Washed_Up_Athlete

JP won the regular season game 51-45 after scoring 20 unanswered second half points (3 TDs and a blocked extra point). I believe JP will win a second time, but in a lower scoring game.

6A - Prep 5A - Parklane 4A - Tri-County 3A - Kirk 2A & 1A - No clue

Both reasonable scores and picks. We have the same general outlook, it appears. Re. the MRA-Hartfield game, watch two things: (1) are Vaughn and Simmons getting consistent pressure on Stockett and (2) can Tapper throw the ball downfield? The second question may be more important that the first.

Okay, I'll play. Jackson Prep 42 - Jackson Academy 10 MRA 56 - Hartfield 38

PCS seems like it should have been more successful in the MAIS than it was. It has good facilities, and money. It is surrounded by communities with athletes and large public schools from which it could draw talent. There's been a lot of turmoil in the school and the succession of coaches underscores this. If this school can maintain steady leadership who gets everyone pulling in the direction, it could be sleeping giant.

Is Lindsay playing QB and, if so, can he throw? If so, WJ has a solid chance. In the Jackson Prep game, Prep loaded the box and dared WJ to throw. Without Lindsay at QB, WJ just couldn't.

If you didn’t see it, you missed out. Talk about a heavyweight fight. Do you a favor and tune into jacksonprep.live on Saturday morning at 10:00 for the replay. 51-45, JP wins in an instant classic.

I think you're on to something here. MRA has played a much tougher schedule. I think the thing to watch is how well MRA's offensive line can handle Hartfield's tackles. If MRA's quarterback has time to throw, they'll have a solid chance to win.

I'm going pick against CalPreps here. I believe MRA will win.

No doubt about that.

Not at Prep. But if you knocked on a couple of JA and Hartfield coaches’ doors at night, you’d find a couple of players living there.

Prep has 36 seniors. Every starter on both sides of the ball is a senior. Prep has the best quarterback in the MAIS, and one of the best in the state overall. Prep has 3 D1 football commits, including a player who was invited to play in the Blue-Grey All American game. Prep’s head coach is in the Alabama sports hall of fame. Prep is a very good team.

Not a single player on Prep’s roster was recruited to play football. Hartfield, however, that’s another story.

I wrote on this board a few weeks ago that Jackson Prep would beat West Jones. I didn't know they would absolutely dismantle West Jones to the point that there was a running clock for the entire second half. Prep had nearly 300 yards of offense at halftime. Without the running clock and pulling starters in the fourth quarter, Prep likely would have put up 500-600 total offense. To date, the defending MHSAA 7A champ has lost to MRA, the defending 6A champ has lost to Prep, and many believe Hartfield is the best MAIS school in the state. Whether that is true will be proven on the field soon enough. But it should now be clear that the top 3 MAIS teams can play with anyone in this state.

No two ways about it. MRA completely demolished Oak Grove. The MRA/Hartfield/Prep battle will be interesting to watch.

I'm sure the MHSAA would utilize a multiplier for the private schools. Years ago, JA engaged in serious discussions about joining the MHSAA. At that time, a 1.5 multiplier was mentioned. My guess is that the multiplier would move them all up a level - so Prep would be 5A and the others 4A at current enrollment numbers.

None of this solves the fundamental problem - the separation between the 4 Jackson schools and everyone else. The reality is that Hartfield, Prep, MRA, and JA have substantially greater assets and are consistently so much better than every other MAIS school. No matter if its 16, 8, or some other configuration, the Jackson schools are still going to dominate. This is really just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The solution is obvious. The 4 Jackson schools need to abandon ship for the MHSAA.

It won't matter. JA will not be competitive with the top 3 teams in the league.

All that said, I've said before on this board that I think West Jones was the best public school team in the state last year. Its defense was incredible. I believe West Jones would have beaten the 7A champ. The best two overall teams in the state last year were West Jones and Hartfield. Between those two, having watched both teams in person and on film numerous times, I give the edge to Hartfield. But it would have been a fun game to watch.

Two can play this game - Right before half, Prep's tight end clearly caught a touchdown pass in the endzone, but the referee ruled him out of bounds. Multiple television angles showed him in by a few feet. Prep should have been up at halftime. In the second half, Prep's QB, Billy Puckett (#12), had slot receiver, Major Quin(#5), running wide open crossing the middle of the field (who, btw, was one of the three best players on the field, along with Lunch Meat and WJ's strongside inside backer; Quin played extremely well on both sides of the ball in this game). He underthrew the pass, causing Quin to have to stop and make a sliding catch. If he hits him in stride, WJ is down by 9 headed into the 4th Q. The game was in question until the last couple of minutes when WJ broke a run on 4th and long.

I'm not a West Jones expert, but as I understand it, WJ lost virtually its entire defense to graduation. The defense was clearly its strength last year - and it was damn good. On the other side of the ball, Prep lost very little offensively. It returns its QB (best in MAIS 6A), its top receiver (last season's All Purpose Player of the Year), and its entire O-line. Prep could very well end up with 22 seniors starting that game. As far as last year's game goes, the game came down to two plays. Prep gave WJ its stiffest competition, as evidenced by the hangover WJ brought into the Terry game the following week.

Jackson Prep will beat West Jones.

The "move in and live with Coach Rip" program is no secret.

I completely agree about this being preseason guesswork. Nobody really knows. No one can reasonably disagree about the talents of Womack, West, Simmons, or Cornbread. Assuming all of these guys play both ways, that's only 2 players on each side of the ball. All I'm saying is that it takes 11 players on each side. Over the past two years, Hartfield was only as good as its running game allowed. Without Reed Jeslowski (that kid is a very, very good player and I will be stunned if he doesn't do exceedingly well at USM) and that o-line, Hartfield will be a fundamentally different team. Have they been able to hit the portal this offseason with the same vigor now that Jenkins isn't there to bankroll everything? We'll see. Compare the returning production at Hartfield with that of Prep. Prep returns its entire offensive line, its QB, its entire RB room, and its best overall player - Major Quin. It is only replacing a TE and WR, and the replacements for those players are equal to or better than what they had before. Prep has 3 kids committed to play D1, the best QB in the league, and a significant edge in coaching. Where it becomes more interesting is in the ranks of kids who will not play in college, which is the bulk of all high school teams. Who has the better players there? As far as I know, Prep. Similar things can be said about MRA. MRA has a really good WR group, it picked up JA's top two skill players (and entirely different discussion) at LB/RB (AJ Parker-10.7 100) and all purpose (DJ Watkins-best overall player at JA by a wide margin and a D1 talent), and it too has top notch coaching. It is fair to question how the team will click without White, but I suspect the QB position will be just fine. The most reasonable assessment of the comparative strength of the teams at this early stage is that they're all equal. But hey - it's the summer; we all miss football; and this is fun. Who cares? Can't wait for mid-August to arrive.

Re. Hartfield, they have 4 of the most highly recruited players in the state at their 2 defensive tackles and 2 outside receivers. But, there's a steep talent drop off after that. Hartfield lost its entire offensive line, its All-American linebacker, and its best overall player, Jeslowski. It is far too premature to label them better than the MRA and Prep, much less a top 10 overall team in the state.