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In 1963, Coral Gables downed Robinson (Tampa) for the first-ever FHSAA football state title and the only championship game played that year.
Now 63 years later, Florida teams will take the field in hopes of claiming one of 11 different championships sanctioned by the FHSAA.
The FHSAA introduced the Open Division for the 2026-27 season, a new championship series that will pull the top eight ranked teams in the state from the traditional state championship series and enter them into their own postseason.
Teams will be seeded by their rankings, with seeds 1, 4, 5, and 8 placed in Pool A and seeds 2, 3, 6, and 7 in Pool B. After pool play, the top two teams from each pool (four teams total) will face off in a single elimination tournament to crown the Open Division championship.
The new Open Division was created after a handful of teams from select parts of the state have largely dominated the State Series.
St. Thomas Aquinas has won 11 state titles in the last 16 years, including seven straight since 2019. Chaminade-Madonna won seven championships in the last nine years. The five teams in Miami that share Traz Powell as a home stadium have accounted for 22 state championships since 2007.
Just as a south Florida team claimed the first FHSAA title, the region is still influencing the championship landscape in 2026.
With the new format, there is a good chance most of south Florida's premier teams programs will by vying for one of the top eight seeds in Florida and not a state championship. St. Thomas Aquinas, Chaminade-Madonna, Miami Central, and Carol City all began the year as top-8 seeds on MaxPreps, along with another traditional power in American Heritage.
DeLand head coach Rick Darlington is a three-time state champion and is on the FHSAA Football Advisory committee, which offers guidance to the FHSAA on proposed rules and regulations. He likens the Open Division to the metro-suburban split in 2022, when the state separated schools in large metros like Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, and Orlando into their own championship series in order to clear the way for the schools those large metros typically trounced in the playoffs.
"The FHSAA changes things every two years," Darlington said at a preseason media day. "Two years ago there was Suburban-Rural, and everybody loved it, then they got rid of it. And now they've got different power rankings, no one knows how they work. So who knows what they're going to do."
The changes implemented by the FHSAA have always been geared toward parity in the postseason. As the Sunshine State Athletic Association began to siphon off member schools, the FHSAA began the Florida Invitational Tournament (FIT) for schools to get another shot at a banner. Now instead of switching athletic associations in order to hunt for a championship, the first 16 teams that do not make the State Series playoffs are entered into their own postseason.
The FHSAA went one step further this year with the introduction of the Independent League, which more than 50 schools have opted into. These schools can independently put together their schedules without following FHSAA district rules, and will play for a Division A and Division B championship.
That means with the addition of the Open Division and Independent League, the FHSAA will crown six different state series champions, two different Invitational champions, two different Independent champions and an Open Division champion — a total of 11 sanctioned state football championships in 2026.
"There's a lot of lunacy in Florida high school football right now," Darlington said. "All for the sake of everyone get's a trophy, I think."
Rankings have always been important for coaches, as the FHSAA's in-house rankings were used to decide who did and did not make the playoffs. This year, the FHSAA will be using MaxPreps' rankings to determine which teams will make the Open Division.
MaxPreps uses a proprietary algorithm for their rankings that does not rely on any human input, and heavily values metrics like strength of schedule, game results, and margin of victory. Intangible metrics like program history, geography, or school classification are decidedly left out of the equation.
"What happens now, everyone's terrified of the power rankings because no one knows how it works," Darlington said. "Does strength of schedule help you or hurt you? Last year, a loss would hurt you. So now people don't want to play."
Darlington, and other head coaches, struggled to put together schedules this year for precisely for that reason. The Bulldogs will play eight home games this year, with many being against elite programs with state title aspirations of their own.
"It was brutal," Darlington said. "I couldn't get teams to play. We either had to pay them a lot of money to come — which is fine, or play teams like St. Frances, which is the No. 1 team in the country, Lake Wales which is a favorite to win their class, Lake Mary in Week 4. We basically had to play whoever we could get."
DeLand returns 18 senior starters from last year's 12-1 squad, and their strength of schedule is among the best in the state before the start of the year. If the Bulldogs win out, a top-8 seed is not out of the realm of the possibility. Jones is also in a similar category, having lost back-to-back state championships to American Heritage and returns one of the strongest defensive cores in the state.
Instead of a chance to win the program's first state title in history, their reward would be the murderers' row that will comprise the Open Division this year.
Darlington suggested a stipulation for the Open Division — that your program needed to have won a state championship in the last 10 years in order to qualify. The FHSAA ultimately decided not to implement the filter.
The FHSAA also mulled over the idea of a human selection committee, or at least a degree of human oversight in the selection process. That too, was not adopted in this iteration of the Open Division and the teams will be selected entirely by MaxPreps’ algorithm.
“The teams that have won a lot of them, they should be in there if they’re in the top eight,” he said. “But DeLand, Edgewater, Jones, teams that have never won one — to have a magical run and then be put in their with those teams your first time getting a shot at it? I don’t think that’s really a good idea, but that’s not my call.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Craziest change yet? Florida High School football will crown 11 champs
Continue reading...
Now 63 years later, Florida teams will take the field in hopes of claiming one of 11 different championships sanctioned by the FHSAA.
The FHSAA introduced the Open Division for the 2026-27 season, a new championship series that will pull the top eight ranked teams in the state from the traditional state championship series and enter them into their own postseason.
Teams will be seeded by their rankings, with seeds 1, 4, 5, and 8 placed in Pool A and seeds 2, 3, 6, and 7 in Pool B. After pool play, the top two teams from each pool (four teams total) will face off in a single elimination tournament to crown the Open Division championship.
The new Open Division was created after a handful of teams from select parts of the state have largely dominated the State Series.
St. Thomas Aquinas has won 11 state titles in the last 16 years, including seven straight since 2019. Chaminade-Madonna won seven championships in the last nine years. The five teams in Miami that share Traz Powell as a home stadium have accounted for 22 state championships since 2007.
Just as a south Florida team claimed the first FHSAA title, the region is still influencing the championship landscape in 2026.
Open Division a reminder of ever-changing championship format
With the new format, there is a good chance most of south Florida's premier teams programs will by vying for one of the top eight seeds in Florida and not a state championship. St. Thomas Aquinas, Chaminade-Madonna, Miami Central, and Carol City all began the year as top-8 seeds on MaxPreps, along with another traditional power in American Heritage.
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DeLand head coach Rick Darlington is a three-time state champion and is on the FHSAA Football Advisory committee, which offers guidance to the FHSAA on proposed rules and regulations. He likens the Open Division to the metro-suburban split in 2022, when the state separated schools in large metros like Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, and Orlando into their own championship series in order to clear the way for the schools those large metros typically trounced in the playoffs.
"The FHSAA changes things every two years," Darlington said at a preseason media day. "Two years ago there was Suburban-Rural, and everybody loved it, then they got rid of it. And now they've got different power rankings, no one knows how they work. So who knows what they're going to do."
The changes implemented by the FHSAA have always been geared toward parity in the postseason. As the Sunshine State Athletic Association began to siphon off member schools, the FHSAA began the Florida Invitational Tournament (FIT) for schools to get another shot at a banner. Now instead of switching athletic associations in order to hunt for a championship, the first 16 teams that do not make the State Series playoffs are entered into their own postseason.
The FHSAA went one step further this year with the introduction of the Independent League, which more than 50 schools have opted into. These schools can independently put together their schedules without following FHSAA district rules, and will play for a Division A and Division B championship.
That means with the addition of the Open Division and Independent League, the FHSAA will crown six different state series champions, two different Invitational champions, two different Independent champions and an Open Division champion — a total of 11 sanctioned state football championships in 2026.
You must be registered for see images attach
"There's a lot of lunacy in Florida high school football right now," Darlington said. "All for the sake of everyone get's a trophy, I think."
Third-party ranking system dictates Florida state championship field
Rankings have always been important for coaches, as the FHSAA's in-house rankings were used to decide who did and did not make the playoffs. This year, the FHSAA will be using MaxPreps' rankings to determine which teams will make the Open Division.
MaxPreps uses a proprietary algorithm for their rankings that does not rely on any human input, and heavily values metrics like strength of schedule, game results, and margin of victory. Intangible metrics like program history, geography, or school classification are decidedly left out of the equation.
"What happens now, everyone's terrified of the power rankings because no one knows how it works," Darlington said. "Does strength of schedule help you or hurt you? Last year, a loss would hurt you. So now people don't want to play."
Darlington, and other head coaches, struggled to put together schedules this year for precisely for that reason. The Bulldogs will play eight home games this year, with many being against elite programs with state title aspirations of their own.
"It was brutal," Darlington said. "I couldn't get teams to play. We either had to pay them a lot of money to come — which is fine, or play teams like St. Frances, which is the No. 1 team in the country, Lake Wales which is a favorite to win their class, Lake Mary in Week 4. We basically had to play whoever we could get."
DeLand returns 18 senior starters from last year's 12-1 squad, and their strength of schedule is among the best in the state before the start of the year. If the Bulldogs win out, a top-8 seed is not out of the realm of the possibility. Jones is also in a similar category, having lost back-to-back state championships to American Heritage and returns one of the strongest defensive cores in the state.
Instead of a chance to win the program's first state title in history, their reward would be the murderers' row that will comprise the Open Division this year.
Darlington suggested a stipulation for the Open Division — that your program needed to have won a state championship in the last 10 years in order to qualify. The FHSAA ultimately decided not to implement the filter.
The FHSAA also mulled over the idea of a human selection committee, or at least a degree of human oversight in the selection process. That too, was not adopted in this iteration of the Open Division and the teams will be selected entirely by MaxPreps’ algorithm.
“The teams that have won a lot of them, they should be in there if they’re in the top eight,” he said. “But DeLand, Edgewater, Jones, teams that have never won one — to have a magical run and then be put in their with those teams your first time getting a shot at it? I don’t think that’s really a good idea, but that’s not my call.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Craziest change yet? Florida High School football will crown 11 champs
Continue reading...
