BY CLIFF SMELLEY
After slipping a spot in last week’s Florida High School/MaxPreps Region 2-2A power rankings, the Bradford High School football team is back in the number-one slot with the release of the latest rankings on Oct. 7.
Rankings, which take record and strength of schedule into account, will be updated weekly and be used to determine playoff seeding and at-large qualifiers.
The four district champions in each of the four regions in 2A automatically qualify for the playoffs. Each region will also have four at-larger qualifiers.
In Region 2, the top eight, besides Bradford (6-1), currently consists of The Villages (7-0) in second, Clearwater Calvary Christian (4-3) in third, Titusville Astronaut (5-2) in fourth, Cocoa (2-4) in fifth, Santa Fe (4-2) in sixth, Newberry (3-3) in seventh and Tampa Berkeley Prep (1-4) in eighth.
Bradford is ranked fourth in Class 2A regardless of region behind Sarasota Cardinal Mooney (5-1), Jacksonville Bolles (5-1) and St. Petersburg Lakewood (7-0).
Bolles had been the top team in 2A every week until being jumped by Cardinal Mooney.
Two of the Tornadoes’ victories have come against two current top-10 teams: Mandarin, which is fourth in Class 6A and South Sumter, which is 10th in Class 3A. Bradford also has a win over Eastside, which is 12th in Class 3A.
Complete rankings can be viewed at www.fhsaa.com.
