USA Today final Expert rankings - Jim Halley (non algorithm)

[golfaddict1]

1 hour ago, HawgGoneIt said:

Chandler was a super impressive squad at the end. Going ham on Valdosta with the trick plays and demolishing them was a cherry on the top for a pretty good season in the polls for Arizona. 

Did you say Valdosta?!  That's today's EF Hutton    

Indeed Chandler's O was fun to watch... and their QB has 2 more years!   

[Lamarfan]

On 12/30/2016 at 6:49 AM, noonereal said:

Honest? Allen top 25? 

Freakin ridiculous. 

But your ok with Hoover being there? And yes Allen is good enough to be there.  Its no secret that Texas easily makes up 25% of the list.

[Mjd33]

On 12/26/2016 at 2:16 PM, golfaddict1 said:

EAST

Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Connecticut, Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.

1.       DeMatha, Hyattsville, Md. (12-0)
2.       St. Joseph’s Prep, Philadelphia (14-0)
* 3.       Wise, Upper Marlboro, Md. (14-0)
4.       Wake Forest, N.C. (14-0)
5.       St. Joseph, Montvale, N.J. (10-2)
6.       Cathedral Prep, Erie, Pa. (14-0)
7.       King Phillip Regional, Wrentham, Mass. (12-0)
8.       Darien, Conn. (13-0)
9.       Troy, N.Y. (13-0)
10.     Westfield, Chantilly, Va. (13-2)

What a train wreck this is wow.  GSB, Mjd,  LMFAO!   

*  #25 in the country...   

Trash. 

[Wooderson]

On 12/30/2016 at 9:16 AM, golfaddict1 said:

https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/jedcpf-hs-football-america/episodes/yct17q-high-school-football-america-radio-show-december-1-2016

Nice listen with the HC of Saguaro in the latter stage of the podcast for about 20 min.   Seems to have a quality staff on board with him.  

Chandler had a nice run after losing by 45 points to Mountain Pointe early.  Mountain Pointe barely got by Red Mountain in the semis by 7... they rode some warped 45 point win all season in the top 25 and came down to earth with a reality check struggling with weaker opponents at times.   You can chip away at Chandler as well...  they gave up 101 points in 2 games.   Beating Perry isn't going to excite our forum.  What else, a loss to Cen10 by 7.   OK, so they avenged a 45 pt Norcrossed game, who was overrated.  They beat Perry 2X and lost to Cen10 in a close one.   This is overwhelmingly the AZ #1?  Debatable.  

If handpicked means playing on an ESPN channel, that's not a bad thing.   How many folks here knew who Saguaro was until this season?  The HC scheduling two name brand OOS schools is certainly different than in past years...  I think the HC knew what he had and did a nice job keeping the lowest winning pt differential at 15 pts all season... no, it wasn't a murderers row schedule in AZ,  but they are likely in a slightly better position where local parents/sons will be enticed to transfer and fill open spots in a well coached and run program.   They had a senior laden squad and no doubt will have plenty of openings for starting and/or depth roles.  We will see based on their schedule how the HC feels about the upcoming season.    

If the AZ locals get info on games, please share!      

 

Hope everyone's New Year is off to a great start.  I want to respond in kind to the very thought-out responses I've had, and hope not to get carried away in length.  Here goes nothing...

I'm not a fan of either Chandler or Mountain Pointe; the former has historically been a team heavy on talent and light on football smarts and gumption for years, while Mountain Pointe's signature season (2013 state title) came playing a schedule that would have made Saguaro proud in how soft it was after it's season opener versus Gorman.  With that said,  it's tremendously unfair to discount what either team accomplished because one of them was perceived to be "over-rated" (despite their ability to win all of their regular season games by 2+ scores despite playing some perennially-tough 6A squads with essentially one arm tied behind their back because of injuries).  I would also say that if you have a passing interest of Arizona high school football and take a look at Perry's schedule you would understand that what they accomplished (handling Brophy in the regular season, beating Desert Vista, and becoming just the third team in state history to sweep Hamilton) was no small feat.  Even when taking those out-of-state games into consideration for Saguaro there's a sound argument that Perry would be deserving of a higher ranking state-wide than them (though I won't personally go that far and have yet to see anyone make that argument).

While I think it's good that Arizona had a banner year for football on the national scene I do think it's problematic that a team I feel is frankly not deserving of national acclaim is one of the teams getting that recognition.  I do think it's unfair that a team like Williams Field can go undefeated in 5A, never give up more than 21 points in any game, went 3-0 over two teams that have combined to win seven of that division's state titles since 2006 (Chaparral and Centennial; they also swept a 2012 D-3/4A state champion in Queen Creek), yet apparently aren't in the conversation because they didn't play a pair of out-of-state teams that were worse than the best team on Williams Field's schedule. I don't think it's a positive for Arizona as a whole that the state's elite scene is summed up by two or three teams that hail from divisions that are vastly different overall in competition level, and I especially don't think it's a positive that the state's second-largest division is completely overlooked (despite consisting of the 2015 D-1/6A champion and every D-3/4A semifinalist from that year as well).  

If you have a couple hours to kill here's a video of Saguaro's 2015 D-2 title team versus the aforementioned D-1 title team from that year (Centennial).  Now first an admission from me-Saguaro looks VERY polished in this game for most of the first quarter.  But then something funny happens-after that first quarter Centennial is still there.  Centennial plays ugly-they are entirely way too penalized in this game and make some really dumb mental mistakes early on.  But they get Saguaro to start playing ugly too, and while it starts to become noticeable that Saguaro is laboring hard to match Centennial's physicality by the end of the third the bottom is beginning to drop out.  We end the game with Saguaro taking a meaningless hail Mary attempt to close the final margin to two scores (Centennial's DB tackles the receiver while the ball's in the air, because Centennial plays ugly).  

http://www.cox7.com/video/saguaro-vs-centennial-2015/

I don't share that as some shining example of Arizona high school football because again, it's an ugly game.  I share it because that game is a pretty fair representative of what happens when Saguaro does venture out of their weight class-they do like things nice and polished and organized and struggle when bigger teams force them to play ugly.

I apologize if this is redundant, but do look forward to everyone's responses.