Raiders favorite to win record 5th title in a row
Ryan Mack had every reason not to pick St. Thomas Aquinas when it came time to choose where he’d attend high school in 2020.
His mother teaches at Deerfield Beach and his older brother was a Buck, too. His father, Rod Mack, was a star at Monsignor Pace before going on to play at Miami. The COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning and the tall task of earning playing time as an underclassman for the Raiders was going to be even steeper without a chance to make an impression in summer workouts.
The star safety can’t even count the number of times he heard the same words of caution about going to play at the Fort Lauderdale powerhouse.
“Everyone tells you, ‘Don’t go to St. Thomas. You’re not going to start until you’re a senior,’ ” said Mack, who followed in his dad’s footsteps and orally committed to the Hurricanes in June. “We ... were like, ‘Nah, we’re good enough for that.’ ”
Mack has been rewarded by his decision, as have star running back Jordan Lyle, star wide receiver Chance Robinson and star outside linebacker Nicholas Rodriguez, who are four of nearly two dozen Raiders to spend all four years at St. Thomas Aquinas.
All four are now threetime state champions with a chance to make history by helping the Raiders set a state record with five in a row this year, all four have committed to schools in the Power 5 conferences — Mack and Robinson are both committed to Miami, Lyle has pledged to Ohio State and Rodriguez is locked in with Missouri — and all four, after patiently waiting, are now key players for one of the best teams in the country.
There are a lot of reasons why St. Thomas Aquinas is the No. 9 team in the nation, according to MaxPreps’ rankings, and holds the Florida record with 14 state titles.
The sheer talent — and particularly the depth of talent, often added via transfer — is probably the first. The coaches — coach Roger Harriott is a sixtime state champion and former Dolphins linebacker Twan Russell is still on staff, even as he serves as the high school’s athletic director — are high on the list, too. Plenty of teams across South Florida have elite talent and great coaching, though. The Raiders stay a step ahead of almost everyone else because of players such as Lyle, Robinson, Rodriguez and Mack.
“We’ve got a very rich tradition of championship excellence, so it’s easy to become arrogant, but we — as coaches, and teachers and administrators — really focus on the parental aspect of their development,” Harriott said. “We really focus on the importance of humility and gratitude.”
At St. Thomas Aquinas, it’s hard not be humbled sometimes, at least for someone who spends four years playing football there.
Lyle, who’s now a four-star running back in the 247Sports composite rankings for the Class of 2024, remembers when some of the freshmen finally got called up to varsity near the end of the 2020 season to fill out the scout team and he, only 14 and all of about 150 pounds, kept running into the brick wall that was Dallas Turner, who was a five-star edge rusher then and is now a star at Alabama.
The tailback got his first scholarship less than six months later, before he had a single varsity touch.
“I was never intimidated by anyone,” he said, “but there were always those guys that were just bigger than you.”
Mack, who’s now a three-star safety, remembers flirting with transferring after he spent his entire freshman season playing junior varsity and watching varsity games from the sideline.
The defensive back decided to stick it out — he already had an offer from the Hurricanes and had about half a dozen by the end of his freshman year, before he logged a single varsity snap.
“I was a little mad because we didn’t really get the chance to be on varsity,” he said. “My family and I thought about leaving, and going to another school, but I feel like not doing that helped me just competing with the guys that’s out there right now. ... That’s how it’s going to be in college and that was the main reason for me picking St. Thomas, because it’s the closest thing you can get to college down here.”
When every season brings upperclassmen to step in and immediately play key roles for a championship contender, St. Thomas Aquinas needs players who went through the multiyear grind to earn their roles.
“They respect the fact that there’s a transformational process within our organization and they learn to legitimately trust the process,” Harriott said, “but we don’t only reinforce that concept. They also understand the importance of enjoying the process. We go through our difficulties, and realize it’s an opportunity to exercise their faith and increase their character.”
Those five longtime Raiders set the example for a roster stacked with talent of all different origins. In the backfield with Lyle is four-star running back Stacy Gage, who moved to the region from the Tampa Bay area after spending last season at Bradenton IMG Academy and is already committed to UCF. In the secondary with Mack is three-star cornerback Romanas Frederique Jr., who transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas from Deerfield Beach in January and is also committed to Miami.
Other top 1,000 recruits who didn’t start their career as Raiders include four-star wide receiver James Madison II, who’s following Rodriguez to the Tigers, and Pittsburghbound three-star safety Allen Bryant.
Every title-contending program now fills its roster with transfers. The ones who win titles have some sort of strong cultural foundation as a starting point.
“We just make sure we push all the young guys and make sure the young guys understand that you have to do a certain thing,” Lyle said. “It’s just tradition, but it excels the team so much. We’re all on the same page.”
Even for a team as decorated as the Raiders, this year has a chance to be a historic one. St. Thomas Aquinas became only the sixth school to win four straight state championships last year — Miami Central also did it for the second time in school history last season — and has a chance to become the first team to win five in a row this year, while Central will also go for the same feat.
No one has won more Florida High School Athletic Association championships than St. Thomas Aquinas and now the Raiders have another way to add to their storied legacy.
“That would mean a whole lot to me,” Mack said. “For the whole team I know it’s big, too, and especially for Coach Harriott. I feel like it would make him one of the greatest coaches ever, in my opinion. I just feel like we have an opportunity to make history together and we need to go out there and seize the opportunity.”