Revisiting the rankings 2k6 edition

[954gator]

Ok need help finding USA Today super 25.

I have Prepnation, and Maxpreps.  Let me know of others.

Maxpreps cpu 2006 (can’t help but notice my bogey team Blue Springs Mo from the nfl draft thread 😂)

1	Carroll (Southlake)	16-0	44.1	--
2	Cedar Hill	16-0	39.5	--
3	Upper St. Clair	16-0	37.5	--
4	Wheaton-Warrenville South (Wheaton)	14-0	30.7	--
5	Warren Central (Indianapolis)	15-0	31.9	--
6	Hilliard Davidson (Hilliard)	15-0	39.4	--
7	Blue Springs South (Blue Springs)	13-0	36.7	--
8	Jesuit (Portland)	13-0	34.2	--
9	Prattville	15-0	34.7	--
10	Lake City (Coeur d'Alene)	12-0	33.9	--
11	Eden Prairie	14-0	30.8	--
12	Muskegon	14-0	33.1	--
13	Colerain (Cincinnati)	13-1	39.0	--
14	Canyon (Canyon Country)	12-2	37.8	--
15	Orange Lutheran (Orange)	14-1	38.9	--
16	Trinity (Euless)	11-1	37.4	--
17	Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey)	12-0	28.1	--
18	De La Salle (Concord)	13-1	37.7	--
19	Maryville	15-0	27.9	--
20	Bellevue	14-0	28.0	--
21	Lakeland	15-0	28.3	--
22	East Grand Rapids (Grand Rapids)	13-1	32.0	--
23	St. Xavier (Cincinnati)	10-2	47.4	--
24	Cathedral (Indianapolis)	13-2	31.0	--
25	Lowell	10-1	35.4	--

[The Guru]

Quote

Ok need help finding USA Today super 25.

[954gator]

Lakeland had some epic games in 2006, but IMO wasn’t as strong as the year prior.

2006 STA Lakeland had one of the most epic finishes ever.  Not without controversy of course.  Was he in?!?!?

 

Lakeland vs St. X was also a great game.

Was Luke Keuchly on that St. X team?

[954gator]

@The Guru gotta link for that for future posts?

[TheMaximumHornetSting]

7 minutes ago, 954gator said:

Ok need help finding USA Today super 25.

I have Prepnation, and Maxpreps.  Let me know of others.

Maxpreps cpu 2006 (can’t help but notice my bogey team Blue Springs Mo from the nfl draft thread 😂)

1	Carroll (Southlake)	16-0	44.1	--
2	Cedar Hill	16-0	39.5	--
3	Upper St. Clair	16-0	37.5	--
4	Wheaton-Warrenville South (Wheaton)	14-0	30.7	--
5	Warren Central (Indianapolis)	15-0	31.9	--
6	Hilliard Davidson (Hilliard)	15-0	39.4	--
7	Blue Springs South (Blue Springs)	13-0	36.7	--
8	Jesuit (Portland)	13-0	34.2	--
9	Prattville	15-0	34.7	--
10	Lake City (Coeur d'Alene)	12-0	33.9	--
11	Eden Prairie	14-0	30.8	--
12	Muskegon	14-0	33.1	--
13	Colerain (Cincinnati)	13-1	39.0	--
14	Canyon (Canyon Country)	12-2	37.8	--
15	Orange Lutheran (Orange)	14-1	38.9	--
16	Trinity (Euless)	11-1	37.4	--
17	Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey)	12-0	28.1	--
18	De La Salle (Concord)	13-1	37.7	--
19	Maryville	15-0	27.9	--
20	Bellevue	14-0	28.0	--
21	Lakeland	15-0	28.3	--
22	East Grand Rapids (Grand Rapids)	13-1	32.0	--
23	St. Xavier (Cincinnati)	10-2	47.4	--
24	Cathedral (Indianapolis)	13-2	31.0	--
25	Lowell	10-1	35.4	--

Northside WR would've smoked any other top team in GA that year... 

We had 3 F**king state title games end in ties that year... 

Peachtree Ridge in their first year open split the state title with Roswell... 13-13 no OT because of a stupid rule... 

Charlton County and Dublin ended in a tie and the 1A title ended in a tie... 

[954gator]

I’ll post some more games tonight.

[Cossacks]

06’ ranking for California were questionable and national rankings seemed to follow suite and piggy back. Oaks, was loaded with talent, but beat a bunch of outclassed lower division teams. Then played one good team in the SBG and went to to OT and should have lost that game. 

Canyon surprised and really kinda thumped DLS in the SBG, but had some loses on the year.  OLU with Aaron Corp at QB was the best team in the state that year IMO. The TL did not have a super team that year, but top to bottom was more competitive IMO. Ironically SJB was a lower tier team with JSerra (nothing has changed much for them in 15 years 😂).

I never agreed with Oaks as team of the year in 06’ and seems Prepnation and USAT at least just followed CaliHi’s lead nationally for California rankings.

[Wooderson]

USA Today's handling of California is a hot mess with Canyon beating De La Salle essentially carrying no value.

In my backyard there wasn't a single person that thought 2005 Brophy was better than 2006 Hamilton (...or 2006 Centennial, or 2006 Saguaro) yet they finished off better than those schools. Different years so not an apples to apples comparison but interesting how these things shake out.

Haven't found anything online from 2006 Hamilton but they were very good. Had a weird road loss to Massillon early on then rolled from there. Starting QB went to New Mexico and had several other skill players have decent college runs (notably Kerry Taylor and Gerrell Robinson at ASU and Covaughn Deboskie at Cal). This year was the start of Centennial (IMO still their most complete team) and Saguaro's current runs.

[954gator]

 

[954gator]

18 minutes ago, Wooderson said:

USA Today's handling of California is a hot mess with Canyon beating De La Salle essentially carrying no value.

In my backyard there wasn't a single person that thought 2005 Brophy was better than 2006 Hamilton (...or 2006 Centennial, or 2006 Saguaro) yet they finished off better than those schools. Different years so not an apples to apples comparison but interesting how these things shake out.

Haven't found anything online from 2006 Hamilton but they were very good. Had a weird road loss to Massillon early on then rolled from there. Starting QB went to New Mexico and had several other skill players have decent college runs (notably Kerry Taylor and Gerrell Robinson at ASU and Covaughn Deboskie at Cal). This year was the start of Centennial (IMO still their most complete team) and Saguaro's current runs.

Yeah unfortunately a lot of it was about score domination and record, which would reward smaller class dominant teams.   

[954gator]

 

[954gator]

 

[ngdawg]

2 hours ago, 954gator said:

Lakeland had some epic games in 2006, but IMO wasn’t as strong as the year prior.

2006 STA Lakeland had one of the most epic finishes ever.  Not without controversy of course.  Was he in?!?!?

 

Lakeland vs St. X was also a great game.

Was Luke Keuchly on that St. X team?

Very very close on the TD call. I personally don't think the ball crossed the plane, but it's definitely a tossup. It doesn't help that an STA player was standing right in front of the goalline camera.

[SeaShells21]

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS:

November 24, 2006: 

 

Two hours before kickoff of the matchup of the year, or decade, or maybe ever, Todd Dodge's plan got stuck in traffic. The Southlake Carroll coach wanted his players to think of Euless Trinity as just another opponent, but the Dragons were in danger of not even making it to the game.

It was Nov. 24, 2006, the day after Thanksgiving, and the roads outside of Texas Stadium were packed. The Carroll buses, loaded with the state's No. 1 ranked team, were in the middle of it.

"I remember we had to have a police escort to get us through everyone," said Tre Newton, a Carroll running back who later played for Texas. "That's when it hit us that this was a really big game."

 

Ten years later, there are some very big games in this second week of the football playoffs. But none can match the second-round collision of undefeated defending state champions that was watched by nearly 60,000 fans.

It might've been more than that.

"I've heard that the crowd was in the sixties," said Steve Lineweaver, who coached Trinity from 2000 to 2014.

"It was incredible," said Dodge, who led Carroll from 2000 to 2006 and now coaches Austin Westlake. "To come out there after halftime and see every seat filled."

 

 

Wait a second. Texas Stadium, the Cowboys' home from 1971 to 2008, had a capacity of 65,675. Isn't the record attendance for a Texas high school football game 54,347?

Yes, officially. It was set in 2013 during the Allen-Pearland 5A Division I title game at AT&T Stadium. But according to many people who attended the Carroll-Trinity game, however, that's not the real record.

More on that in a moment, but first, let's set the scene.

 

In 2005, when 5A was still the largest UIL class, Trinity won the 5A Division I title and Carroll won in Division II. When they fell into the same Division I in 2006, the matchup was so delicious that the schools' 20,000 presale tickets were gone days before the game.

Carroll and Trinity were 1-2 in the state rankings, and although only about 10 miles apart, they had never met in football. There were connections between the programs, too. Lineweaver was a former baseball coach and football assistant at Carroll. Aaron Lineweaver, son of the Trinity coach, was an assistant on Carroll's staff.

The game couldn't possibly live up to the hype. But it did.

 

John Cobb, a 1994 Trinity graduate who is now the social-media coordinator for the Trojans' booster club, was in the stadium early that day. Shortly after the doors opened at 11:30 a.m. for the 1 p.m. kickoff, he had his spot. In tribute to Trinity's big and tough offensive linemen, he was wearing a wig, dress and pig's nose, much like the Hogettes, the famous fans of the Washington Redskins.

He sat there, watching in amazement at the fans streaming in.

"It kept filling up and filling up," Cobb said, "and then the upper deck was filling up."

 

Trinity running back Samir Baker remembers his coaches saying the same things that the Carroll coaches were telling their players. Don't get distracted, they said. It's still a football game.

But the crowd was huge. Green on one side, black and red on the other. Evenly split, evenly loud.

"We were kind of in awe," Baker said. "I can't even describe it. It felt like a video game. There were so many people screaming at the same time."

As kickoff neared, Trinity players performed the Sipi Tau, the fierce chant-and-step routine that many fans know as the haka and the Trojans made famous in Texas. The Trinity side of the stands exploded in cheers while the Carroll players were still in the locker room.

 

 

That was by design.

"I told one of our middle school coaches, you've got one job. Come in and tell me when they're done with the haka," Dodge said. "Because we are not going out onto the field until that's over."

Dodge didn't want the passion of the Trinity players to add to the already intimidating atmosphere at Texas Stadium.

 

"We knew it was a really big game and the media had been talking about it," said Carroll quarterback Riley Dodge, the coach's son and the state's 5A Offensive Player of the Year in 2006. "But to walk out for pregame and half the place was already filled?"

 

 

The game was even better than expected. Carroll, boasting the state's best passing attack, took a 9-0 lead at halftime. Trinity, a team that could grind most teams in the trenches and unleash its strong-and-speedy running backs, scored twice in the third quarter to take a 15-9 lead. Early in the fourth, Dodge's 7-yard touchdown pass to Blake Cantu gave Carroll the lead back before Trinity running back Justise Campbell broke free for a 69-yard run to give Trinity a 21-16 edge.

The lead changed for the final time when Dodge scored on a 2-yard quarterback keeper with 37 seconds left, clinching Carroll's 22-21 win. The winning touchdown drive was only 35 yards, set up when Carroll stopped Trinity short on a fake punt with 2:30 left.

 

A lot of people questioned Lineweaver's decision not to punt, which would've made Carroll drive farther for the winning score. Lineweaver said that he simply didn't want to give the ball back to Carroll, which had won 43 straight games. Todd Dodge said he understood the decision, and so does Riley Dodge, who is now an assistant coach at Flower Mound Marcus.

 

 

Ten years later, there's little discussion about the fake punt. Most of the talk now is about the intensity of the game - "just absolute huge, huge hits," Todd Dodge said - and the atmosphere - "I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it now," Lineweaver said. Both coaches also proudly talk about how the players from each team embraced after the game, showing their mutual respect.

Carroll won its fourth state title in five years that season. Trinity won state the following season, and did it again in 2009. Carroll won in 2011, led by current head coach Hal Wasson.

Each program has a long list of memorable games, but the 2006 clash is at the top. It's the one game that Lineweaver, who won 258 games in 22 seasons as a head football coach, describes as surreal.

"That game had surreal all over it," said Lineweaver, now retired from coaching. "It was so electric. It was like a dream."

The announced attendance was 46,339, but that figure was taken at halftime, when some fans were still trying to get in the building. Standing on the sideline in the final minutes of the game, I remember talking with other writers about how the upper deck looked nearly filled.

YouTube was still in its infancy in 2006, but you can find a few grainy shots of the crowd. The size of the crowd is unknown, but Newton offers a unique perspective. As the son of former Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton, Tre was on the Texas Stadium field for dozens of Cowboys games. The tunnel to the field that he walked down with his dad was the same one he walked down with his Carroll teammates on Nov. 24, 2006.

"When we came out for the second half, that place was rockin'," Newton said. "To me, it felt like a Cowboys game."

 

[ngdawg]

42 minutes ago, SeaShells21 said:

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS:

November 24, 2006: 

 

Two hours before kickoff of the matchup of the year, or decade, or maybe ever, Todd Dodge's plan got stuck in traffic. The Southlake Carroll coach wanted his players to think of Euless Trinity as just another opponent, but the Dragons were in danger of not even making it to the game.

It was Nov. 24, 2006, the day after Thanksgiving, and the roads outside of Texas Stadium were packed. The Carroll buses, loaded with the state's No. 1 ranked team, were in the middle of it.

"I remember we had to have a police escort to get us through everyone," said Tre Newton, a Carroll running back who later played for Texas. "That's when it hit us that this was a really big game."

 

Ten years later, there are some very big games in this second week of the football playoffs. But none can match the second-round collision of undefeated defending state champions that was watched by nearly 60,000 fans.

It might've been more than that.

"I've heard that the crowd was in the sixties," said Steve Lineweaver, who coached Trinity from 2000 to 2014.

"It was incredible," said Dodge, who led Carroll from 2000 to 2006 and now coaches Austin Westlake. "To come out there after halftime and see every seat filled."

 

 

 

Wait a second. Texas Stadium, the Cowboys' home from 1971 to 2008, had a capacity of 65,675. Isn't the record attendance for a Texas high school football game 54,347?

Yes, officially. It was set in 2013 during the Allen-Pearland 5A Division I title game at AT&T Stadium. But according to many people who attended the Carroll-Trinity game, however, that's not the real record.

More on that in a moment, but first, let's set the scene.

 

In 2005, when 5A was still the largest UIL class, Trinity won the 5A Division I title and Carroll won in Division II. When they fell into the same Division I in 2006, the matchup was so delicious that the schools' 20,000 presale tickets were gone days before the game.

Carroll and Trinity were 1-2 in the state rankings, and although only about 10 miles apart, they had never met in football. There were connections between the programs, too. Lineweaver was a former baseball coach and football assistant at Carroll. Aaron Lineweaver, son of the Trinity coach, was an assistant on Carroll's staff.

The game couldn't possibly live up to the hype. But it did.

 

John Cobb, a 1994 Trinity graduate who is now the social-media coordinator for the Trojans' booster club, was in the stadium early that day. Shortly after the doors opened at 11:30 a.m. for the 1 p.m. kickoff, he had his spot. In tribute to Trinity's big and tough offensive linemen, he was wearing a wig, dress and pig's nose, much like the Hogettes, the famous fans of the Washington Redskins.

He sat there, watching in amazement at the fans streaming in.

"It kept filling up and filling up," Cobb said, "and then the upper deck was filling up."

 

Trinity running back Samir Baker remembers his coaches saying the same things that the Carroll coaches were telling their players. Don't get distracted, they said. It's still a football game.

But the crowd was huge. Green on one side, black and red on the other. Evenly split, evenly loud.

"We were kind of in awe," Baker said. "I can't even describe it. It felt like a video game. There were so many people screaming at the same time."

As kickoff neared, Trinity players performed the Sipi Tau, the fierce chant-and-step routine that many fans know as the haka and the Trojans made famous in Texas. The Trinity side of the stands exploded in cheers while the Carroll players were still in the locker room.

 

 

FullSizeRender.mov 140.17 MB · 0 downloads

 

That was by design.

"I told one of our middle school coaches, you've got one job. Come in and tell me when they're done with the haka," Dodge said. "Because we are not going out onto the field until that's over."

Dodge didn't want the passion of the Trinity players to add to the already intimidating atmosphere at Texas Stadium.

 

"We knew it was a really big game and the media had been talking about it," said Carroll quarterback Riley Dodge, the coach's son and the state's 5A Offensive Player of the Year in 2006. "But to walk out for pregame and half the place was already filled?"

 

 

 

The game was even better than expected. Carroll, boasting the state's best passing attack, took a 9-0 lead at halftime. Trinity, a team that could grind most teams in the trenches and unleash its strong-and-speedy running backs, scored twice in the third quarter to take a 15-9 lead. Early in the fourth, Dodge's 7-yard touchdown pass to Blake Cantu gave Carroll the lead back before Trinity running back Justise Campbell broke free for a 69-yard run to give Trinity a 21-16 edge.

The lead changed for the final time when Dodge scored on a 2-yard quarterback keeper with 37 seconds left, clinching Carroll's 22-21 win. The winning touchdown drive was only 35 yards, set up when Carroll stopped Trinity short on a fake punt with 2:30 left.

 

A lot of people questioned Lineweaver's decision not to punt, which would've made Carroll drive farther for the winning score. Lineweaver said that he simply didn't want to give the ball back to Carroll, which had won 43 straight games. Todd Dodge said he understood the decision, and so does Riley Dodge, who is now an assistant coach at Flower Mound Marcus.

 

 

 

Ten years later, there's little discussion about the fake punt. Most of the talk now is about the intensity of the game - "just absolute huge, huge hits," Todd Dodge said - and the atmosphere - "I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it now," Lineweaver said. Both coaches also proudly talk about how the players from each team embraced after the game, showing their mutual respect.

Carroll won its fourth state title in five years that season. Trinity won state the following season, and did it again in 2009. Carroll won in 2011, led by current head coach Hal Wasson.

Each program has a long list of memorable games, but the 2006 clash is at the top. It's the one game that Lineweaver, who won 258 games in 22 seasons as a head football coach, describes as surreal.

"That game had surreal all over it," said Lineweaver, now retired from coaching. "It was so electric. It was like a dream."

The announced attendance was 46,339, but that figure was taken at halftime, when some fans were still trying to get in the building. Standing on the sideline in the final minutes of the game, I remember talking with other writers about how the upper deck looked nearly filled.

YouTube was still in its infancy in 2006, but you can find a few grainy shots of the crowd. The size of the crowd is unknown, but Newton offers a unique perspective. As the son of former Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton, Tre was on the Texas Stadium field for dozens of Cowboys games. The tunnel to the field that he walked down with his dad was the same one he walked down with his Carroll teammates on Nov. 24, 2006.

"When we came out for the second half, that place was rockin'," Newton said. "To me, it felt like a Cowboys game."

 

Sad when Texas football brings in more fans than the Chargers and Falcons combined. Maybe even the Chargers times 3.

[The Guru]

11 hours ago, 954gator said:

@The Guru gotta link for that for future posts?

I accessed it from a spreadsheet.

The old USA Today rankings are starting to fade into internet history unfortunately.

[Wooderson]

15 hours ago, 954gator said:

Yeah unfortunately a lot of it was about score domination and record, which would reward smaller class dominant teams.   

2007 was the pinnacle for Maxpreps' computer rankings in that regard, at least as it pertains to Arizona. They had the 3A champions ranked ahead of all four 5A finalists and couldn't even point to a long list of ass-beatings to justify it since said 3A champ went 12-1 with three one-score wins (including a 14-6 nail-biter over a 5A junior/JV team).

[954gator]

5 hours ago, The Guru said:

I accessed it from a spreadsheet.

The old USA Today rankings are starting to fade into internet history unfortunately.

Shame there’s no space for things.   Hopefully youtube at least stays strong for videos in the future.   Really hard to find highlights of players from this era.   

[954gator]

14 hours ago, ngdawg said:

Very very close on the TD call. I personally don't think the ball crossed the plane, but it's definitely a tossup. It doesn't help that an STA player was standing right in front of the goalline camera.

Honestly that’s the first time I ever saw that angle.   (Couldn’t watch the end live and DVR ran past the 30 I had for recording SMH)

[954gator]

Who you guys like for your #1 this year?   Tough one IMO.

how do you think SLC and Cedar Hill would  have matched up that year?

I know they’re not listed but for Fl I might just take MNW.  Their schedule wasn’t crazy but they were loaded.  (Some argue they were better this year than in 2007 due to Antwain Easterling at RB)

Couldn’t find any tape on 06 MNW though. Easterling’s highlights used to be viewable but I’m struggling to find anything!   Thank gog we will be entering the youtube era soon!

[954gator]

5 hours ago, The Guru said:

I accessed it from a spreadsheet.

The old USA Today rankings are starting to fade into internet history unfortunately.

Good stuff and hold on to that!  Maybe post what you got somewhere so it can at least be saved in a forum.

[LT4Spartan06]

16 hours ago, 954gator said:

Ok need help finding USA Today super 25.

I have Prepnation, and Maxpreps.  Let me know of others.

Maxpreps cpu 2006 (can’t help but notice my bogey team Blue Springs Mo from the nfl draft thread 😂)

1	Carroll (Southlake)	16-0	44.1	--
2	Cedar Hill	16-0	39.5	--
3	Upper St. Clair	16-0	37.5	--
4	Wheaton-Warrenville South (Wheaton)	14-0	30.7	--
5	Warren Central (Indianapolis)	15-0	31.9	--
6	Hilliard Davidson (Hilliard)	15-0	39.4	--
7	Blue Springs South (Blue Springs)	13-0	36.7	--
8	Jesuit (Portland)	13-0	34.2	--
9	Prattville	15-0	34.7	--
10	Lake City (Coeur d'Alene)	12-0	33.9	--
11	Eden Prairie	14-0	30.8	--
12	Muskegon	14-0	33.1	--
13	Colerain (Cincinnati)	13-1	39.0	--
14	Canyon (Canyon Country)	12-2	37.8	--
15	Orange Lutheran (Orange)	14-1	38.9	--
16	Trinity (Euless)	11-1	37.4	--
17	Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey)	12-0	28.1	--
18	De La Salle (Concord)	13-1	37.7	--
19	Maryville	15-0	27.9	--
20	Bellevue	14-0	28.0	--
21	Lakeland	15-0	28.3	--
22	East Grand Rapids (Grand Rapids)	13-1	32.0	--
23	St. Xavier (Cincinnati)	10-2	47.4	--
24	Cathedral (Indianapolis)	13-2	31.0	--
25	Lowell	10-1	35.4	--

This again was a gimme year based on reputation for DLS... In my opinion they had no business being in the top 25 from 2004-2007, they were granted their ranking due to past history.

[954gator]

If anyone has any info on Blue Springs Mo post it!   Was very surprised to see that team make the cut for 5 NFL draft picks this decade.

[954gator]

One of the better small class matchups happened this year.  Pahokee had a lot of talent that year and Ocala Trinity Catholic was a small school power at the time.   

Pahokee with D1 skill players everywhere.

[LT4Spartan06]

6 minutes ago, 954gator said:

One of the better small class matchups happened this year.  Pahokee had a lot of talent that year and Ocala Trinity Catholic was a small school power at the time.   

Pahokee with D1 skill players everywhere.

Those guys look massive!!