A bizarre event took place on ESPN yesterday as they televised a game between Florida's IMG Academy and Ohio's Bishop Sycamore. IMG Academy basically collects the best players from around the country to play for them like they do in basketball and Bishop Sycamore was believed to be a well-regarded program with multiple D-1 prospects. The problem was Bishop Sycamore does not have any D-1 prospects and they are actually an online charter school. It's also reported that Bishop Sycamore played a game 2 days prior to this game. IMG Academy won the game 58-0 and the ESPN announcers mentioned during the game that. 

"You look at IMG and this is the most talented prep team in the country. Bishop Sycamore told us they had a number of Division I prospects on their roster, and to be frank, a lot of that, we could not verify. They did not show up in our database, they did not show up in the databases of other recruiting services.

So, OK, that’s what you’re telling us, fine, that’s how we take it in. From what we’ve seen so far, this is not a fair fight, and there’s got to be a point where you’re worried about health and safety.
“I already am worried about it. I think this could potentially be dangerous given the circumstances and the mismatch that we have here. And quite honestly, Bishop Sycamore doesn’t have not only the front-line players, but they don’t have the depth in case something were to happen to their roster with a kid or two here throughout the remaining two quarters of this football game.”
  
This sounds like a plot for a lowbrow TV show episode or movie. ESPN is supposed to be a professionally run company, how could they get duped like this? Maybe they just wanted to show IMG Academy and didn't care who the opponent was? Did any of you actually see this? The second link I posted is video of the ESPN announcers mentioning how Bishop Sycamore lied about the players on their team.
  
https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-high-school-football-blowout-bishop-sycamore-img-academy-000431265.html

https://twitter.com/kirk_barton/status/1432081893973954562   

Last edited by Thomas (8/30/2021 11:24 am)