Who is Bishop Sycamore? What we know about mysterious HS football team that played on ESPN

quote:

---

When Bishop Sycamore took the field in Canton, Ohio, on Sunday to face IMG Academy (Florida), ESPN's announcers thought they'd be calling a game between two elite high school football teams.

---

quote:

---

Bishop Sycamore — which claims to be based in Columbus, though there's no address listed on the website, and the "About Us" and "Staff" pages on the site are blank — was overmatched from the beginning as it took on the No. 2 team in the country, according to MaxPreps. 

---

quote:

---

The game quickly caught national attention as it was broadcast on ESPN's main channel. Social media was aflame with questions about how Bishop Sycamore came to be scheduled for the game, when it clearly was not fit to be playing against a team of IMG's caliber.

---

quote:

---

Bishop Sycamore told us they had a number of Division I prospects on their roster, and to be frank, a lot of that, we could not verify," Shroff said. "They did not show up in our database, they did not show up in the databases of other recruiting services. So, OK, that’s what you’re telling us, fine, that’s how we take it in. From what we’ve seen so far, this is not a fair fight, and there’s got to be a point where you’re worried about health and safety."

---

quote:

---

A spokesman for Paragon told USA TODAY Sports that transfers at the prep level, especially for an online school, can make confirming rosters difficult. The roster they were presented with a month ago was drastically different than the one for the game against IMG Academy, the spokesman said, adding that a more scrutinized look within 10 days was likely necessary.

A normal vetting process, said the spokesman, includes research into the coaching staff, a cross-check of the roster with recruiting rankings, the previous years’ schedules and the upcoming season’s strength of schedule. 

---

quote:

---

The Friday night game was never disclosed to Paragon and wasn’t on the schedule the company had for Bishop Sycamore. The company only became aware of the transgression Sunday evening once they began receiving questions, according to a Paragon spokesperson.

Game footage from both matchups reviewed by Awful Announcing shows that players who appeared in both games played more than Johnson indicated. 

"(Playing two games in three days) is against any high school rule, but they don't have to abide by those rules not being a high school," Akron Archbishop Hoban athletic director and football coach Tim Tyrell said. "They're not a high school."

---

quote:

---

An official there told the Columbus Dispatch that a football team-sized group of about 30 kids work out in the complex's weight room and turf fields about once a month, but no school classes have ever been located at the site. The person spoke with the Dispatch on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

"They don't have an actual school here," the person said. "Not schooling. We're just like their training facility."

Johnson said they operate the schooling out of the facility "a few days a week." He later said Bishop Sycamore rents the facility "once in a while." 

---

quote:

---

247Sports reported that one player who appeared on defense for Bishop Sycamore was originally in the 2020 recruiting class and had previously used a fake ID to attend a seven-on-seven camp, while falsely claiming more than two dozen offers.

---