Lowdes09 – Do you have any idea how a statement like “We all know Grayson can’t win without cheating so I don’t understand why they are nationally ranked at all” makes you look? Talk about sour grapes! Quit living in the past (with woefully inaccurate memories no less) and join today! Sheesh! You lost. Get over it. It is not the end of world. I have heard from too many other Lowndes posters to believe that is a common belief. They have moved on to this year to Lowndes’ accomplishments, why don’t you?

It was the (Semi Finals) South Georgia Championship game in which they lost to Warner Robins, who went on to win the State.

Yes,

John Stewart was Class AAAA Back of the year, and he went to Auburn. Bradwell Institute lost to Warner Robins in the 2nd round or just before the South Georgia Championship game. Something like that. Correct me if I am wrong.

They (Bradwell) would have to travel to play teams that are far away.

Now that makes a lot of sense. I can agree with you on that. However; I will say to get to play against a tougher team may require for your team to travel over a hundred miles. I think that is part of the reason why GHSA align Regions like the way they do. Example, The longest travel that Bradwell Institute have on their schedule is Camden County. They (Camden County) is near the Florida Border approximately less than 5 miles away. To strengthen the schedule for Bradwell Institute, they would have teams far away that are in their Classification. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I still think that just looking at scores and schedule doesn’t paint a true picture. If you go deeper and look at yardage, long plays, time of possesion, etc., you certainly can get close but in my opinion, watching a team for multiple games during the season says so much more. I am in awe of some of the posters and their knowledge and understanding of the game (you are one of them!) and their ability to look at a game as it is/was and mostly put aside extreme boosterism to provide a critical analysis of what is going on.

For me, I have enjoyed high school football the past two years like I never have before. Enjoy the remaining games and I’ll see you in the Dome in December! wink, wink!

Just pretend for a moment that instead of Phillie and NY having a best-of-seven playoff series, a group of “Voters” decided who would be baseball’s world champions?!

The quality of prep football in GA is as good as ever this year, and any number of teams can win titles. Thanks to all the athletes and coaches who work so hard to entertain us. An appeal to all posters: Please, please, NEVER put down any of these people. Without their work, you wouldn’t have such a great sport to enjoy, or this column in which to express your opinion.

If you had showed up to watch Northside or Lowndes in the game that they lost would you know more or less about them.

Trust me your opinion based on that one game for each of these teams would have been wrong. Especially for Lowndes if you were to go back and then look at the other 8 games, who they played, and the scores.

The fact is you can tell a lot about teams by looking at scores and the teams that they play with out ever seeing those teams play even once.

My point about region weakness is true for several regions including 1, 7 and 8 and probably others (talkin AAAAA now). There are several strong teams in the region that play each other. Someone has to loose. When you then look at W/L in region, all of the good teams can’t be 10-0. The losses to each other by quality teams makes the numbers look like the region is weak. Through in out of region games and strength of schedule, while interesting, shouldn’t be as strong of a ranking factor. Yes, you have to take into account the programs that are flat struggling but I think you can do that without placing too much emphasis.

I find it interesting that the people doing the rankings are doing so based on scores and abreaviated reporting. There is no way they can see all of the games. I think unless you see the games and follow the teams closely over the entire season, you can’t really get a true picture of the team. I can no more know how strong Lowndes, Camden Co, or Warner Robbins is based on the one time I have seen them than I can fly to the moon.

Dadgum it! I got long winded again! Sorry.

Shout out to Fred…I like your post…you should post more often

It is interesting that strength of schedule is so important and everyone acts as though the schedule is something that is set by the head coach the week before. My understanding (which could be wrong) is that schedules are to some degree both set by GHSA with their region assignments and in region play requirements AND set several years in advance. A team can go up and down a lot in just a couple of years. Look at Brookwood and Parkview as an example. I am not trying to diss them in any way but they are not the same teams they were just a couple of years ago. And does anyone else see the problem with determining strength of region play? There are some exceptions from some perennially weak football teams but with all of the in region play, there are going to be teams that lose several games. Then, because they have lost several games, they are declared weak. Seems like a Catch-22 to me (and yes, I realize I just dated myself! )

One last point, unless you watch Grayson play over the course of the season, it is easy to get a wrong impression of their games. The Grayson “way” is to control the ball on offense and give no ground on defense. This leads to lower scoring games. If you look at them for the one game you play against them, it is easy to say they missed opportunities and did not play strong when their way is to do enough to win the game using the entire 48 minutes. It is so obvious when the blowout score against Meadowcreek even when they were doing everything they could not to run up the score except leave the field has such a disportionate affect on ratings. I know in several games including Brookwood the score could have been higher but Grayson chose to either just let the clock run or in Brookwood’s case, take a knee at the Brookwood ten yard line with 30-40 seconds left on the clock.

Now did I like Grayson being rated #2, you bet ya! Do I think they are any better or worse than they were the week before or the week after the high rankings, not a chance! Do I enjoy all of the discussion these rankings generate, heck yea! I stand in awe of the depth on knowledge some of you have and the dedication to the sport. I really enjoy all of the reparte’ between everyone discussing their team. At least, that is until it turns personal about either coaches, players or other commentors.

Sorry for the long post. I get carried away sometimes.