Putting it into Perspective
- Thread starter WeHave8
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Realistically that Douglass team was a 8-2 team that along with Gwynn Park got victimized by the competitive balanced scheduling PG did in football the last couple of years, which is how you get 8-2 Fairmont Heights and much more egregiously 7-3 Crossland ( that got beat 48-6 by 2-8 La Plata) getting a 2A North playoff spot over 5-4 Gwynn Park
PG Douglass is a legit 2A contender to win the title this year with the players they have returning.
The way the the boy's were playing from mountain ridge to the end last season. Nobody in 1A was going to beat them.
Agree Red but Douglass sure made it interesting for 3 1/2 quarters. The only dominant drive of the title game was our last one to make it 20-8.
Td 1 carter broke tackles and busted a long one
Td 2 they score after our sideline took a 4th down penalty instead of declining and taking the possession.(how could this happen?)
Td 3 we score after they roughed the kicker and got a new set of downs.
Point is that it was a very tough defensive game.
Td 1 carter broke tackles and busted a long one
Td 2 they score after our sideline took a 4th down penalty instead of declining and taking the possession.(how could this happen?)
Td 3 we score after they roughed the kicker and got a new set of downs.
Point is that it was a very tough defensive game.
Your damn right they made it interesting Douglas was a good battle tested opponent. And thats why they beat Dunbar they had to play some good football teams Dunbar had one good opponent in the regular season. Mervo and that game took a couple weeks to complete. Douglas was just a better team than Dunbar.
Douglass was a much faster team than Dunbar as well. That is seen in the 2018 semifinal Dunbar - PG-Douglass game film. Dunbar looked very undisciplined in that film as well for a semifinal game.
"I think it has to do with where football participation numbers and interest have moved. The bigger better schools with a solid foundation for winning are dominating." <----- This right here is as complicated as it gets, guys.
The biggest success factors have been how well your program is run and how engaged the kids are that feed into it. It's a culture. And it takes time. I don't think Todd had a great year his first 1 or 2 seasons when he took over, did he? But he and the rest of the stakeholders have made FH a power.
There is a valid point too about being a big fish in a small pond. But who cares? I think a lot of the time it's easy to forget that you (we) play in the classification that you (we) play in based on size, and that's it, people. FH is a 1A school, so they play in 1A, just like Alco. FH is 100 kids larger than Alco, so is that a minor factor? Sure, to some degree. Just by numbers, FH probably has a few additional male athletes that help the football team because they have an extra 100 kids, but do those extra few kids make the difference in FH winning 5 of the last 6 last state titles and the last 12 or so Homecomings in a row??
Come on, guys... I know we're Cumberland natives here and our schools aren't nationally ranked academically, but surely we're all smarter than this.
Just to clarify, Alco's enrollment is larger than FH's. FH is the smallest comprehensive high school in the county. I agree though, with your statement, either way.
Agree with you. Although as stated Alco is bigger than FH currently as far as enrollment. And Coach Appel had a great first two years. His first was 2008 where he lost on the last play to Dunbar with Tavon Austin as a senior. In 2009 he went undefeated before losing to Alco in the playoff rematch. I still say those losses in 08 and 09 were maybe the worst in FH football history. They stung big time.
Lol, so now Douglass is a great team? Douglass is a solid team every year, but they aren’t in the same category with the 4A county schools.
They might win a playoff game, but they won’t compete with D-Mass or Oakdale
Lackey is usually in the middle of the pack in the SMAC conference. And they are predicted to finish that way again this season. I don’t have any inside info on their squad this year. I’m going to the game tomorrow. It’s going to rain all day and a sloppy track might favor Alco
FH probably has a few additional male athletes
If all things were equal - meaning same number of potential players per 100 students - then Alco would have a couple more athletes than FH. Does anybody believe that? Okay... sure, most FH fans would believe that.
But just like at one place in time in one city (Athens, Greece) there were perhaps a dozen of the smartest individuals that ever lived (Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Pythagoras... to name a few). So, genius like athletic ability never trowels itself out in equal doses based on a per capita number.
So, why does FH have a 3A bench in a 1A school? Do they simply suit up kids who probably should be playing in the band, or is there another reason. Well first, one must believe that athletes can be made out of non-athletes and speed can be made out of some athletic routines. If you accept that then you believe that FH simply has a program that no other school in history has managed to accomplish: make fast, strong athletes out of young males who should be playing in the band.
Personally, I believe that demographics and decision making by parents have directed those young men with football ability to FH. Redistricting made a difference, combined with an ever shrinking town that has now made a multi-generational shift to FH as a football school. Athletic parents who played football at FH and stayed in Cumberland now have sons who play football in Cumberland at FH in numbers much greater than Allegany. And... the families who live in Cumberland with potential football athletes have moved or shifted their athletes to FH. The total number of students at each school is insignificant at this point because the schools are so small.
Can anyone walk the halls of Allegany and find athletes that could give them a 3A bench? They are not there. FH has uniquely benefited from a shrinking football town where its total pull of athletes is much greater than its defined size. If you want to play football in Cumberland, you will try to go to FH and get the 1A ring.
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The Preaskorn years really hurt the Allegany Football program. The bottom line is they aren’t a football school any more. If you look at the other sports at Alco they have plenty of athletes. Does FH consistently beat them in any other sports? FH has invested in football to a higher degree than other local schools and actually better than other 1A schools except for Dunbar (Balt). Kids see the success at FH and want to play there.
Both FH and Alco benefitted when BW dropped their football program. FH obviously moreso. The location of Cumberland is helpful because there aren’t many options. Downstate the kids can leave their neighborhood school and play for a large selection of private or charter schools. They don’t have those choices in WMD, especially if you want that state championship ring. The charter school system was good academically for Baltimore schools but not athletically. That’s why the MPSSAA stopped including those non-football playing schools in the classification formula
Pretty much what Boyz just said.
It would be different if FH beat Alco in all the other sports in regards to having more athletes. But that has been far from the case for both boys and girls. In fact, other than football I believe Alco pretty much beats FH in most sports these days. Even when Camper basketball fell last hard last season they still managed to beat FH in one of the match ups.
I have said this many times, but if BW was to have any success putting a 40 man roster together for a new top level football team, the jest of those players would have to come from the surrounding area. You cannot attract and build dorms for 40 kids coming here from far away right off the bat. Hoops is different in that regards. Yea, FH could probably absorb a chunk of that but Alco would implode looking at the participation numbers. That is why I have been told you won't see Alco playing BW in any sports as evident by the fall schedules. Expect the same announcement here soon from FH. The county public schols have already dropped BW in boys basketball. The rest of the sports will soon follow. It's a fight for survival for all 3 city schools because the numbers just are not there anymore. Something would have to die. It's as simple as this...if Alco lost just 3 or 4 players off this year's varsity football squad it would mean a death sentence.
I dont believe anybody said that they were. But they were the 2nd best team in 1A beating Dunbar last season wasn't a fluke for them they were the better team. Nobody said anything about 4A except you
It takes a significant number of athletes with size, strength and speed to make a successful football team - not so with baseball and certainly not so with basketball (and I am not discounting those disciplines).
Merge Allegany's football team with FH's football team this year and FH would not be any better than it is right now. Okay.... then go scrounge Alco's baseball team and their basketball team and tell me you can actually improve FH's football team. You think?
Thank the football gods that the schools didn't merge this year; because if they did FH would have to account for Cumberland's entire pool of football talent and they would never win another championship.... maybe not even another playoff game.
Fort Hill is in a 1A sweet spot. They should enjoy it. Red-jackets should stop bad-mouthing other programs and stop pretending that all Allegany needs is to send to better football guys down to the middle schools to develop talent. They should instead get their football guys at the middle school level to teach a kid or two to throw the forward pass so they would not have to depend on golden-legged kickers to bail them out.
I disagree with pretty much everything you just said.
FH has the numbers to be a dominant 1A team. But not so much at higher levels. You have stated such in this post and many others but yet keep saying they have 3A talent. Combine with Alco and FH is way better than they are right now. Way better. You see 42 kids on the FH roster. I see 16 kids that can ball. The rest are a massive drop off.
I understand the difficulty for the 280 lb. + linemen for FH being unable to shag balls in centerfield or hit the fast-break in basketball; but the same difficulty would be for those Alco baseball and basketball players to block and tackle in football.
Explaining away FH getting the bulk of football talent by comparing it to baseball and basketball is a specious argument.
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Lackey has a new coach this year but he's been with the program for a long time. They lose a lot from the last couple years though. Without having seen Allegany, I think if they handle the long trip okay and are relatively healthy they have a decent shot to win that game.
If you take the top 11 guys off of this year's Fort a hill football team they only win 2 games.
Thanks. I've talked to a couple of people who have said the same. One person told me the 2017 Lackey team would beat this year's Lackey team by 4 touchdowns.
When you run the 'drop offs' in they do just keep scoring. You did have scholarship talent playing special teams, you realize. Besides.... would you really stand in front of the squad and tell them to their face that only 16 kids deserve to be there. That is what you are posting.... you see 16 kids that can ball.
Ugh.... Allegany and then Allegany if they make the playoffs. (Given Alco gets its usual starters dinged by the end of the season.)
Generally this is true because every year you see a lot of the kids going both ways, especially in close games.
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The better question is how many different players does FH really start between offense and defense, especially their lines. How many players start both offense and defense in exact numbers. And, how many of those 'ballers' are seniors which would make a huge drop off year to year.... something that FH just doesn't have.
Also, if FH is replacing its entire defense, as has been declared, it must be replacing them with 'non ballers' since none of them started last year on defense. You see what I am getting at here.
Bottom line, FH has many more 'ballers' on its squad than Helmick is willing to declare. In most cases they are two deep, as they have shown year after year.
Where did so say they they were 4A caliber this year? Where did I say they were great? I said they are legit. In my view they are a contender for the 2A title this year. Please review above.
But, since you mention 4A, just 5 years Douglass-PG was arguably the best public team in Maryland for that year.
I don’t expect Oakdale to make it deep. They lost too much. Middletown may return as the Frederick County 2A beast this year. Just my observation.
While I don't disagree with you that FH does have a 3A bench in numbers, I do believe you overshoot the amount of talent on FH's bench. A while back I pointed out the 17-18 kids that represented FH's talent pool on the 2018 team and where they are from. Maybe there was 20-22 kids with legit talent, I don't know. What I do know is without a doubt your belief that FH's team is made up of kids out of district is incorrect. Only 1 kid that was on that starting lineup was not from the FH district. Every starter plus the 6-8 subs that meant the most to the success on the field for the 2018 Sentinels were FH kids.
What I do know is without a doubt your belief that FH's team is made up of kids out of district is incorrect.
Where in my below exact quote do you find that I state FH is made up of kids out of district.
"Personally, I believe that demographics and decision making by parents have directed those young men with football ability to FH. Redistricting made a difference, combined with an ever shrinking town that has now made a multi-generational shift to FH as a football school. Athletic parents who played football at FH and stayed in Cumberland now have sons who play football in Cumberland at FH in numbers much greater than Allegany. And... the families who live in Cumberland with potential football athletes have moved or shifted their athletes to FH" - lag
Does oak dale still have that QB? If they have him then they’ll still be the team to beat
you're right, my bad. I guess I inferred that "decision making by parents" as you saying a kid that lives in another district going to FH. Because, obviously, there's no decision to be made by a parent if a kid already lives in the FH district.
There would be decision making if parents moved, listed a residence of a relative in the FH district as the student's residence and so forth. - or, in the case of one athlete you mentioned who lives outside the district. But, I stated many reasons which did include demographics, redistricting and generational parents who stayed in Cumberland having played for FH. But, I never suggested that FH football is made up of players who do not live in the FH district.
That’s not what he posted at all, Lag. You are taking it out of context. No one said anything about any kid not deserving to be there.
He graduated.
The red is a direct quote. Besides, I am getting a lot of information dropped around here: Such as replacing the entire defense but only 16 ballers. Sounds to me like a bunch of weasel-wording when its convenient to explain suiting up 42 on varsity and about the same on JV (right?). Oh, and then there is all that non-baller talent that makes up the freshman team.
Gives me the impression that since the Allegany band doesn't play much at games they should have them suit up for Alco football and sit on the bench.... the band being non-ballers and all like... you know... what FH does, seeing as how both schools have the same number of ballers and non-ballers.
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