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Pasco Teams Playing At A Disadvantage

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - This week, eight local football teams played the second week of Pasco County's 7-on-7 league, whose popularity has exploded from two teams to quadruple that in three years.

Yet the general consensus is that seven weeks of defensive and offensive line-less touch football is still no real replacement for playing an opponent at the end of spring football in May.

At all corners of the state and everywhere in between, football teams conclude spring football practice with a football game against another team. Here in Pasco County, the end of spring football is marked by an intrasquad game a la the Garnet and Gold or Orange and Blue games at the college level.

"We're the only county in the state that doesn't play an opponent," Wesley Chapel coach John Castelamare said. "There was one year where we were the only county in the state that didn't have spring football and that was totally unfair because we played teams that had it like Hernando and Tarpon. They had spring and we didn't. It was totally unfair. I mean, if they all don't have it, that's fine."

In Districts With Other Teams

Unfortunately for Pasco's teams, they are the odd ones out going into summer and if they only played each other, there might not be such an issue that they play split-squad games, but during the regular season many of Pasco County's team are in districts with schools in other counties.

Land O' Lakes, Ridgewood and River Ridge play in a district with Brooksville Central, Springstead and Tarpon Springs. Mitchell and Wesley Chapel are in a four-team district with Wharton and Gaither.

Though it would be unreasonable to think Pasco's teams would automatically be district champs and playoff contenders year in and year out with the addition of a real spring game, one does have to wonder how better off Pasco's teams would be to play full-strength, up-to-speed with pads.

Castelamare contends that in an intrasquad game, you can't put all your best players out on the same team. There ends up being mismatches between, say, a No. 1 receiver and a No. 3 defensive back.

There Is An Upside

Pasco coach Tom McHugh said after the Pirates' spring game that the intrasquad format gave him the opportunity to get more players into the game than he would if the Pirates played an opponent. But he would rather have his players hitting other teams rather than each other.

"I'd rather have an opponent in spring especially since three teams in our district have opponents, but what this does is help us focus on other things in the spring," Ridgewood coach Chris Taylor said. "Like we can focus on our running game in the spring knowing that we're going to have all summer to work on our passing game."

As far as transportation costs go for the 7-on-7 league, players and coaches carpool to the weekly site and there's no reason why spring games couldn't operate in the same manner. Many areas hold jamborees in the spring where several teams go to one school and play games simultaneously much in the same way the Pasco 7-on-7 league runs every week.

So the means are there and the parties are willing. All Pasco's teams need is the green light to get with the times.

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