So the other night I’m scrolling Twitter and see buzz about Maryland high school football playoffs, right? Got me thinking – man, who’s actually gonna win this thing? Decided to dig into it myself since all the “expert picks” sounded like wild guesses anyway.
Gathering the Messy Data First
Started by pulling up scores from MaxPreps – holy crap that site’s cluttered. Had five browser tabs open just trying to cross-check stats from Damascus, Quince Orchard, those powerhouse teams. My Chrome almost froze when I tried exporting stats to Excel. Total nightmare.
Next hit up local news sites. Baltimore Sun had some decent team breakdowns but their paywall popped up every three clicks. Found a random blogger claiming Archbishop Spalding was “sleeping giant” – zero evidence backing that up though. Just vibes.
My scrappy research tools:
- MaxPreps (rage-inducing)
- Twitter search (mostly fans yelling at refs)
- Forum threads (mostly conspiracy theories about recruiting)
- Cold medicine (had the sniffles while researching)
The Expert Picks Hunt
This part was laughable. Called up my buddy Dave who coaches JV in Anne Arundel County – he just grunted “watch the O-line matchups.” Real helpful, Dave. Found some podcast where two guys spent 20 minutes arguing about quarterback hairstyles instead of game film. Legit source? Zero.
Ended up scribbling notes on a pizza box: Quince Orchard for raw speed, Wise for defense, DeMatha for… well they’re always good so whatever. My “analysis” boiled down to:
- Teams from Montgomery County always choke in finals
- Bad weather = underdogs win (total bro-science)
- Private schools recruit better (duh)
Tried making a sick predictive spreadsheet with win/loss ratios. Spoiler: Garbage in, garbage out. Half the data holes plugged with guesses like “yeah their running back seems tough.” Pure clown show.
The Grand Conclusion
Slapped my “expert pick” on Instagram stories: Wise vs Quince Orchard finals with Wise edging it out. Why? Because their linebacker tweets fire memes – that’s advanced analytics right there.
Reality check? Nobody knows crap until the pads start smashing. My whole “deep dive” felt like reading tea leaves with cleats on. But hey – had fun pretending to be some football guru for a week!