Today’s interviewee is Prep Gridiron Logistics founder Joe Maimone, who is the nation’s top matchmaker for games involving nationally prominent football programs. He ranks the nation’s top 25 teams on NationalHSFB.com. He works with the Flo Football Channel to stream some of them online, including tonight’s game with Peachtree Ridge at Monarch in Florida. Other Flo games with Georgia teams this year will be Creekside vs. DeSoto, Texas (Aug. 31), Grayson at Mallard Creek, N.C. (Sept. 6), Newton at East St. Louis, Ill. (Sept. 7) and Benedictine at Moeller, Ohio (Sept. 14).
1. Are there any interesting stories about the Georgia teams that you matched this season? “I’ve been friendly with Peachtree Ridge head coach Matt Helmerich since he was the defensive coordinator at St Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale. When he was there, they played out-of-state competition annually. Early on he made it known to me that he wanted to travel and play a solid, out-of-state team this season. It’s with this in mind that I was able to get him into the Broward County National High School Football Showcase this weekend in Fort Lauderdale to play Monarch. It’ll be sort of a homecoming for him. Plus his game will be broadcast to a national audience.”
2. What Georgia schools are the most attractive to you as a matchmaker, and why? “Any Georgia team with the courage to schedule elite, out-of-state opponents would be welcomed. My first Georgia clients were Buford and Grayson. In 2018 we held a Gwinnett vs The USA doubleheader event at Buford where I brought down Deerfield Beach (N.J.) and Bergen Catholic (N.J.) to play them, respectively. Both out-of-state teams came out on top that day. In recent years Buford has also played Chaminade-Madonna (lost) and St Frances, Md. (won). Milton became my next client. Coach Adam Clack loved challenging his teams with quality, out-of-state competition his entire tenure there. We sent them to California to play JSerra Catholic (lost) and to Philadelphia to play St Joseph Prep, Pa. (won). Creekside, Newton, Cedar Grove, Langston Hughes and Peachtree Ridge are also valued clients. In south Georgia, we’ve worked with Lowndes (lost to American Heritage, Fla., and beat Christ School, N.C.) and Colquitt County (beat Deerfield Beach, Fla. and Dutch Fork. S.C). Benedictine also loves to test themselves scheduling-wise.”
3. You have Milton and Buford in your national top 25. What makes them top-25 programs in your mind? And are those very top private schools like Mater Dei and St. John Bosco out of reach of some of the best public school teams, or can a public school be No. 1? “In our NationalHSFB.com Top 25 Poll, the No. 1 criteria is strength of schedule. Milton scheduling No. 17 American Heritage this season definitely helped their cause. Although I was disappointed that Buford didn’t schedule a high-profile, out-of-state opponent, playing Milton was the next-best thing. In our final poll last season, Milton and Thomas County finished in our Top 25 rankings.
“No high school football team in America is invincible. Just last season, public Kahuku Hawaii beat St John Bosco. And two years ago, public Miami Central beat IMG. And as earlier noted, Milton and Buford had big wins over power privates. In my opinion the top-five public programs in America this season are as follows: Centennial, Calif.; Milton; DeSoto, Texas; Massillon, Ohio; and Duncanville, Texas. Any of those five teams would give the power privates all they could handle.”
4. When you compare Georgia football to other states, what is different about it? “Georgia is definitely a public-program-heavy state. It’s very similar to Texas in that way. All of us promoters and pollsters recognize that in Georgia the top five teams in every class are all extremely good teams. This is one of the reasons I attend the Georgia high school football championship games on an annual basis. It’s admirable that kids grow up wanting to play for their respective local high schools. The sense of community is as real as it gets. You don’t see that in other top high school football states like California and Florida, where the power privates dominate.”
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