Opponents refuse to play HS football powerhouse

Some states like Illinois had a "multiplier" in place, so powerhouse Catholic schools who recruit from all over get bumped up to larger enrollment classes. That helps for the playoffs at least.

 

That's just normal. There are always going to be strong teams and weak teams. But some of these private schools grow from nothing to dominant in a couple years.

That's not feeder programs and bootstraps doing that.

 

They used to do that in Georgia, probably about 10 years ago or so. Now private and public schools play in different regions and for different titles in the smaller classifications. Like there is a Region 8-A and a Region 8-A Private, I believe. I stopped covering preps before that switch. I do remember some stat that private schools were winning 80 percent of state titles in the lower classifications before that.

 

I'm not crazy about a school waiting until the week of the game to forfeit just because they don't think they'll be competitive. (The other school mentioned that was down to 14 players because of injuries is totally different.) And Archbishop Murphy only made it to the state semis last year and had a losing record three seasons ago. That doesn't sound like an impossible juggernaut to compete against.

 

But it is.

They started spending money and upped the recruiting game a few years ago. They don't want to play by the same rules and customs as their league. That's how a series that was formerly competitive turns into 290-30 over a six-year span.

 

If you're playing 11-man tackle football, you should be required to have 22 players in uniform, or no game.

 

"Adversity" of not playing = white privlige? Give me a break.

 

It's been that way in Virginia (separate organizations) as long as I can remember.

 

Cuts both ways. A Detroit-area school, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, was thrown out of the Catholic League because it refused to play one of its crossover opponents, 8-time state champion Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice (alma mater of, among others, B.J. Armstrong, Chris Hansen of "To Catch a Predator" fame, NL batting champion DJ LeMahieu and Packers offensive lineman T.J. Lang). And yet, they seem to enjoy playing public schools bigger than them and private schools a third of their size...

McCabe: Notre Dame Prep's football moves are hard to size up

 

Arkansas had a similar situation with Shiloh Christian in the late 1990s. Shiloh's district refused to play them en masse and forced them to schedule games against higher classification teams (which they went 10-0 against). The state activities association put in a rule afterward that if you refuse to play a district colleague, you are ineligible for playoff competition.

 

A lot of talk about this in California, especially when the private schools dominate the state basketball finals. And in the big metro areas, the Catholic schools are in their own league, with the only crossover in nonconference games or in the playoffs. But what to do about the Central Valley, where places like Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton, ect. have just one parochial school. And is what's good for football also good for water polo, girls soccer, ect.? And what of some of the small Christian schools and charter academies that are essentially housing an AAU all-star team?

CIF sections have shown the good sense to allow a couple of powerhouses, like Concord De La Salle football and Stockton St. Mary's girls basketball, to go the indie route. And having seen too many of those mercy rule blowouts where the winning team calls off the press five minutes into the first quarter after forcing 20 turnovers and the losing coach begs for a running clock to start the second half, it makes sense.

 

Would have made for a better movie.