.
Blessed Trinity coach Tim McFarlin believes the emphasis on public vs. private has become divisive and counterproductive. He notes that there are public schools beyond just city schools that also accepts out-of-zone students, some for a tuition charge, just as private and city schools do.
"Eliminate conversation that uses language of private vs. public," McFarlin said. "Replace it with language that refers to schools that accept students on a tuition basis from outside their district. This will possibly calm the waters a bit and bring into focus the fact that both public (city) and private schools are on equal ground on this topic. If the state eventually decides to split, do it along those lines, not public-private."
McFarlin has no complaints with compelling certain schools to play up two classifications.
"Marist has played up two classifications [by its own choice] for years, and to my knowledge no one has suffered greatly from it," McFarlin said. "Good for them."
However, McFarlin did not endorse a policy of bumping up schools two classes if the GHSA were going to use the narrower attendance boundaries to define out-of-zone students. For the current cycle, the GHSA bumped up schools with a significant number of students outside the schools’ counties of origin. Going forward, the GHSA plans to use the narrower school district. For private schools, that would be the school district of the local high school.
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