{"id":341487,"date":"2025-08-13T15:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/341487\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:35:10","slug":"this-florida-high-school-football-team-is-traveling-to-london-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/341487\/","title":{"rendered":"This Florida High School Football Team Is Traveling To London \u2014 Here\u2019s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s show London how America does football!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>August 13, 2025 10:45 AM EDT\u2022<strong>Updated<\/strong>August 13, 2025 10:45 AM EDT<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"fb\">Facebook<\/li>\n<li class=\"tw\">Twitter<\/li>\n<li class=\"email\">Email<\/li>\n<li class=\"link\">Copy Link<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">For reasons literally nobody can figure out, St. Thomas Aquinas \u2013 one of the many powerhouse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/category\/high-school\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">high school football <\/a>programs in the great state of Florida \u2013 is traveling over 4,000 miles for a game this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Don&#8217;t ask me why, but the Raiders will head to London to face &#8220;NFL Academy&#8221; in October, the team announced Tuesday. The game will take place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">First off \u2013 I had no idea London had what sounds like \u2026 a minor league high school football farm system? Who knew? Are they any good? They can&#8217;t be. There&#8217;s just no way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">But, I reckon we&#8217;ll find out on Oct. 8, when they welcome in the 16-time (!!!) state champs!<\/p>\n<p>Times are certainly changing<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Weird, right? Now, everyone is outraged this morning because of the whole Teddy Bridgewater comparison. Teddy, for those who don&#8217;t know, recently found himself in some hot water because he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/sports\/teddy-bridgewater-suspended-from-high-school-coaching-spending-nearly-100k-his-players\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paid for Uber rides and meals<\/a> for his Miami Northwestern football team last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">That&#8217;s a big no-no when it comes to high school athletics, as dumb as it sounds. Teddy fled the scene and is now backing up Baker Mayfield in Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Here&#8217;s the big difference: Miami Northwestern is a public school. St. Thomas Aquinas is a private school. That means the money flows there like you wouldn&#8217;t believe. It&#8217;s essentially a small college. There&#8217;s a reason they&#8217;ve won a billion state titles over the years. All bets are off when you flip from public to private.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Anyway, back to this upcoming trip \u2026 it&#8217;s odd, right? Apparently, this ain&#8217;t the first time it&#8217;s happened, either. Hell, it&#8217;s not even the first time it&#8217;s happening \u2026 this year! Orlando Edgewater is set to play NFL Academy in a preseason game this week!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Last year, the Eagles defeated NFL Academy, 51-45, in this same game. IMG Academy has also traveled across the pond in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">It seems unnecessary to me, but what do I know? Perhaps the only reason is to give the kids one of those &#8220;once-in-a-lifetime&#8221; experiences? That has to be the only reason, right? Not sure a trip to London is gonna scratch that itch for a 17-year-old pulling guard, but maybe I&#8217;m wrong?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">In any event, if you want in on the action, tuition to St. Thomas Aquinas is a measly $12k a year. Dig deep into those pockets, and let&#8217;s send the fellas over to the UK to show the Brits how it&#8217;s done between the hashes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s show London how America does football! PublishedAugust 13, 2025 10:45 AM EDT\u2022UpdatedAugust 13, 2025 10:45 AM EDT&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-341487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115022195833930801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}