NATIONAL RANKINGS: Florida Places 53 Programs in HSFA Preseason 300, Leads Nation as Open Division Era Begins

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct ranking placements and state program totals. We regret the errors.

Florida high school football programs claimed 53 spots in High School Football America’s 2026 Preseason Top 300, released Monday and powered by NFL Play Football, extending the Sunshine State’s streak as the most represented state in the country’s most comprehensive prep football rankings. Texas and Georgia each placed 38 programs. No one else was particularly close.

The rankings land at a pivotal moment for Florida prep football. The FHSAA is introducing an Open Division format this fall for the first time in state history — a standalone postseason bracket that pits the top eight MaxPreps-ranked teams in Florida against each other regardless of classification. No more hiding behind enrollment numbers. The question of who is actually the best team in the state will finally get a clean answer.

That context makes every ranking, every placement, and every movement in this list matter more than it ever has before.

STA slips to No. 4 and nobody in Fort Lauderdale is losing sleep over it

St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale), the defending HSFA national champion and winner of seven consecutive Florida state titles, opens 2026 ranked fourth in the country. The algorithm’s reasoning is cold logic — the Raiders went 14-1, with that one loss coming against Mater Dei in last year’s season opener — but the drop from No. 1 to No. 4 will fuel a program that has never needed much fueling to begin with.

Their August 29 opener against DeSoto, ranked 22nd nationally out of Texas, is already the most anticipated early-season game on Florida’s prep calendar. If STA handles it the way they’ve handled most things over the past seven years, the conversation about their national ranking will be very short-lived.

IMG Academy in Bradenton, meanwhile, opens at No. 3 after going undefeated at 9-0 in 2025. The Ascenders play a schedule that annually includes some of the best programs in the country and closes November 13 against No. 6 St. Frances Academy of Maryland — a game that figures to have serious national championship implications. Florida’s fingerprints will be all over the national title race, same as always.

The Open Division bubble is already bubbling

Below the two national independents, the FHSAA-eligible programs with Open Division aspirations are stacked in a tight national band — and several of them have legitimate grievances with where they landed.

Raines of Jacksonville went a perfect 14-0 last season and finished 2025 ranked 17th nationally. They open 2026 at No. 46. That’s the kind of number that gets taped to a weight room wall and stays there until November. Miami Northwestern (No. 26), Miami Central (No. 35), Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood) (No. 37), and American Heritage (Plantation) (No. 41) round out the core of what figures to be a ferocious Open Division race.

Lakeland (No. 55), Cardinal Newman (No. 57), and West Boca Raton (No. 64) sit just outside that group, with Buchholz (Gainesville) (No. 120) as the most prominent bubble program in the state. The MaxPreps power ratings — which will actually determine the Open Division field — are a different animal than the HSFA algorithm, and a strong non-district schedule could move any of these programs significantly by October.

The most puzzling placement in the entire rankings

Columbus (Miami) went 4-8 last season. They were not ranked in the final 2025 HSFA 300. They open 2026 at No. 113 nationally.

That is not a typo. The algorithm looked past the record and found something — talent level, recruiting pipeline, the quality of competition Columbus was facing — and decided this program is significantly better than its win-loss column suggested. Columbus enters 2026 with more to prove than almost any team in the state, and if HSFA’s formula is right, they’re about to make a lot of noise.

Three programs the algorithm is clearly higher on than most people

Venice climbed 25 spots to No. 77 despite going 9-4 a year ago. The Indians played a difficult schedule, their losses came against quality opponents, and this is a program with enough institutional credibility that the algorithm doesn’t overreact to a down year. Expect a bounce-back.

Miami Norland jumped 42 spots despite going 6-6. Read that again. Forty-two spots, for a .500 team. That is a loud statement about a program the formula believes is loaded with talent that the scoreboard simply didn’t reflect. File it away.

Edgewater (Orlando) (No. 93, up 21 spots) and Jones (No. 86, up 20 spots) both out of Orlando make the Central Florida region worth watching as a collective this season. The I-4 corridor has been building toward something for a few years. These rankings suggest it’s arriving.

The big fallers and what it means

Port Charlotte went 11-3 and dropped 104 spots, from No. 159 to No. 263. That is the steepest single-program decline among Florida schools and almost certainly reflects schedule recalibration — the opponents Port Charlotte beat last year didn’t hold up well once the algorithm reassessed the full national picture. Choctawhatchee (Fort Walton Beach) (-66), Miami Southridge (-63), Vanguard (Ocala) (-60), and McArthur (Hollywood) (-50) all took significant hits despite winning records, for similar reasons.

Buchholz drops 26 spots to No. 120 after going 12-2. The Bobcats remain a Top 125 national program and a legitimate Open Division bubble team, but the competition around them recalibrated this offseason, and they’ll need to respond on the field.

The bigger picture

Fifty-three programs. Programs from Fort Walton Beach to Miami-Dade, from Lake City to Sarasota, from Ocala to Kissimmee — where Osceola sneaks into the national rankings for the first time after going unranked in 2025. Two programs in the national Top 5. A new Open Division format that is going to produce the most compelling postseason in the history of Florida prep football.

The rest of the country has been chasing Florida for years. The 2026 season, with more at stake than ever before, isn’t going to change that.

Fall camp opens July 27. The Kickoff Classics start August 14 while regular season games for FHSAA teams kickoff August 21. It’s almost time.

All 53 Florida Programs in the 2026 Preseason HSFA 300

(*) Denotes asterisk on original record as listed by HSFA.

Source: High School Football America / NFL Play Football, June 22, 2026.