By Chris Schultz and Frank Vajcner
Each week, Chris and Frank will give their thoughts on our blog teams. For the most part, one will generally keep things on the rails, while the other goes a little off the wall.
Chris: It was a great season for blog teams. Carlson, Flat Rock, Ida and SMCC all lost to an eventual State Champions. There is no shame in that.
Chris: After all the finals games have been played, I believe it is time for the MHSAA to adjust how they bracket the teams. The Finals were a major disappointment. The closest result was a 16-point spread.
Frank: Fun fact: the last 16 D1 State Champions have come from the east side of the state. The only one not from the Metro Detroit area was Davison in 2019.
Chris: Congrats to Cass Tech, but they are a youth football all-star team. The only requirement to attend the school is you have to maintain a 3.0.
Frank: I wonder if OLSM watched “Survive and Advance” for inspiration. 2024 OLSM Football is 1983 NC State Basketball
Chris: OLSM is nothing like the 1983 N.C. State team. The Eaglets were the most talented team in D2.
Frank: Zeeland West, baby! Quack, Quack, Mother Hubbards!!! Shout out to friend of the blog, Joey Giarmo.
Chris: Straight Power T, Dux never deviate.
Frank: Let the records show that I was the only one to pick Zeeland West to win it all.
Chris: He isn’t called the most humble guy on the blog for nothing.
Frank: How often do we see one record get tied, only to be broken the next day?
Chris: What record?
Frank: We all swung and missed on Niles.
Chris: Can’t hit a home run unless you swing the bat
Frank: Irish eyes were smiling for Notre Dame Prep
Chris: I would have preferred a drunk Irishman.
Frank: I said all along that Lumen Christi was 1 of 1. Though the only team to give them a challenge was my Blue Streaks.
Chris: Nobody ever asked the D6 A.D.’s their opinion on JLC being allowed to move up.
Frank: We all overlooked Millington beating Pewamo-Westphalia 28-0.
Chris: Millington was fast and physical. Super fun to watch.
Frank: Nobody expected Beal City to win in a blowout.
Chris: Actually lots of people probably did, just not any of us.
Frank: I guess this was the best week for me in terms of picks
Chris: Probably my worst week.
Bonus:
Frank: Make sure you listen to Bring The Wood. Also make sure to rate, review, and subscribe. We will be back next season
Chris: We will?
Frank: I will have a “crystal ball” piece in the coming days. Also be on the lookout for Player of the Year posts, as well as the all-blog team.
Chris: I’m currently working on All-Blog. Feel free to make nominations.
Frank: Basketball is in full swing for all three of us now. If you happen to come to Bedford for a game, stop by and say hi!
Chris: Yes sir, my “Mighty Lakers” beat Taylor High School by 30 the other day,
Frank: When was the last time a coach got fired in season after losing to the Lions? Key words are “in season.”
Chris: I believe that was the first time in Chicago Bear history.
Frank: I don’t watch college football like I used to, but when I do, it’s to watch the world burn.
Chris: I am not a Michigan fan, but I can’t stop laughing at the Buckeyes soiling themselves, then acting offended at games end.
Frank: Injuries are mounting, but the goal is still Super Bowl or Bust!
Chris: It’s the NFL, every team has injuries, but 10 guys soon to be 11 on IR is outrageous.
For all the SMCC haters that think we had the easiest road to ff.
Our regular season and post season stats .
Regular season we played divisions 3,4,and 5 teams
In 9 games
Scored 35.7 ppg
Gave up 7.1 ppg
Post season division 7
In 5 games
Scored 37 ppg
Gave up 17 ppg
We beat Clinton twice. Not easy to beat the same team twice in a season. Plus Clinton beat Whiteford the game before us. Whiteford was last years runners up in d8. We beat a very good Leslie team. Beat Schoolcraft. A team that beat Hudson. SMCC and Hudson was supposed be the game of the year.
We than got our butts kicked by Millington. It was Millingtons 6th shutout of their awesome season.
Being a state runners up is not a disappointing season.
Are we getting an all blog team and idk if this how y’all do it but I think seeing what your dream team starting line up in every position would look like would be awesome!!!
Still working on it. It usually comes out around Decemebr 10th or so.
When are you guys planning on releasing your MVP’s and all-blog players? I don’t think there was a more valuable player to their team than Brady Hines-whether he was running the ball, making tackles, blocking from the RB position. All credit to SMCC’s offensive line but some credit goes to Hines for the blocks he laid for Harris to spring alot of his long runs. Not to mention Hines was an absolute FREAK on defense!
Chris, what division do you think SMCC should be in?
I think 6 or 7 is appropriate.
What were those paragraphs for then? Guessing you think bigger schools with low % should move down but small schools with high % should stay put?
You do the divisions the same way after using participation #’s instead of enrollment. Divide total schools between 8 equal divisions. It’s not rocket science.
You said you believe we should use this system but SMCC should still be D7.
Im estimating that they will still be Division 7 possibly 6.
I’m not sold on this yet. Just a regular guy though, not an AD. Does participation rate you’re pushing for consider the number of students that participate in any of the 34 sports offered ( I think) by MHSAA? If yes, some schools can’t even offer all 34 sports for their students that I see…wouldn’t it punish those schools that can offer many of the programs because it bumps up their participation. A student that bowls for instance inflates the rate for football.
Another scenario…maybe a football programs #’s are down because they have the worst coach in the state. What instructs that school to do the right thing and fire the coach for the sake of the kids vs. be happy they are getting moved down yet another division because their numbers stink?
Hats off to SMCC on a great season. I am sure they are all dissapointed but they got to finish their season in the state championship game which most Monroe County schools have no idea about aside from Whiteford. They have some talented kids who played hard, they just ran into someone better than them. Hopefully their program can grow from this experience and they will be back next year as I know most of their starters were juniors.
Can schools opt to play down a division? Example…if the enrollment of a school drives them to division 6….can they lobby and opt to play in division 7 so they can win a lot more often?
lol, no! I do, however, think the MHSAA needs to look at participation rates. How many kids at Jackson Lumen Christi participate in sports compared to other D7 schools. The MHSAA actually has these numbers. They know the participation rates of every school in the state. It would be very easy to assign divisions based on numbers of participation.
Seems like basing it on participation rates might be a slippery slope. The more success a program has…the participation would increase I would have to believe. Then they would go up a division and be the victim of their own success?
Why would you do it based on that?
I’m talking total school particpation rates. Particpation rates in high income areas and private schools are high. Examples: Grosse Ile and SMCC have athletic particpation rates of nearly 90%. Low socioeconomic schools, especially among inner citys and charter schools are under 30 %. Lets look at a few examples. SMCC has an enrollment of 324 and a 90% student particpation rate or 292 students particpating in athletics. They play D7 in football. Advanced Tech has an enrollment of 406 and a 31% student particpation rate or 126 students. They play in D6. Particpation rates are key. Further Advanced Tech plays D2 in basketball while SMCC plays D3. Advanced Tech palys D2 in volleyball, SMCC D3. The MHSAA has particpation rates of each school. They do a required survey each June.
Hmmm. I like the theory. What I do believe in…if a school has a generational team come along. A once “every 20 years type of great team”….then they should be positioned in a division that allows them to make a deep run in the playoffs at the end of the season. If mediocre teams are doing deep runs then something isn’t right. If a community produces a “once every 20 years type of team” and they are bounced week 1 of playoffs that doesn’t make sense either. Ah well. Never going to be perfect.
Think about a school like Taylor High School. They have 1,800 students and yet really excel in nothing. They play in the top division in everything. I am told their particpation rate in 25%. That is 450 students. Imagine if they could compete in D5 in football instead of D1 and D2 in most everything else. I’m not saying they would excel, but they would be more competitive.
Only problem with that is schools would start cutting a lot more kids on the teams to force participation down. Football could make cuts and keep 25 kids instead of 40. Basketball teams could keep 10 instead of 15. Baseball could keep 13 instead of 20. School of choice has diminished a lot of teams. If you live in Taylor why wouldn’t you go to Woodhaven to play sports? I don’t think there could ever be a perfect playoff scenario. Look at Millington-some of those kids may have come from Frankenmuth-who really knows but you had 2 teams very close to one another play in football finals (Frankenmuth and Millington). There must be a talent pool up there at the moment.
No AD or Principal that I know would allow cuts like that. MHSAA sports are all about maximum participation.
Wouldn’t that lead to schools cutting players to keep levels down , and in a lower division
Most Athletic Directors look at the big picture, which is student particpation.
I agree with that. Monroe didn’t even have 30 kids on that team and they are D1.
Honestly I think MHSAA just needs to do a multiplier for football like they do in many other states, or have separate playoffs. 1.5-2x the enrollment of a private school to determine division. The final football stat for 2024 on the fairplayoffs website was that private schools who account for 14% of schools in the state, since 2000 to present, have won 40% of state titles. FORTY PERCENT.. Let that sink in.. You don’t have to be a statistician to realize they are winning almost 3x more than a public school.. No amount of coaching, hard work, programs, etc account for that factor over public schools. JLC for example, could have been competitive all the way up to D2-1, yet they will remain D6-7, always showing up at FF, and always attracting top talent from the LARGE Jackson area from kids who don’t want to play for a losing public team. Essentially you get to pay to play for an all star team and go to FF if you’re good. So you get stats like 40%,
I think the same could be said for the public schools who have a large percentage of their team transferred in from other districts. They’re doing the same thing private schools do, yet it’s even easier because it’s free. Those teams have had a great share of success as well. The Detroit powers are interesting. They have two good teams in the city coming at the expense of every other team in the city so they all should be D1. The other D1 teams besides a private school were no competition for Cass Tech. Rouge is another, built on out of district kids who probably should be playing at D1 most years.
No way is it easer to move public school districts. School of choice has become extremely limited and near impossible in some areas. Private, you simply cut a check, with or without assistance. I mean you saw the numbers? Stats don’t lie. 40%..
If 40% is not the right number, then what do you think is the right number?
Of course 40% is not the right number, lol. All things being equal (which is what this is about) if privates make up 14% of schools in Mi hey should win 14% of state titles, again, all things equal.. Ok fine, you can say privates have better programs, coaching, etc, etc.. So they should win more than publics because of this.. I’m not sold on that argument, but fine, lets play.. 20% wins.. even 25%? Fine, you can make that argument. BUT 40%?!?! No way.. absolutely no amount of coaching, hard work, etc. makes private schools on average almost 3X better than public school teams.. The kids don’t lift 3x more, they don’t run 3x faster, they don’t make plays 3x better.. yet they are winning 3x more titles. OBVIOUSLY its from the unfair advantage privates have over pubs.
Birds of a feather flock together as they say. The key though is understanding that anyone can join the flock. And it isn’t the flocks job to worry about you if you’re in a different flock.
If you want to win a college football national championship position yourself to go to Alabama. Don’t go to BGSU and then be mad at Alabama because you didn’t win it.
Division 7 is rough! It’s loaded with good teams and far tougher than Division 6. It does not work they way you are describing.
I wasn’t seeing it that way. SMCC had a cake walk to the final. In D6 they would have had to play Ida and JLC which were both teams that I thought were better than anything they faced on the way to FF.
My only argument here is week 9, Ida struggled to beat Clinton 23 to 14. They didn’t pull away until the 4th qtr. SMCC was beating Clinton 44 to 6 in the 2nd qtr two weeks later. Part of me thinks SMCC just flopped on the big stage, they were better than what they showed versus Millington. However, seeing Lumen play … I believe they were substantially better than SMCC.
Agree, the road to FF was super easy for SMCC. I don’t think they would have made it past round 1 vs Ida. Ida had a single “bad” game and still walked away with the win.. Just not a dominating win like usual. I could see that from the first scrimmage when it was Ida vs SMCC. Nice job still, but def stay in D7. JLC was just on another planet this year and Ida was the only team that made them sweat. They did lose 1 game but that was without their star.
You guys crack me up. Haters gonna hate. Just don’t let it consume you…at some point we’ll all start talking 2025 and this team you’re talking about that just went to FF is still going to be bad, bad news for a lot of opponents.
That SMCC offense was a true wagon in the title game. A mighty 0 points. What happened?
The Executive Committee approved the request for waiver.
Jackson-Lumen Christi High School (Football Classification) – The Executive Committee ap-
proved a request to opt-up in football from Division 7 to Division 6. Lumen Christi High School has
now joined the CHSL and many of their league opponents are bigger programs who planned for Lu-
men Christi to be a Division 6 school for scheduling and MHSAA playoff points. Under the opt-up pol-
icy for football, this request came to the Executive Committee for approval.
What division do you think smcc should be in?
Tough to say, this year’s team hasn’t exactly been the rule lately. Probably D5 or 6.
Shocked that Millington did what they did to SMCC. Totally dominated them all over the field. I expected SMCC to take this one by at least 2 TDs. I would also agree that the geographical seeding assists schools with travel, but completely dilutes the playoff field when the best teams are clustered together. Just my thoughts.
I wasn’t shocked. With that undersized front on defense, a smashmouth type game was their kryptonite. Their D really wasn’t that great at stopping a good running team without the help of turnovers and the HL didn’t present many opportunities to show that the way it went down. They just ran into somebody who didn’t make those type of mistakes in this game. All year, the strength of SMCC has been the defense imo and it had some limitations that slipped through the cracks.
King was completely stumped with Zeeland West. They didn’t figure it out until the guys were running by them. After that, I find myself thinking what if we’d have had a healthy team all year?
King was completely stumped with Zeeland West. They didn’t figure it out until the guys were running by them. I wasn’t surprised with Richard. I watched them get ran over for the second half versus Decatur. They had injuries piling up with some main guys and their lines weren’t that good.