Dwyer QB Brissett turns down Urban Meyer offer

Highly touted senior quarterback Jacoby Brissett of nationally ranked Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) recently received a recruiting offer from Florida head coach Urban Meyer, and kindly said, "No, thanks."

Meyer would like Brissett to accept a greyshirt his freshman year, meaning Brissett would have to pay his own way to college for the first year before being given a scholarship. Meyer already has received a verbal commitment from another highly touted quarterback, Jeff Driskel of Hagerty (Oviedo), thus the reason for offering Brissett the greyshirt.

Can't blame Brissett for not accepting it. His stock steadily is improving and he's having an outstanding season for Dwyer, which has reeled off eight consecutive wins since losing to Glenville (Cleveland) on a controversial last-minute play in the season opener at the Kirk Herbstreit Classic in Ohio. Dwyer rolled to a 49-7 win against playoff-bound West Boca Raton last Friday night, as Brissett completed 14 of 18 passes for 238 yards and four touchdowns in only one half of action.

The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Brissett, who also is an outstanding basketball player, has completed 100 of 147 passes for 1,557 yards, thrown 20 touchdowns and no interceptions, according to stats compiled by the Palm Beach Post. He has registered those numbers despite exiting almost every game early in the third quarter this season after Dwyer had built a commanding lead — the Panthers have outscored their opponents during the current winning streak by a margin of 386-35.

After the win against West Boca, Dwyer coach Jack Daniels said, "Honestly, I think Jacoby could throw for 300 (yards) every game if we'd let him."

Brissett's favorite target has been senior tight end Nick O'Leary, rated the state's top prospect at his position. The two have become good friends on and off the field, and have hinted that they might sign with the same school if that scenario presents itself. Brissett and O'Leary, who is the grandson of golfing legend Jack Nicklaus, so far have taken official recruiting visits together to LSU and Wisconsin. O'Leary also has visited Alabama, which also has offered defensive end teammate Curt Maggitt but not Brissett.

The program that might have the best chance, as of now, of landing both Brissett and O'Leary is Florida State, which is high on both of their recruiting short lists. After his recent experience with Meyer and UF, it's safe to assume that Brissett would love nothing more than to suit up for the Seminoles and try to beat the Gators every year.

2. Rollercoaster ride for Rolle: Northwestern (Miami) coach Billy Rolle had quite a week. As was reported last week, Rolle was unexpectedly fired two weekends ago, but then reinstated early last week following a meeting with his principal, Charles Hankerson. "What happened came in the heat of the moment, and it was a misunderstanding between us," Rolle told the Miami Herald while refusing to elaborate. "That's all I can really say. . . . Me and Charles are longtime friends, and we talked about it. We've never had any problems in the past. We're good now." Rolle, who has won three state championships and a mythical national title during his 14-year coaching tenure, then coached Northwestern to a 35-0 victory against Miami Beach on Friday night despite the absence of highly rated quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who missed his third consecutive game with a sprained medial collateral ligament.

3. Top teams register blowouts: Dwyer was not the only top-rated team in the region to basically have secured a win by halftime last week. St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale) rolled to a 56-0 rout of South Broward (Hollywood) as highly touted quarterback Jacob Rudock passed for 251 yards and five touchdowns. The Raiders, ranked No. 3 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 presented by the Army National Guard, again are considered a top contender to win the Class 5A state title next month. Central (Miami), which is a strong state title contender in Class 6A, trounced Miami Lakes (Hialeah) 63-0 behind record-setting quarterback Rakeem Cato as the Rockets scored seven touchdowns in the first half.

RECRUITING NEWS
* Boynton Beach defensive end Johnathan Harris announced last Friday that he plans to sign with Mississippi State, selecting the Bulldogs over Boston College and Central Florida. The 6-foot-6, 230-pound senior made his decision after visiting the Starkville campus the previous weekend. Harris also had several other offers, including Illinois, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

* Tre Mason of Park Vista (Lake Worth), one of the top-rated running backs in the state, will make an official visit to Auburn this weekend. Mason unofficially has rushed for 1,502 yards and 22 touchdowns this season, but his team was upset last Friday night by Boca Raton and has been eliminated from playoff contention. The 5-10, 190-pound Mason also is considering offers from Michigan, Ole Miss, Penn State, Texas A&M and West Virginia.

* Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) 6-6 senior forward Gregory Louis, who helped the Panthers reach the boys basketball Class 5A state semifinals last season, has made a verbal commitment to Penn.

PLAYOFF BRACKETS FINALIZED
The brackets for all eight classifications have been determined following a handful of district tiebreakers that were played Monday night throughout the state. Next week, I'll take a look at which teams appear to have the clearest path to the state finals next month in Orlando.

Click here to view MaxPreps' Florida football playoff brackets.

DORSEY'S DIGS
Most of the districts in South Florida include at least five or six teams, but there's two in Palm Beach County that consist of only three teams, meaning two-thirds of the teams in those districts qualify for the state playoffs, as the district champion and runner-up advance out of each district. In Class 4A, for instance, Dwyer is the district champion and has a legitimate chance to make it to the state finals. The runner-up in that district, however, is Okeechobee, which has a 3-6 record entering the final week of the regular season and earned the runner-up berth by beating Palm Beach Lakes, a 1-8 team.

There's an identical scenario in Class 2A-District 7, which includes state power and district champion Glades Central (8-1 overall) of Belle Glade and runner-up Suncoast (3-6) of Riviera Beach. Another three-team district that covers Palm Beach and Broward counties is Class 4A-District 16 where the two playoff teams each sport 4-5 records.

I realize that the state association (FHSAA) has tried to decrease travel distance for teams, but three-team districts in a region as populated as South Florida seem ridiculous. There's likely going to be several blowout games in the first round of the playoffs because of weak runner-up teams qualifying out of small districts, and that should not be in a football-rich state like Florida.