{"id":373690,"date":"2026-08-17T14:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/373690\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:02:09","slug":"high-school-football-kicks-off-with-new-fhsaa-open-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/373690\/","title":{"rendered":"High school football kicks off with new FHSAA Open Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida High School Athletic Association begins a new era this football season with a groundbreaking change in its state playoff format. After years of discussion and debate, the FHSAA created an Open Division<\/a> that will pull eight elite teams out of the traditional playoff process and into a separate bracket.<\/p>\n

The FHSAA\u2019s hope is that elevating dominant teams in football and 10 other sports into the Open brackets will create a more even playing field for its traditional state tournaments. The great eight will be selected based on rankings computed by MaxPreps.<\/p>\n

Another new twist for the Open Division has pool play. That assures each team at least three games.<\/p>\n

Some football coaches love the idea. Others dislike it. Many say they don\u2019t really care because the addition of the Open Division should not affect them.<\/p>\n

FHSAA\u2019s Open Division playoffs set for 2026-27; 8 top-ranked teams collide<\/a><\/p>\n

Scott Perry, who coached Lake Mary to the Class 7A state title<\/a> in a wild thriller last December, has mixed feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly don\u2019t know what to think about. I\u2019m not opposed to it,\u201d Perry said. \u201cI do think it would be unfair to get placed in an Open Division against like St. Thomas Aquinas or some of these private schools that have all that money and everything they got.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the caliber of the programs that have been winning, it\u2019s hard to match up as a public school, because (privates) have so much money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aquinas, a Fort Lauderdale Catholic school, has won a record 17 state championships, including seven in a row.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the change say Florida\u2019s school choice and open enrollment policies have given schools like Aquinas and Chaminade-Madonna of Hollywood (nine state titles) huge advantages in an era where the superpowers annually gain game-changing transfers.<\/p>\n

Chaminade won seven titles in eight seasons before it lost 17-14 against another South Florida private school, Cardinal Newman of West Palm Beach, in last year\u2019s Class 1A final.<\/p>\n

\"St.St. Thomas Aquinas coach Roger Harriott has led the Raiders to seven consecutive state championships and 10 in the last 12 years. (Michele Eve Sandberg\/Contributor)<\/p>\n

Aquinas coach Roger Harriott said the Open Division doesn\u2019t change anything for the Raiders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s business as usual for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aquinas has won 10 titles in three different classes under Harriott, a former Raiders player who also won a title at Nova Southeastern University School in Fort Lauderdale (2012).<\/p>\n

Jones High of Orlando reached the 4A championship game the past two seasons and lost both times to another South Florida private school power, American Heritage-Plantation, which has won six titles.<\/p>\n

Jones coach Elijah Williams said the possibility of having a playoff path that would not include American Heritage would not matter to Tigers fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur fan base wants a state title, because we ain\u2019t never won one. So they don\u2019t care about that,\u201d Williams. \u201cI believe you ain\u2019t no state champion if you ain\u2019t playing Broward or Dade County teams. There\u2019s always some Miami team. To win state you gotta go through a lot of good teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JonesJones head coach Elijah Williams has led his team to back-to-back appearances in the Class 4A state championship game, but the Tigers have yet to win the title. (Chris Hays\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

But if Jones makes the Open 8, it would reduce its chances to win a state championship trophy in that loaded bracket.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rewarding to be in the top eight in Florida, but at the end of the day, you want to win a state championship,\u201d Williams said. \u201cAnd if we go 10-0, we already know we\u2019re gonna make the top eight.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLand coach Rick Darlington is not a fan of the change for that very reason.<\/p>\n

He points out that if DeLand has the No. 1 power ranking in the large-school class (now 6A) at the end of the regular season it would be a favorite to win a state title. But if they are ranked in the top eight they would be pulled into the Open Division, likely as an underdog.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not fair to teams like us, Edgewater and Jones, who have never won a state title. And think about how close Jones and Edgewater have been. So now, to finally have that team that can win it, and you get thrown in there with St. Thomas and Chaminade and American Heritage and Venice and Lakeland,\u201d Darlington said.<\/p>\n

MaxPreps published a preseason ranking of the Top 100 teams in the nation. It included returnees, transfers and other factors. If the nine teams on that list hold their positions, the 2026 Open bracket would have, in order, Aquinas, Carol City of Miami, American Heritage, Chaminade, Miami Central, West Boca, Cardinal Mooney and Lakeland. DeLand would be No. 9.<\/p>\n

DeLand, which lost to Lake Mary in a 7A quarterfinal last year, returns 18 senior starters and has one of the best running backs in the state in junior Taihj Moore.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just win our class, and then maybe after you\u2019ve won your class, take the top four highest-ranked teams that won state and have them play for two more weeks,\u201d Darlington suggested. \u201cSo then you can still have Edgewater state champion and Edgewater Open Division champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darlington and Williams agree that the Open 8 should be only for teams that have previously won state championships.<\/p>\n

\"HeadHead coach Rick Darlington at DeLand has the makings of a team that could make a run at a state championship this season. (Chris Hays\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Last season, five of the seven champions above the Rural Division had previously won titles, including Aquinas and American Heritage. It was the fourth for Raines of Jacksonville, third for Cardinal Mooney of Sarasota, and second for West Boca Raton. The two first-timers were Lake Mary and Cardinal Newman.<\/p>\n

West Boca was the only first-time champ in 2024.<\/p>\n

Darlington is on the FHSAA\u2019s football coaches advisory committee, which discussed the Open concept and made recommendations to the association\u2019s staff and board of directors, which approved the Open Division plan in June by a 10-0 vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said, \u2018You have to have won a state title in the last 10 years to be considered (for the Open 8),\u2019 but someone up above us took that out,\u201d Darlington said. \u201cFor us, I don\u2019t like it. For someone like St. Thomas, I think it is absolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is another concern. Will highly-ranked teams who want to avoid being bumped to the Open 8 consider throwing a game? Would a team bench starters to tank and drop in the rankings?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh I\u2019m pretty sure some teams will do that. The NBA does it all the time,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut not me. I can\u2019t take no L. I ain\u2019t built like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also some fear that the traditional classification brackets (1A through 6A this year) will be seen as watered down tournaments with less meaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will say that,\u201d Perry said. \u201cIf I\u2019m the one who wins, then I would say that I won the ones they put in front of me. That\u2019s all you can control. But the ones who are jumping up to the Great 8 or whatever you call it, the Open Division, if they don\u2019t win they could be like, \u2018Well, we would have won our division.\u2019 So there will be talk like that no matter what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darlington said winning a state title won\u2019t be tainted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we win a state title, I don\u2019t care what anyone says about how we didn\u2019t play this team or that. The ring is still shiny,\u201d Darlington said.<\/p>\n

Chris Hays can be found on X.com @OS_ChrisHays<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida High School Athletic Association begins a new era this football season with a groundbreaking change in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1745,3745,139,141,140,76046,76642,110],"class_list":["post-373690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-high-school-football","tag-high-school-sports","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-social-varsity-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}