Which Polk County football team is now ranked No. 1 in its class?
· Yahoo Sports
LAKELAND — Guess who is the No. 1-ranked team in Class 4A by MaxPreps? That’s right, it’s Lake Wales.
After its close loss to DeLand, now ranked No. 3 in Class 6A, Lake Wales has won four in a row and has shot up the rankings. Plantation American Heritage, which had been No. 1, dropped to No. 2 in 4A after losing to Lakeland, and district rival Orlando Jones, which had been ranked higher to start the season, is No. 4. Lake City Columbia is No. 3.
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If there is an advantage to the ranking, perhaps it gives the Highlanders more confidence when they play Jones, Lake Wales’ nemesis in recent years, in 2 1/2 weeks.
Lake Wales coach Tavaris Johnson is downplaying the ranking as coaches are prone to do.
“We're just going to keep focusing on each week, the opponent at hand,” he said. “I’m doing my best not to try to fast-forward to Jones right now. We'll get there when we get there. Right now Brandon is in front of us, and we just got to make sure again we continue to build and compete and execute and finish.”
Lake Wales (4-1) has Brandon (1-3) this week then has an off week before traveling to play Jones on Oct. 8 in Orlando. With the state championship being the ultimate goal, a No. 1 ranking is meaningless with one exception. It would give Lake Wales the home field throughout the playoffs up until the state championship game.
Here is where it gets interesting, however. Lake Wales also has climbed in the overall state rankings, moving up five spots last week and is now No. 12 overall, No. 11 if you exclude IMG which doesn’t participate in the FHSAA playoffs. That’s three spots from moving into the top eight and a spot in the Open Division. Lakeland is currently No. 9 overall and No. 8 when IMG is eliminated.
Being in the top eight isn’t something that Johnson has thought about.
“I have not to be honest with you,” he said. “I don't pay attention to a lot of that because it's data. Numbers don't lie, right? But I don't know the formula. I don't know what goes into it and tells me, so MaxPreps isn't simply judging how talented a roster looks. I think it's just, it's a computer and so when you think about that, what is the ranking what it really telling you? It's telling you that we've earned, some recognition, right? We've earned some respect. But there's still no room to prove. We got a lot of things to prove.”
Lake Wales plays Brandon Friday then has an open week to get healthy and work on improving its weaknesses.
On paper, the weaknesses aren’t obvious. The Highlanders have been a nearly unstoppable on offense, averaging 458.8 yards. They have scored 35 points or more in all five games, averaging 42.
Defensively, Lake Wales’ first team has allowed just one touchdown — Winter Haven scored a late TD vs. the backups — in four games since losing to DeLand, 35-34, with two shutouts.
Yet coaches see more than what is on paper.
“Our focus is to be early, be prepared, be disciplined, be physical,” Johnson said. “We got to get better. It’s just the fundamental things — Kingston (Loydd) reading the defense better and just taking what they're giving them, offensive line finishing blocks, being physical, getting movement, receivers getting separation. We didn't build this program to be 12, right? We didn't build this program to be No. 1 (ranked), but we built this program to be the best version of Lake Wells that we possibly can be. So now we just gotta earn the next one. That's it. It's week to week for us.”
Since going to the rankings to fill out the playoff teams after the district winners, replacing district runners-up, the FHSAA used its own power rankings, which it adapted from the MaxPreps rankings, to rank teams. This year, the MaxPreps rankings with no changes to the algorithm are being used to fill out the top eight teams in each region after taking out the top eight teams overall in the state for the Open Division.
With its current ranking and the fact that it should be favored in at least four of the remains five games — let’s call the Jones game a coin flip — Lake Wales is well-positioned for a playoff berth.
“The bottom line is we have every reason to feel proud and validate it, but we go to stay hungry like we haven't proved anything yet,” Johnson said.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Which Polk County football team is now ranked No. 1 in its class?