Or not.

I stand corrected. The road to the Class 2B state championship game, which many people feel is a potential destination for Tampa Catholic, probably WILL be going through Pahokee as expected.

Unless the Blue Devils lose Friday, which would eliminate Pahokee from the playoffs altogether.

According to this story in the Palm Beach Post, the Blue Devils will have to forfeit a second district game for using an academically ineligible player. That leaves Pahokee with a 3-2 district record, and the second forfeit would give North Broward Prep (which lost to Pahokee 31-20 but will get the win) the district title.

Pahokee has to beat University (5-3) to grab the runner-up spot, and being runner-up generally precluded any team in any sport from hosting a playoff game.

But according to the FHSAA manual, in classes 6A, 4A, 2A and 2B the Region 2 champion and Region 4 champion (Pahokee, if they win out) will host, no matter what. (In years past, if a runner-up played a district champion, the champion always hosted).

If that is the rule, it kind of blows, and that would go for any match-up, not just Tampa Catholic's. The champ should always get to host against a runner-up. It's the spoils of victory. Instead, depending on how you read the rule, a team with two forfeit losses that did not win its district gets the surpreme advantage of hosting a district champion. Crazy.

Of course, none of this accounts for surefire state finalist Jacksonville Bolles, which has scored 55 points or more in 5 of its 8 games and will be waiting for whoever makes their way out of the southern regions.

Anyway, hope that clears up a perfectly unnecessary blog post from this afternoon.