Crazy stuff Bishop Sycamore loses 58-0 to IMG Academy, best prep HS team in the country. The game was broadcast live on ESPN https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/we...ing-on-espn-and-its-only-getting-shadier.html Bishop Sycamore aint even a real thing. Not a real bishop or a real high school. The team was filled with random 19-20 year olds that had no business being out there. It was their 2nd game that weekend lol. Their coach lied and said they have several players with D1 offers, so ESPN just took their word for it. The coach literally had an active arrest warrant when the game was being played. here is the Bishop Sycamore "school"'s webpage haha http://www.bishopsycamore.org
This will start me on my once a year rant about how prep schools should all be in their own division. When you get public schools working with a limited budget and school borders to draw players from going against teams that draw players in from other states and have almost unlimited budgets it's ridiculous. I realize this was not the case this time but it gave me a chance to rant anyway.
Well, the only thing is that there is sometimes an incentive (like TV time or other) for the public school to schedule games with the private schools. Just like when Idaho plays Penn State. Otherwise, I'm not sure how it works in every state or region, but at least for the big time NJ schools (Bergen Catholic, St. Joe's, Bosco, Paramus Catholic, etc.) they're usually playing primarily other prep or catholic schools anyways minus a tune up game. Not the case with this nonsense as you said. Flipping to New York as an example - you generally don't see Poly Prep in Brooklyn playing a Division C (NY is AA, A, B, C, etc.) school.
in New York they are separate. Private schools dont compete in the Public School divisions. There is a private NYS championship and a public NYS championship. they can still crossover and play each other but it would be a non-league game agreed upon by both schools. -- PA used to be like that but they fairly recently merged I believe. I will say, there are some epic battles in those PA public/private games. It is not as lopsided as one would believe since the private teams can recruit. In PA the public schools tend to be bigger. An example being Harrisburg High. Public school that provides some epic playoff battles against the Catholic school powers in Philly and Pittsburgh
Yes, I remember Manatee down here getting a bit of money for playing Don Bosco, it was an ESPN HS game of the week or what ever they call it. Close game 22-16 but was supposed to be 2 games over 2 seasons and Bosco backed out of the 2nd game, probably because it was too close for comfort in the 1st game. Plant City which is one county over beat Bergen Catholic the same weekend. The only concession they make down here is the preps have to play one division higher than they normally would. I am ok with the teams making extra money playing the preps if they choose to but when they have them in that same division it is pretty much taking away one spot in the playoffs from a public school.
