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EspañolHIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
'''Note:''' ''The term "football" when used throughout this article refers exclusively to'' '''gridiron football'''.
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'High school football' or 'prep(s) football' is one of most popular interscholastic sports at high schools in the United States and among the most popular in Canada after ice hockey. The game's popularity with both audiences and students is widespread across the nation, but is often closely associated with small Southern and Midwestern towns and throughout Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ability to recruit top athletes from these areas is seen as highly advantageous to college football programs.
High school football dates back to the late 19th century, concurrent with the start of many college football programs. In the late 19th and early 20th century, many college and high school teams played against one another. With their common ancestry, the rules of high school football are largely similar to the college game, though with some important differences:
★ The four quarters are each 12 minutes in length, as opposed to 15 in all other forms of the game.
★ Kickoffs take place at the kicking team's 40 yard line, as opposed to 30 in college and the NFL.
★ If a ball crosses the plane of the goal line on a missed field goal, it would be a touchback and the opposing team will start at the 20 yard line.
★ Any kick crossing the goal line is automatically a touchback; kicks cannot be returned out of the end zone.
★ Pass interference by the defense always results in a 15-yard penalty (and automatic first down), regardless of where the foul occurred.
★ The defense cannot return an extra-point attempt for a score.
★ The use of overtime, and the type of overtime used, is up to the individual state association.
Rules are established by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Two states, Texas and Massachusetts, use NCAA playing rules.
At least one unique high school rule has been adopted by college football. In 1996, the overtime rules originally utilized by Kansas high school teams were adopted by the NCAA.
Many other traditions of college football such as marching bands and homecoming games are mirrored in high school football.
.JPG)
Most schools play a regular season typically consisting of six to eleven games and starting roughly at the same time as the beginning of the school year in late August or early September. The vast majority of HS football games are scheduled for Friday evenings, with Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons being occasional exceptions. Larger schools can often draw attendances in the thousands for regular season games.
Each state has at least one sanctioning organization for public schools. In many states a separate organization governs intermural athletics at most private schools. Each sanctioning body divides its member schools up into anywhere from two to eight size classifications based on enrollment and then each classification is further divided into geographic regions. The size classifications are often termed 'A' to 'AAAAA' (or 1A to 5A) from smallest to largest, though the nomenclature and number of size divisions vary from state to state. A school's size classification will change if its enrollment rises or declines over the years. At the smallest schools, particularly in rural areas of the Midwest, variations on the game using six, eight, or nine players per side instead of the traditional eleven (or twelve in Canada) are encountered.
Prior to the 1970s, many states crowned state champions through polls, but playoff systems have become nearly universal since then and most states have steadily increased the number of teams eligible to participate and total number of classifications. Though the playoff scheme and number of teams eligible varies, regional champions will compete in elimination playoff rounds - in a tradition borrowed from pro football rather than college - to determine a state champion for each size classification. The championship games are usually held at a neutral site, usually a college or NFL stadium needed to accommodate the larger crowds. Note that some states with large populations such as California and New Jersey only crown regional champions, and in many large cities, including Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York City, and Los Angeles, public high schools compete in their own "city leagues" and may or may not ever play opponents outside of them.
Some publications and internet sites release nationwide rankings based on polls or mathematical formulas which take into account various factors like average margin of victory and strength of schedule. Schools that finish atop these rankings, particularly the USA Today poll, are sometimes considered to be the national champions.
Home schooled students may also participate in HS football through independent or freelance teams that compete against small private (or in a few cases, public) schools. In some states, such as Florida, state law allows homeschooled students to compete in interscholastic athletics for their local school district. Thus, home schooled Tim Tebow, who was one of the top quarterback prospects in the nation, was able to play for the nationally-ranked public Nease High School. Tebow is currently the starting quarterback for the University of Florida. The legislature in the state of Alabama, where Tebow played in a nationally-televised loss against Hoover High School, is considering a bill, dubbed the ''Tim Tebow Bill'' [1] that would grant similar rights to Alabama's home schooled students.
In all states, the HS football season will have ended by late December, but the recruiting process by which colleges offer scholarships to high school seniors often starts in the summer, before the school year and football season begin. Football camps are held at college campuses where a large number of potential recruits can be evaluated simultaneously in various speed and skills drills. Colleges will typically take potential recruits on tours of the campus and athletic facilities, or the college may have its team's coach visit the recruit at home or at school.
While all colleges do much of their recruiting from local and in-state high schools, where they can network with HS coaches and booster clubs, the nation's top college programs can easily recruit athletes from around the country. Some colleges have historically been aided in this regard through their their prominence within their religious affiliation, such as Notre Dame or BYU.
Students who played for larger high schools, or who competed in nationally-televised matches, have a natural advantage towards recruitment, while players who competed at smaller schools - such as most states' 1A and 2A categories - will have their skills and achievements judged versus the lower-caliber opposition they faced and, as such, are rarely considered as top prospects. Though it is an expensive project, HS football players often increase their visibility by sending out video highlights of their playing skills to college recruiters. If a student receives no scholarship offers, they may still attempt to make a college team by becoming a "walk on" and paying their own tuition in the hopes that they can make the team and possibly receive a scholarship. Others will try out for a non-scholarship team, such as a Division III school, or a two-year junior college team. The latter option is also popular with students with academic or behavioral issues that would prevent them from playing at a four-year college.
While the vast majority of HS football players will not even be considered for a scholarship offer, players who receive nationwide attention will invariably receive scholarship offers from more than one school and will often hold a press conference to announce their final selection. "All Star" exhibition games like the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, which is televised nationally by NBC, give the nation's top prospects the opportunity to publicly announce their college selection or to provide one last opportunity to showcase their talents to college recruiters. By National Signing Day, the first Wednesday in February, most top recruits will have already signed non-binding letters of intent or verbally committed with colleges.
High school football has produced a number of athletes that draw national media attention while still in high school. While some of the most hyped high school football phenoms disappointed in college and/or the NFL, others became successful.
★ Tim Couch – set a number of national high school records, including passing yardage (12,104), while at Leslie County High School.
★ Ronald Curry – record breaking quarterback whose Hampton High School teams in 1996 and 1997 are widely considered the best in Virginia history but his star was eclipsed in college by district rival Michael Vick
★ Ken Hall – nicknamed “The Sugar Land Express” while rushing a 11,232 yards total over his career, a national record that still stands.
★ Todd Marinovich – was famously subjected to a strict diet and training regimen since early childhood by his father to prepare him for football stardom but later drug usage undermined his college and NFL careers
★ T.A. McLendon – scored a national record 178 touchdowns over his career at Albemarle High School.
★ Ron Powlus – college football analyst Beano Cook predicted he would win two Heisman Trophies in college.
★ Emmitt Smith – broke Hall's record for most career 100-yard games with 45.
★ Ben Mauk - set national single season records for yards (6,540) and touchdowns (76), as well as national career records for completions (1,105), attempts (1,931), and yards (17,534); furthermore, he holds the second highest national career touchdown mark (179), all earned while winning two OHSAA titles at Kenton High School.[1]
As most games take place during primetime, television exposure of HS football on a local basis tends to be limited to championship games only. Local public access cable television and local radio stations often air regular season contests, and in some cases, the school's own radio station broadcasts the game using student announcers. In many television markets, local stations will air 30 or 60-minute "scoreboard" shows following their late Friday newscast with scores and highlights from games in their coverage area. Starting in 2005, the ESPN family of networks have also aired regular season matchups between nationally ranked teams.
Despite this increased national media attention, some states restrict the broadcast of high school games. One example is the University Interscholastic League, which governs public school sports in Texas. The UIL has a long-standing ban on broadcasting high school football games on Friday nights, believing that doing so could hurt ticket sales. Because of this, several games that have been broadcast on ESPN and Fox Sports Net in recent years have had to be played on Thursday night so that they can be televised. In Michigan, live television broadcasts of regular season games are prohibited by the state athletic association.
Hollywood portrayals of HS football, whether comedies or dramas, often portray the game at the center of a small town's existence and the focus of its attention.
''Also see Jock (subculture)''
★ ''All the Right Moves'' (1983)
★ ''American Dreams'' — Character "JJ" Pryor was a star HS football running back, and many of the early episodes centered on his games.
★ ''The Best of Times'' - (1986)
★ ''Facing the Giants'' (2006)
★ ''Friday Night Lights'' — originally a book about the 1988 season of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas; a 2004 movie was directly based on it, and a television series inspired by it began airing in 2006
★ ''Gridiron Gang'' (2006)
★ ''Johnny Be Good'' (1988)
★ ''Lucas'' (1986)
★ ''Radio'' (2003)
★ ''Remember the Titans'' (2000) — based on the actual story of the 1971 team of T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia
★ ''The Season'' - a 1999 ESPN television documentary of Eastern Pennsylvania's North Penn High School
★ ''Two-A-Days'' — MTV reality television documentary about the Hoover (Alabama) HS 2005 and 2006 football seasons
★ ''Varsity Blues'' (1999)
★ ''Wildcats'' (1986)
★ Nike's ''Football is Everything'' television and print ad campaign of 2006 featuring numerous NFL stars and coaches as members of the fictional Marlin Briscoe High School Hawks football team. ''Requires Macromedia Flash''
In the 1993 film ''Dazed and Confused'' set in Texas in 1976, the main charactor Randy "Pink" Floyd, played by Jason London, is the starting quarterback at his high school and most of his friends play football as well.
★ ''ESPN College Football Encyclopedia'' by Michael McCambridge - lists all-time records for all current Division I and Ivy League colleges, including games played against high school teams 'ISBN 1401337031
★ NFL website about high school football
★ PrepNation.com
★ All Canada Gridiron.com - Covers HS football in Canada
★ Preps.USAToday.com - ''USA Today'' lists current schedules and results for all American HS teams
★ MaxPreps.com - scores from almost every game in the nation
★ Georgia High School Football Historians - complete results of all HS football games in the state of Georgia since 1948
★ Michigan-Football.com - complete results of all HS football games in the state of Michigan since 1950
★ TexasHSFootball.com - posts scores, shows statewide rankings, and has a message board for HS football in Texas
★ MySportsPlace.com - Alabama HS Sports, Alabama HS Football, Alabama High School Football, Alabama High School Sports. Scores, standings, schedules, chat.
★ High School Football Database - Historical high school football scores and more for the state of Tennessee
★ Alabama High School Football Historical Society - Devoted to the history of High School Football in Alabama
★ Washington Statewide Stats Project - Moderated user-submitted football stats for Washington state, including stats back to the 1970s.
----
----
'High school football' or 'prep(s) football' is one of most popular interscholastic sports at high schools in the United States and among the most popular in Canada after ice hockey. The game's popularity with both audiences and students is widespread across the nation, but is often closely associated with small Southern and Midwestern towns and throughout Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ability to recruit top athletes from these areas is seen as highly advantageous to college football programs.
High school football dates back to the late 19th century, concurrent with the start of many college football programs. In the late 19th and early 20th century, many college and high school teams played against one another. With their common ancestry, the rules of high school football are largely similar to the college game, though with some important differences:
★ The four quarters are each 12 minutes in length, as opposed to 15 in all other forms of the game.
★ Kickoffs take place at the kicking team's 40 yard line, as opposed to 30 in college and the NFL.
★ If a ball crosses the plane of the goal line on a missed field goal, it would be a touchback and the opposing team will start at the 20 yard line.
★ Any kick crossing the goal line is automatically a touchback; kicks cannot be returned out of the end zone.
★ Pass interference by the defense always results in a 15-yard penalty (and automatic first down), regardless of where the foul occurred.
★ The defense cannot return an extra-point attempt for a score.
★ The use of overtime, and the type of overtime used, is up to the individual state association.
Rules are established by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Two states, Texas and Massachusetts, use NCAA playing rules.
At least one unique high school rule has been adopted by college football. In 1996, the overtime rules originally utilized by Kansas high school teams were adopted by the NCAA.
Many other traditions of college football such as marching bands and homecoming games are mirrored in high school football.
The high school football season
.JPG)
High school football stadium in Manhattan, Kansas
Most schools play a regular season typically consisting of six to eleven games and starting roughly at the same time as the beginning of the school year in late August or early September. The vast majority of HS football games are scheduled for Friday evenings, with Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons being occasional exceptions. Larger schools can often draw attendances in the thousands for regular season games.
Each state has at least one sanctioning organization for public schools. In many states a separate organization governs intermural athletics at most private schools. Each sanctioning body divides its member schools up into anywhere from two to eight size classifications based on enrollment and then each classification is further divided into geographic regions. The size classifications are often termed 'A' to 'AAAAA' (or 1A to 5A) from smallest to largest, though the nomenclature and number of size divisions vary from state to state. A school's size classification will change if its enrollment rises or declines over the years. At the smallest schools, particularly in rural areas of the Midwest, variations on the game using six, eight, or nine players per side instead of the traditional eleven (or twelve in Canada) are encountered.
Prior to the 1970s, many states crowned state champions through polls, but playoff systems have become nearly universal since then and most states have steadily increased the number of teams eligible to participate and total number of classifications. Though the playoff scheme and number of teams eligible varies, regional champions will compete in elimination playoff rounds - in a tradition borrowed from pro football rather than college - to determine a state champion for each size classification. The championship games are usually held at a neutral site, usually a college or NFL stadium needed to accommodate the larger crowds. Note that some states with large populations such as California and New Jersey only crown regional champions, and in many large cities, including Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York City, and Los Angeles, public high schools compete in their own "city leagues" and may or may not ever play opponents outside of them.
Some publications and internet sites release nationwide rankings based on polls or mathematical formulas which take into account various factors like average margin of victory and strength of schedule. Schools that finish atop these rankings, particularly the USA Today poll, are sometimes considered to be the national champions.
Home Schooling and high school football
Home schooled students may also participate in HS football through independent or freelance teams that compete against small private (or in a few cases, public) schools. In some states, such as Florida, state law allows homeschooled students to compete in interscholastic athletics for their local school district. Thus, home schooled Tim Tebow, who was one of the top quarterback prospects in the nation, was able to play for the nationally-ranked public Nease High School. Tebow is currently the starting quarterback for the University of Florida. The legislature in the state of Alabama, where Tebow played in a nationally-televised loss against Hoover High School, is considering a bill, dubbed the ''Tim Tebow Bill'' [1] that would grant similar rights to Alabama's home schooled students.
College recruiting
In all states, the HS football season will have ended by late December, but the recruiting process by which colleges offer scholarships to high school seniors often starts in the summer, before the school year and football season begin. Football camps are held at college campuses where a large number of potential recruits can be evaluated simultaneously in various speed and skills drills. Colleges will typically take potential recruits on tours of the campus and athletic facilities, or the college may have its team's coach visit the recruit at home or at school.
While all colleges do much of their recruiting from local and in-state high schools, where they can network with HS coaches and booster clubs, the nation's top college programs can easily recruit athletes from around the country. Some colleges have historically been aided in this regard through their their prominence within their religious affiliation, such as Notre Dame or BYU.
Students who played for larger high schools, or who competed in nationally-televised matches, have a natural advantage towards recruitment, while players who competed at smaller schools - such as most states' 1A and 2A categories - will have their skills and achievements judged versus the lower-caliber opposition they faced and, as such, are rarely considered as top prospects. Though it is an expensive project, HS football players often increase their visibility by sending out video highlights of their playing skills to college recruiters. If a student receives no scholarship offers, they may still attempt to make a college team by becoming a "walk on" and paying their own tuition in the hopes that they can make the team and possibly receive a scholarship. Others will try out for a non-scholarship team, such as a Division III school, or a two-year junior college team. The latter option is also popular with students with academic or behavioral issues that would prevent them from playing at a four-year college.
While the vast majority of HS football players will not even be considered for a scholarship offer, players who receive nationwide attention will invariably receive scholarship offers from more than one school and will often hold a press conference to announce their final selection. "All Star" exhibition games like the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, which is televised nationally by NBC, give the nation's top prospects the opportunity to publicly announce their college selection or to provide one last opportunity to showcase their talents to college recruiters. By National Signing Day, the first Wednesday in February, most top recruits will have already signed non-binding letters of intent or verbally committed with colleges.
High school football phenoms
High school football has produced a number of athletes that draw national media attention while still in high school. While some of the most hyped high school football phenoms disappointed in college and/or the NFL, others became successful.
★ Tim Couch – set a number of national high school records, including passing yardage (12,104), while at Leslie County High School.
★ Ronald Curry – record breaking quarterback whose Hampton High School teams in 1996 and 1997 are widely considered the best in Virginia history but his star was eclipsed in college by district rival Michael Vick
★ Ken Hall – nicknamed “The Sugar Land Express” while rushing a 11,232 yards total over his career, a national record that still stands.
★ Todd Marinovich – was famously subjected to a strict diet and training regimen since early childhood by his father to prepare him for football stardom but later drug usage undermined his college and NFL careers
★ T.A. McLendon – scored a national record 178 touchdowns over his career at Albemarle High School.
★ Ron Powlus – college football analyst Beano Cook predicted he would win two Heisman Trophies in college.
★ Emmitt Smith – broke Hall's record for most career 100-yard games with 45.
★ Ben Mauk - set national single season records for yards (6,540) and touchdowns (76), as well as national career records for completions (1,105), attempts (1,931), and yards (17,534); furthermore, he holds the second highest national career touchdown mark (179), all earned while winning two OHSAA titles at Kenton High School.[1]
High school football in the media
As most games take place during primetime, television exposure of HS football on a local basis tends to be limited to championship games only. Local public access cable television and local radio stations often air regular season contests, and in some cases, the school's own radio station broadcasts the game using student announcers. In many television markets, local stations will air 30 or 60-minute "scoreboard" shows following their late Friday newscast with scores and highlights from games in their coverage area. Starting in 2005, the ESPN family of networks have also aired regular season matchups between nationally ranked teams.
Despite this increased national media attention, some states restrict the broadcast of high school games. One example is the University Interscholastic League, which governs public school sports in Texas. The UIL has a long-standing ban on broadcasting high school football games on Friday nights, believing that doing so could hurt ticket sales. Because of this, several games that have been broadcast on ESPN and Fox Sports Net in recent years have had to be played on Thursday night so that they can be televised. In Michigan, live television broadcasts of regular season games are prohibited by the state athletic association.
Portrayals of high school football in movies and television
Hollywood portrayals of HS football, whether comedies or dramas, often portray the game at the center of a small town's existence and the focus of its attention.
''Also see Jock (subculture)''
★ ''All the Right Moves'' (1983)
★ ''American Dreams'' — Character "JJ" Pryor was a star HS football running back, and many of the early episodes centered on his games.
★ ''The Best of Times'' - (1986)
★ ''Facing the Giants'' (2006)
★ ''Friday Night Lights'' — originally a book about the 1988 season of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas; a 2004 movie was directly based on it, and a television series inspired by it began airing in 2006
★ ''Gridiron Gang'' (2006)
★ ''Johnny Be Good'' (1988)
★ ''Lucas'' (1986)
★ ''Radio'' (2003)
★ ''Remember the Titans'' (2000) — based on the actual story of the 1971 team of T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia
★ ''The Season'' - a 1999 ESPN television documentary of Eastern Pennsylvania's North Penn High School
★ ''Two-A-Days'' — MTV reality television documentary about the Hoover (Alabama) HS 2005 and 2006 football seasons
★ ''Varsity Blues'' (1999)
★ ''Wildcats'' (1986)
★ Nike's ''Football is Everything'' television and print ad campaign of 2006 featuring numerous NFL stars and coaches as members of the fictional Marlin Briscoe High School Hawks football team. ''Requires Macromedia Flash''
In the 1993 film ''Dazed and Confused'' set in Texas in 1976, the main charactor Randy "Pink" Floyd, played by Jason London, is the starting quarterback at his high school and most of his friends play football as well.
References
★ ''ESPN College Football Encyclopedia'' by Michael McCambridge - lists all-time records for all current Division I and Ivy League colleges, including games played against high school teams 'ISBN 1401337031
External links
★ NFL website about high school football
★ PrepNation.com
★ All Canada Gridiron.com - Covers HS football in Canada
Scores and results
Nationwide
★ Preps.USAToday.com - ''USA Today'' lists current schedules and results for all American HS teams
★ MaxPreps.com - scores from almost every game in the nation
State and regional
★ Georgia High School Football Historians - complete results of all HS football games in the state of Georgia since 1948
★ Michigan-Football.com - complete results of all HS football games in the state of Michigan since 1950
★ TexasHSFootball.com - posts scores, shows statewide rankings, and has a message board for HS football in Texas
★ MySportsPlace.com - Alabama HS Sports, Alabama HS Football, Alabama High School Football, Alabama High School Sports. Scores, standings, schedules, chat.
★ High School Football Database - Historical high school football scores and more for the state of Tennessee
★ Alabama High School Football Historical Society - Devoted to the history of High School Football in Alabama
★ Washington Statewide Stats Project - Moderated user-submitted football stats for Washington state, including stats back to the 1970s.
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