From Awful Announcing's Ben Koo:
IMG Academy’s football team frequently blows out whoever they play.
That’s not surprising; IMG ranks as one of the top high school teams in the country. ESPN’s own press release about IMG’s game yesterday touted nine top-300 players in their senior class as well as ten top-300 ranked juniors. They’re absolutely stacked, making them a draw for networks like ESPN looking to capitalize on the fanatical levels of interest in the world of college football recruiting.
Given all that, it’s easy to see why IMG played in the finale of the Geico Kickoff Classic, a series of seven high school games across ESPN networks featuring some of the country’s best high school teams. You’d think IMG’s opponent, Bishop Sycamore, would be of similar stature. That was very much not the case; IMG won 58-0, yes, but digging beyond the scoreline we found things that are a lot more troubling than the talent disparity on the field.
Bishop Sycamore is a team with very questionable origins and a ton of red flags. Worst of all: they had played a game on Friday night, raising obvious health and safety concerns.
So how did they end up on ESPN?
The network has been upfront in saying that all of the games for the Geico Kickoff are booked by Paragon Marketing. Paragon has been ESPN’s partner on multiple events across different sports and high school programs.
ESPN provided the following statement:
Unfortunately that’s not true. Both games are available online. Bishop Sycamore had the same starting quarterback both games, and frequently had players with the same numbers in the same alignments in both games. Coach Roy Johnson admitted as much this afternoon in an interview.
It gets worse: a lot of these players played both ways in both games, meaning these kids had one day of rest after playing offense and defense before doing it all over again against maybe the most talented team in the country. That’s unconscionable, of course, but it gets even worse.
Bishop Sycamore’s Friday night game was played against Roxamore Sports Sto-Rox, and (for now) can be found on YouTube.
The game was played just outside of Pittsburgh, with Bishop Sycamore losing 19-7. Both the news writeup and the game broadcast name Trillian Harris as the starting quarterback for Bishop Sycamore, the same starting quarterback for Sunday’s game against IMG. Although Harris would switch numbers between games, he has the same red facemask (Harris would leave the game after suffering an injury on Sunday, something that happened to a few Sycamore players).
That’s indicative of another thing viewers picked up on Sunday: it looked like Bishop Sycamore had mismatched helmets and potentially not enough helmets for the entire team. That’s despite the roster being reported to be very small: just 30-35 players, hence the two-way participation.
A week ago, Bishop Sycamore posted a Go Fund Me campaign seeking $20,000, to which they’ve raised under $200. The description of that campaign below (unedited on our end):
Friday’s game also seemed to suggest Bishop Sycamore might not have an away white jersey; both teams played in black, which obviously makes it hard on spectators and even the players themselves to tell teams apart.
Below is an illicit YouTube upload of the IMG game.
Comparing both games, you can find usually more than handful of Bishop Sycamore players at the same position lined up with the same number on any given play.
Friday’s game
Sunday’s game
So, again: how does this game not only take place but make it to national television?
ESPN claims they sounded the alarm to Paragon weeks in advance when they couldn’t learn anything about Bishop Sycamore’s roster, depth chart, or even just any general information about the school.
Bishop Sycamore allegedly bailed on a conference call with ESPN days before the game, before providing a fact sheet of information on Sunday claiming multiple players had major D1 offers from power programs.
ESPN could not verify any of this information and felt they were “scammed.” That feeling permeated the broadcast, including this viral exchange that saw Anish Shroff acknowledging reality. It came after a long weather delay, with the game already out of hand and the Bishop Sycamore coach refusing to allow for a running clock.
“Early on they (IMG) were getting clean hits on the quarterback on every play,” Shroff told me. “There was clearly a player safety issue.”
That takes us through the broadcast. But the big question: should Paragon, ESPN, and IMG have known better?
Bishop Sycamore went 0-6 last year by a cumulative scoring margin of 227 to 42. That includes a 56-6 loss to IMG; apparently that wasn’t enough to put IMG off playing them again.
While most parties involved seem to be distancing themselves from this fiasco, a Twitter account for Prep Gridiron Logistics has been extremely active on Twitter defending the game. There have also been a few message board accounts using very similar language and reasoning in an effort to prop up the legitimacy of Bishop Sycamore as a school and a football program.
The Prep Gridiron Logistics website states the following:
PGL recently announced a relationship with FloSports that will see many of these teams play each other though out the season, with those games streaming on FloSports.
The quote at the end of that release cites Joe Maimone, Managing Member of Prep Gridiron Logistics.
Paragon offered the following when asked about their role in the Bishop Sycamore-IMG game:
This has been a lot so far. It somehow gets worse; we’ve discussed how and why this game came to fruition. That’s bad enough. But in the course of reporting the game, we learned a lot about Bishop Sycamore itself.
Bishop Sycamore’s existence as an actual school has been called into question many times over. If it does, it’s as a new online charter school at most. The school is not recognized by the Ohio High School Athletic Association, and their physical location, practice facilities, and roster eligibility could not be verified.
Many people have pointed out that Bishop Sycamore plays a lot of postgraduate players. Some have actually played in JUCO games and are a few years older than most high school athletes. In their games to date, the team has been shorthanded while also providing little to no information about its roster to broadcast partners, as seen here with no numbers or depth chart.
Football Scoop did some digging into the program and found more questions than answers.
Some highlights:
There are also two very active message board threads about Bishop Sycamore. While we obviously cannot verify all the claims in these threads, we encourage you to read them for yourself, because if just some of the claims are true, athletes are being put in harms way and potentially exploited.
A quick summary can be found of the accusations can be found here on PrepGridIron.com,:
– This is not the first time Bishop Sycamore has played two games over one weekend.
– Head Coach has an active arrest warrant and other legal problems.
– A large amount of players are older than high school age, including players who have played Juco.
From Twitter, and relating to the issue of players being postgrads:
– The team has significant uniform and transportation issues.
– The reputation of the school has long been in question.
– The players were evicted from their housing, leading to their personal credit was affected.
Awful Announcing also spoke to a parent of a former player who confirmed housing has been an issue for Bishop Sycamore, with players evicted from apartment housing or asked to leave hotels due to lack of payment.
Listen, this is gross. It’s just gross.
ESPN is passing the buck. So is Paragon. Nobody wants to own this, but young players were put in danger, and not for the first time. Opposing school ADs are complicit. Everyone seems to know what’s going on here, and nobody cares. It’s disgusting. Hopefully the money was worth it.
IMG Academy’s football team frequently blows out whoever they play.
That’s not surprising; IMG ranks as one of the top high school teams in the country. ESPN’s own press release about IMG’s game yesterday touted nine top-300 players in their senior class as well as ten top-300 ranked juniors. They’re absolutely stacked, making them a draw for networks like ESPN looking to capitalize on the fanatical levels of interest in the world of college football recruiting.
Given all that, it’s easy to see why IMG played in the finale of the Geico Kickoff Classic, a series of seven high school games across ESPN networks featuring some of the country’s best high school teams. You’d think IMG’s opponent, Bishop Sycamore, would be of similar stature. That was very much not the case; IMG won 58-0, yes, but digging beyond the scoreline we found things that are a lot more troubling than the talent disparity on the field.
Bishop Sycamore is a team with very questionable origins and a ton of red flags. Worst of all: they had played a game on Friday night, raising obvious health and safety concerns.
So how did they end up on ESPN?
The network has been upfront in saying that all of the games for the Geico Kickoff are booked by Paragon Marketing. Paragon has been ESPN’s partner on multiple events across different sports and high school programs.
ESPN provided the following statement:
I spoke with Paragon president Rashid Ghazi last night. Ghazi said that they would have cancelled the game had they had known that the same kids played earlier in the weekend, and they had held out hope that Bishop Sycamore perhaps fielded two teams with a split squad approach to the tw0 contests.
Unfortunately that’s not true. Both games are available online. Bishop Sycamore had the same starting quarterback both games, and frequently had players with the same numbers in the same alignments in both games. Coach Roy Johnson admitted as much this afternoon in an interview.
It gets worse: a lot of these players played both ways in both games, meaning these kids had one day of rest after playing offense and defense before doing it all over again against maybe the most talented team in the country. That’s unconscionable, of course, but it gets even worse.
Bishop Sycamore’s Friday night game was played against Roxamore Sports Sto-Rox, and (for now) can be found on YouTube.
The game was played just outside of Pittsburgh, with Bishop Sycamore losing 19-7. Both the news writeup and the game broadcast name Trillian Harris as the starting quarterback for Bishop Sycamore, the same starting quarterback for Sunday’s game against IMG. Although Harris would switch numbers between games, he has the same red facemask (Harris would leave the game after suffering an injury on Sunday, something that happened to a few Sycamore players).
That’s indicative of another thing viewers picked up on Sunday: it looked like Bishop Sycamore had mismatched helmets and potentially not enough helmets for the entire team. That’s despite the roster being reported to be very small: just 30-35 players, hence the two-way participation.
A week ago, Bishop Sycamore posted a Go Fund Me campaign seeking $20,000, to which they’ve raised under $200. The description of that campaign below (unedited on our end):
There’s obviously a lot of shadiness here, but one thing is true: Bishop Sycamore does indeed have the 4th toughest schedule according to Max Preps. They have multiple games scheduled (for now) against various national powerhouse programs.
Friday’s game also seemed to suggest Bishop Sycamore might not have an away white jersey; both teams played in black, which obviously makes it hard on spectators and even the players themselves to tell teams apart.
Below is an illicit YouTube upload of the IMG game.
Comparing both games, you can find usually more than handful of Bishop Sycamore players at the same position lined up with the same number on any given play.
Friday’s game
Sunday’s gameSo, again: how does this game not only take place but make it to national television?
ESPN claims they sounded the alarm to Paragon weeks in advance when they couldn’t learn anything about Bishop Sycamore’s roster, depth chart, or even just any general information about the school.
Bishop Sycamore allegedly bailed on a conference call with ESPN days before the game, before providing a fact sheet of information on Sunday claiming multiple players had major D1 offers from power programs.
ESPN could not verify any of this information and felt they were “scammed.” That feeling permeated the broadcast, including this viral exchange that saw Anish Shroff acknowledging reality. It came after a long weather delay, with the game already out of hand and the Bishop Sycamore coach refusing to allow for a running clock.
A reporter at the game shared the following with me:
Shroff and Tom Luginbill called the game remotely and to their endless credit were very critical the game on Twitter in addition to that moment on the broadcast.
“Early on they (IMG) were getting clean hits on the quarterback on every play,” Shroff told me. “There was clearly a player safety issue.”
That takes us through the broadcast. But the big question: should Paragon, ESPN, and IMG have known better?
Bishop Sycamore went 0-6 last year by a cumulative scoring margin of 227 to 42. That includes a 56-6 loss to IMG; apparently that wasn’t enough to put IMG off playing them again.
While most parties involved seem to be distancing themselves from this fiasco, a Twitter account for Prep Gridiron Logistics has been extremely active on Twitter defending the game. There have also been a few message board accounts using very similar language and reasoning in an effort to prop up the legitimacy of Bishop Sycamore as a school and a football program.
The Prep Gridiron Logistics website states the following:
PGL recently announced a relationship with FloSports that will see many of these teams play each other though out the season, with those games streaming on FloSports.
The quote at the end of that release cites Joe Maimone, Managing Member of Prep Gridiron Logistics.
Paragon offered the following when asked about their role in the Bishop Sycamore-IMG game:
- The two schools verbally agreed to play each other in May.
- PGL recommended Bishop Sycamore but was not involved in contracting or organizing the game.
- Sometimes PGL may schedule a matchup that we pick up for TV. They are usually in the business of helping teams find national matchups not actually organizing the games.
This has been a lot so far. It somehow gets worse; we’ve discussed how and why this game came to fruition. That’s bad enough. But in the course of reporting the game, we learned a lot about Bishop Sycamore itself.
Bishop Sycamore’s existence as an actual school has been called into question many times over. If it does, it’s as a new online charter school at most. The school is not recognized by the Ohio High School Athletic Association, and their physical location, practice facilities, and roster eligibility could not be verified.
Many people have pointed out that Bishop Sycamore plays a lot of postgraduate players. Some have actually played in JUCO games and are a few years older than most high school athletes. In their games to date, the team has been shorthanded while also providing little to no information about its roster to broadcast partners, as seen here with no numbers or depth chart.
Football Scoop did some digging into the program and found more questions than answers.
Further bolstering the amount of issues regarding Bishop Sycamore are different high school football message boards with damning accusations about the school, as well as a feature about the school head coach Roy Johnson started up prior to Bishop Sycamore alleging fraud and mismanagement and that classes may not have been taking place.
Some highlights:
Also:
The Richardson referenced in the feature is former Ohio State and NFL veteran Jay Richardson, who currently works as an analyst for Columbus, Ohio ABC affiliate WSYX. AA was provided to a link to a court filing showing First Merchants Bank suing Roy Johnson and Jay Richardson and others for $100,000 of various types of fraud.
There are also two very active message board threads about Bishop Sycamore. While we obviously cannot verify all the claims in these threads, we encourage you to read them for yourself, because if just some of the claims are true, athletes are being put in harms way and potentially exploited.
A quick summary can be found of the accusations can be found here on PrepGridIron.com,:
On Yappi.com, there is a 45 page thread where the accusations become increasingly alarming. Again, we cannot verify all of these claims, but given surface evidence, it seems worth sharing, because this story is just nuts.
– This is not the first time Bishop Sycamore has played two games over one weekend.
– Head Coach has an active arrest warrant and other legal problems.
– A large amount of players are older than high school age, including players who have played Juco.
From Twitter, and relating to the issue of players being postgrads:
– The team has significant uniform and transportation issues.
– The reputation of the school has long been in question.
– The players were evicted from their housing, leading to their personal credit was affected.
Awful Announcing also spoke to a parent of a former player who confirmed housing has been an issue for Bishop Sycamore, with players evicted from apartment housing or asked to leave hotels due to lack of payment.
Listen, this is gross. It’s just gross.
ESPN is passing the buck. So is Paragon. Nobody wants to own this, but young players were put in danger, and not for the first time. Opposing school ADs are complicit. Everyone seems to know what’s going on here, and nobody cares. It’s disgusting. Hopefully the money was worth it.
