re: LHSAA talk spin-off thread- Coming soon Parish Rankings

If we measure it strictly by prospect production, Caddo would be pretty high. Quality of teams? Different story. The city had to basically put together a select team -- Evangel -- to be able to make up for the fact that it couldn't compete with Monroe on the field.

If a Shreveport team could ever get past the second round of the playoffs -- back before seeding and when the Monroe teams would manhandle Shreveport out of the playoffs by round 2 every year -- the whole idea of an Evangel probably never happens.

To me, it's almost a demerit for greater New Orleans and Shreveport to have these recruiting programs sort of propping up their results over the years. Until very recently, Orleans Parish public schools never made deep playoff runs and Jefferson Parish public schools still don't. All the talent, and all the football emphasis, has usually been concentrated in a couple of private schools.

To me, you're a better football city when you are like Monroe and four of the eight schools in the immediate area (West Monroe, Neville, Ouachita and Ouachita Christian) are legit powers in their classes. Carrol, Wossman, St. Fred's and Richwood aren't, but when half of your teams are considered to be legit state title contenders, that's what stands out.

In Lafayette, in most years, Acadiana, Carencro, STM and Teurlings are usually really good while Northside is meh and Lafayette and Comeaux are bad. Extend it out and Breaux Bridge is usually fairly strong and usually maybe one more team out of that district is pretty fair. Again, like Monroe, it's the number of schools that have quality teams.

As opposed to Jeferson where Rummel and Curtis were good, East Jeff was decent, but Bonnabel, Riverdale, Grace King, Country Day, Crescent City, Ridgewood and St. Martin's are all pretty weak. Not meh, but weak. You're batting maybe .300 in the number of programs that are competitive at a decent level, compared to Monroe where half the teams are powers.