On Monday afternoon the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) held a press conference and announced that the high school football regular season has been pushed back due to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
“This year has been a very unique year for us,” FHSAA Executive Director Craig Damon said via Zoom. “Most of the state has been impacted, directly or indirectly, by inclement weather throughout the year. We had two major hurricanes unprecedented, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and extensive flooding as a result of rain to specific areas.”
Damon said all of those things resulted in game contests being delayed or canceled across the state and as a result, the FHSAA is adding an extra week to the regular season for the sport of football.
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“This week can be used in several different ways,” Damon said. “It can be used to make up a game or it can be used as a bye week before starting the playoffs, so if a team has earned a spot in the playoffs they can take that week off as a bye week to help get ready for the playoffs.”
All contests, whether it’s a district contest or non-district contest, must be completed by Thursday, Nov. 7. That date was selected to allow the FHSAA staff some time to make sure all of the results that are posted on MaxPreps are correct.
The FHSAA will release its brackets on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Eastside is taking advantage of the extra week and is moving its Class 3A-District 5 game at South Sumer (Bushnell), originally scheduled for Friday, Oct. 11, to Thursday, Nov. 7.
The Rams, who defeated Dunnellon on Nov. 3 in a key district game, are 1-0 in league play along with South Sumter, so that could be for the district title. Eastside must beat North Marion (Citra) on the road on Oct. 25 to have a chance at a third straight district title.
Originally, the FHSAA Football state playoffs were to begin on Friday, Nov. 8. Now the postseason will begin on Friday, Nov. 15.
The week of Dec. 2-6 was originally scheduled as a bye week for Classes 1A-7A. However, that bye week has now been moved to Nov. 4-7.
The Rural A & B classifications play one less round (16 teams per division) than the larger classes. The Villages Charter School will host the Rural classification football state championships on Friday, Dec. 6, most likely 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Although the contract has yet to be signed, the FHSAA has an agreement in place for FIU (Pitbull Stadium) to host the 1A-7A state championship games on Dec. 11-14.
For the individual sports of bowling, cross country, golf, and swimming and diving the minimum contest requirement for postseason participation has been waived by the FHSAA.
That means that all student-athletes who have been impacted by weather will have an opportunity to participate in the FHSAA state series for those sports.
For the sport of volleyball, district tournaments were supposed to end on Friday, but it has been extended through Saturday. However, the FHSAA is going to be flexible for schools who are unable to finish by Saturday.
The FHSAA Volleyball district tournaments began today for some districts, with district championship games in the area scheduled for Thursday.
Damon noted that schedules are subject to change based on what the weather does.
For more information about the FHSAA state playoffs, visit www.fhsaa.com.
Mike Ridaught is sports director for Mainstreet Daily News. Mike hosts a weekly high school sports show at Sonic Drive-In from August – May and does play-by-play for a Game-of-the Week on 106.9 FM “I Am Country” during football season. He teaches a play-by-play class at the University of Florida. He does play-by-play for the Cal Ripken World Series in Branson, Mo., in August. Mike is also founder of The Prep Zone.
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