“High School” team lies to play on ESPN

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I'm sure they were told by ESPN that they'd be playing a team "of equal caliber" on national television. Why would they have reason to distrust that?

ESPN, solely, F'ed this beyond all recognition.
 





MplsGopher said:
I'm sure they were told by ESPN that they'd be playing a team "of equal caliber" on national television. Why would they have reason to distrust that?

ESPN, solely, F'ed this beyond all recognition.
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ESPN contracts out these high school games. I forget who booked this game for them -- but they made a conciliatory statement.
 

Doesn't ESPN publish its own high school recruiting rankings? This seems like a claim they could verify.

Is this the school where Rivals three star offensive lineman Blake Carringer played?
 



noamfromm said:
ESPN contracts out these high school games. I forget who booked this game for them -- but they made a conciliatory statement.
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Paragon Marketing Group. Initially, it was someone there who dropped the ball and failed to vet whatever they were being told. Doesn't absolve ESPN or IMG, they certainly should have done more to verify what they were getting into, but that's how this ball got rolling.
 



2nd Degree Gopher said:
Paragon Marketing Group. Initially, it was someone there who dropped the ball and failed to vet whatever they were being told. Doesn't absolve ESPN or IMG, they certainly should have done more to verify what they were getting into, but that's how this ball got rolling.
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IMG doesn't have to do vet anything. They showed up and played a game. They won by a lot. They do this nearly every week.

Last year they played 8 games. Their closest game was a 35 point win. They beat Bishop Sycamore last year 56-6, so why question playing them again?
 

So, if what I'm reading is accurate, the plans were made for IMG to play a game at the NFL Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, OH. the 3rd-party group, Paragon was supposed to come up with an opponent but apparently they could not find a legitimate Ohio-based team that was willing to play IMG or had an open date in their schedule.

I know there are 'national' HS teams that play these big inter-state games, but most HS teams are part of a conference and their games are set well in advance. so there has to be a fairly limited number of teams that are available and willing to play a game like that.

my question would be - how long in advance was this set up? I can't imagine that IMG just makes up its schedule as it goes.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
So, if what I'm reading is accurate, the plans were made for IMG to play a game at the NFL Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, OH. the 3rd-party group, Paragon was supposed to come up with an opponent but apparently they could not find a legitimate Ohio-based team that was willing to play IMG or had an open date in their schedule.

I know there are 'national' HS teams that play these big inter-state games, but most HS teams are part of a conference and their games are set well in advance. so there has to be a fairly limited number of teams that are available and willing to play a game like that.

my question would be - how long in advance was this set up? I can't imagine that IMG just makes up its schedule as it goes.
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Kinda a good example of why you don't maybe want ESPN to drive your conference / decisions.

Like everything sensible got left by the wayside and farmed out to some rando org .... who couldn't even do the thing.

But exposure!
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
IMG doesn't have to do vet anything. They showed up and played a game. They won by a lot. They do this nearly every week.

Last year they played 8 games. Their closest game was a 35 point win. They beat Bishop Sycamore last year 56-6, so why question playing them again?
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I wouldn't put a lot of the blame on IMG but, as I understand the story, they took a team of high schoolers to play a football game against a team that they played and beat easily last year. They know the talent level of the team they faced the year before, but now that same team is supposedly loaded with D-I talent and they don't have any duty to inquire as to what's what? What if one those highly skilled IMG athletes eyeing an NFL career, maybe one of the ones under 18, had suffered a serious injury at the hands of a 20 year-old juco drop out masquerading as a high school student? You think people wouldn't want to how it was that IMG agreed to play the game?
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
IMG doesn't have to do vet anything. They showed up and played a game. They won by a lot. They do this nearly every week.

Last year they played 8 games. Their closest game was a 35 point win. They beat Bishop Sycamore last year 56-6, so why question playing them again?
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This is kind of what I was thinking. I watched portions of the game and Bishop Sycamore was clearly not on IMG's level but they weren't THAT bad. I say this as someone who played at Cretin while we we were still in the Saint Paul City Conference. So maybe I'm biased. I think Bishop Sycamore was better than most bad teams in the metro. That said, they are 23 years old.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
This is kind of what I was thinking. I watched portions of the game and Bishop Sycamore was clearly not on IMG's level but they weren't THAT bad. I say this as someone who played at Cretin while we we were still in the Saint Paul City Conference. So maybe I'm biased. I think Bishop Sycamore was better than most bad teams in the metro. That said, they are 23 years old.
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Accurate, Bishop Sycamore was far more competitive than most of those Cretin v. Harding/Humboldt matchups were!!
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I wouldn't put a lot of the blame on IMG but, as I understand the story, they took a team of high schoolers to play a football game against a team that they played and beat easily last year. They know the talent level of the team they faced the year before, but now that same team is supposedly loaded with D-I talent and they don't have any duty to inquire as to what's what? What if one those highly skilled IMG athletes eyeing an NFL career, maybe one of the ones under 18, had suffered a serious injury at the hands of a 20 year-old juco drop out masquerading as a high school student? You think people wouldn't want to how it was that IMG agreed to play the game?
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Again, IMG did nothing wrong. They played a game that was scheduled for them. It isn't like their coach decided to play a bunch of random kids from the park. If a team plays against Eden Prairie and uses an illegal player and he hurts an EP kid, do you blame EP? I don't. Same applies here.

IMG struggles to get games. No one wants to play them. They got offered a game and dominated. Sounds like the game was clean but a blowout.
 




Lol, why would you lie in order to get into a game where you know you’re going to get destroyed. This has to be the most bizarre football story I have ever heard of.
 


Zeppelin Gopher said:
Accurate, Bishop Sycamore was far more competitive than most of those Cretin v. Harding/Humboldt matchups were!!
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As I recall, towards the end there (of Cretin in the SPCC), Johnson had actually caught up to them and even surpassed them briefly.
 


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