According to MaxPreps, Bishop Sycamore has one game still remaining this season. The school that lied its way onto ESPN is still scheduled to face St. Thomas More School out of Oakdale, Conn., on Oct. 8. It remains to be seen whether that games happen.
Still, Bishop Sycamore persists. The program still claims to exist, and it exists in the mind of popular culture -- it's the most-used name on Yahoo's fantasy football platform and will remain shorthand for a fake high school for years to come.
But the school has gotten one thing straight in the wake of last Sunday's 58-0 humbling by IMG Academy -- it's actually not a school after all.
"We do not offer curriculum," head coach Tyren Jackson told WCMH-TV in its hometown of Columbus. "We are not a school. That’s not what Bishop Sycamore is, and I think that’s what the biggest misconception about us was, and that was our fault. Because that was a mistake on paperwork."
Jackson said the school is a "post-grad football academy."
This runs in direct conflict with what founder, director and offensive/defensive line coach Andre Peterson told USA Today last week, who said that the website, which was basically a blog on how to get recruited and has now been taken down for maintenance, said this:
"We have to make sure that website also includes the academic part of it. There’s things that you learn. There’s growing pains that you have. We realized that’s an issue. The reality of it is we’ve caused some of the questions by not doing some of the things that should have been done before. So that’s understandable. I totally get that. We have to make it an actual school website.”
Peterson also claimed his son was in the Bishop Sycamore "program" and had been so for four years. "If it’s a scam and the kids are not going to school and not doing what they’re supposed to do, then I’m literally scamming myself," he said.
Bishop Sycamore registered with the Ohio Department of Education as a "non-charter, non-tax supported school," and it's doubtful Sycamore marketed itself to opponents as a "post-grad football academy."
Either way, Ohio governor Mike DeWine directed the state's department of education to get to the bottom of whatever Bishop Sycamore is or isn't.
I have asked @OHEducation to conduct an investigation into Bishop Sycamore to ensure compliance with Ohio law and to ensure the school is providing the educational opportunities Ohio students deserve.
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) August 31, 2021
A former player tweeted that the academic component of Bishop Sycamore amounted to, essentially, a field trip to a local community library.
From the outside, I see two currents of truth running through the entire Bishop Sycamore saga.
First, whoever is representing the program to an outside entity says whatever makes them -- the person, the school, or both if the person's interest happens to align with the "school" -- looks the best in that moment. If they're trying to get on ESPN, they have 25 or more D1 prospects. If they need charity from a vendor, they're affiliated with a church and will come up with the money later. If it looks good for Bishop Sycamore to be a real school, then they are a real school and the website just isn't up to speed yet. Or if not, then they're just a post-grad football academy.
Second, the kids wearing Bishop Sycamore uniforms are getting ripped off.