swamprat

I've been busier than a one armed paper hanger, but last Thursday night St. Petersburg High hosted a Spring Classic Jamboree involving St. Pete, Clearwater, and the defending 1S State Champs, Cardinal Mooney. The results follow ...

Clearwater 10 Cardinal Mooney 7

Cardinal Mooney 28 St. Pete 20

Clearwater 13 St. Pete 0

As far as the grandson...

London forced and recovered a fumble on the opening play of the Jamboree, then sacked Cardinal Mooney's QB on 4th down with the ball at the Clearwater 6 and 15 seconds left in the half (game). Against St. Pete, last years' state leading rusher, St. Pete QB Jeffery Jones only got out of the backfield very few times. On one such instance London ran Jones down from behind before he could get a 1st. FWIW, Jeffrey Jones had a 70 yard run from scrimmage for a TD against Cardinal Mooney. He can scoot. 

The Big Red 7 had a good night. G'Pa proud. 😁

I know this is early, but spring games are about to happen in Florida and my grandson is entering his senior year. The "Big Red 7" is an OLB and TE.

He was called out of class a while back to talk to Mike Locksley, the HC at Maryland. They are interested, but Locksley told him he need to put on at least 15 more lbs.

I had the fortune to accompany him and a teammate to an invitation to the Orange and Blue game up in Gainesville. Billy Napier told him the same. I don't know if Florida is specifically interested in him, but it was his first experience with big school recruiting . He had fun. That is all that matters. This summer should be interesting. 

If you saw the Boca Bowl last night, that gives you some indication of how the crowd would look in the OCS will be. The new digs will seat about 5000 more than that place and about 5000 less than Nippert.  That crowd that would looked sparse in RayJay, just as they always do unless the Bulls play somebody like Bama, FSU, or Florida. I wonder if they will move the Notre Dame game to RayJay in '29.

Florida Finals ... (The teams I follow highlighted.)

The Max Preps National top 25 rankings are included highlighted in blue.

December 9th

Class 2M

Berkeley Prep (Tampa) 28 (11) Miami Norland 20

Class 3M

(10) St. Thomas Aquinas (Ft. Lauderdale) 31 Homestead 28

Class 4S

Lakeland 60 Venice 48

Final St. Thomas Aquinus 31 Homestead 28. St. Thomas Aquinus is first school in Florida history to win 5 consecutive championships. 

1st down STA. Homestead out of time outs. 

Onside recovered by STA. 

TD Homestead. Xp good. 2:15 to go, STA 31 Homestead 28. 

3 & 11. STA hits a wideout over the middle. TD STA. Xp good. 5:25 to go. STA 31-21. 

6:22 to go. 

Homestead 4th down on the STA 10 goes for it instead of going for the tie. STA sack, takes over on downs. 

STA 3 and out. 10:58 to go. 

TD Homestead. Xp good. 11:41 to go. STA 24 Homestead 21. 

TD STA. Xp good. 1:33 3rd St. Thomas Aquinus 24 Homestead 14

2:32 3rd. St. Thomas Aquinus 17 Homestead 14. 

TD Homestead Xp good. 

STA fumbles the kickoff. Homestead recovers.

4:11 3rd. TD Homestead. Xp good. St. Thomas Aquinus 17 Homestead 7. 

:32 left in the half. TD STA. Xp good. St. Thomas Aquinus 17 Homestead 0

The game is on one of the Bally channels. 

10:06 2nd. Goal line stand by STA. 

:48 1st. STA TD. Xp good. St. Thomas Aquino’s 10 Homestead 0

6:43 1st. St. Thomas Aquila’s 3 Homestrad 0

Florida Finals ... (The teams I follow highlighted.)

The Max Preps National top 25 rankings are included highlighted in blue.

December 8th

Class 4M

Miami Columbus 38 Mandarin (Jacksonville) 19

Class 1S

Cardinal Mooney (Sarasota) 31 Trinity Catholic (Ocala) 27

Class 2S

(20) Cocoa 20 Bradford (Starke) 6

Right now on Bally Sports Sun  - 4th quarter: Coco 17 Bradford 6