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Breaking news: a new athletic conference is being formed called the Heartland Conference


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I'm getting this info from Sun Sports feed (SW FL news) on facebook but I can't find any official online news stories yet about.  The article named Lemon Bay, DeSoto, Frostproof, Lake Placid, Hardee, LaBelle and Avon Park as founding members.  It is an alliance of like-sized programs that want stability and a level playing field. I suppose they weren't interested in the SSAA which seems to have the same goal?

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I've been told that Hardee has applied to join SSAA and can only assume the others have as well. Frostproof & Labelle are already SSAA members.  Play won't begin until 2026. Honestly I would not be surprised if more schools don't follow suit.   Here's the article:

SEVEN FLORIDA SCHOOLS TO FORM HEARTLAND CONFERENCE
By DOUG DONNELLY
Seven high school football programs in central and southwest Florida have announced the formation of a new athletic conference, the Heartland Conference, set to begin competition in 2026.
The conference will consist of DeSoto County High School, Frostproof High School, LaBelle High School, Lake Placid High School, Lemon Bay High School, Hardee High School, and Avon Park High School.
Organizers say the similar-size schools are joining together with a mission to advocate for Florida High School Athletic Association rules for the greater good of the development of student athletes. Consistent scheduling, natural rivalries and geographic proximity are benefits of the conference.
Play will begin in the 2026-27 scheduling cycle so that schools can honor current contracts.
“The rebirth of the Heartland Conference will be exciting for communities, fans, players, and coaches,” said DeSoto County High School coach Clifford Lohrey. “The opportunity to create stability in the continuously changing world of high school athletics is important for rivalries that are heading toward extinction. The chance to have both conference and district play in our schedule is important in creating an environment where every game matters.”
Jason Mensing, head coach at Lemon Bay, echoed those sentiments, adding that the schools share a common philosophy.
“The Heartland Conference will provide our student-athletes with consistent, high-quality competition against schools with similar demographics and geographic proximity,” Mensing said. “This will also create more opportunities for local rivalries and enhance the overall experience for our players, coaches, and fans.”
The conference aims to create a more level playing field for each member school, fostering closer and more exciting contests. Despite some additional travel, schools fit a common footprint with similar enrollments in addition to being in geographical locations that limits rapid shifts in student movement.
“Frostproof is very excited to rekindle an old relationship that creates a competitive excitement and experience for our kids,” said Richard Marsh, Frostproof coach.
Lake Placid head coach Jay Del Castillo said his district is enthusiastic about the future of the Heartland Conference and the positive impact it will have on their football programs.
“How exciting it is to get like-minded coaches together for a common goal of benefiting the kids,” Castillo said. “Not only will this give them a chance to compete against their fellow friends, but it gives them another chance to be seen and honored for their hard work throughout the season.”
Guidelines for the awarding of trophies and post-season honors are being drafted now.
“Avon Park is excited for the return of the Heartland Conference,” said coach Lee Albritton. “All of the coaches and programs that are joining have similar mindsets and goals for our programs and doing things certain ways. We look forward to competing with all of these program’s year in and year out for the Heartland Conference championship.”
For more information on the Heartland Conference, contact Jason Mensing, Heartland Conference president.

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There has been talk amongst Desoto and Hardee about this recently.  It has the SSAA written all over it.  The few athletic directors I’ve spoken to that have moved over to the SSAA are pretty pleased with their decisions. Not sure what to say about the state’s oldest rivalry leaving the FHSAA. 

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4 hours ago, MarkECannon said:

There has been talk amongst Desoto and Hardee about this recently.  It has the SSAA written all over it.  The few athletic directors I’ve spoken to that have moved over to the SSAA are pretty pleased with their decisions. Not sure what to say about the state’s oldest rivalry leaving the FHSAA. 

As I understand it, a school doesn't have to give up FHSAA membership to join SSAA. The FHSAA views SSAA schools as independents. SSAA conducts it's own post season tournaments,  awards its own championships and has a separate set of by-laws.

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I love this idea. More teams need to follow suit. I believe some Orlando area teams did this but they remained in the FHSAA as independents but only played each other. There was about 10 teams and they all played each other and I think 1 “non district” game. 
 

It was 10 of the worst teams in the Orlando area who had less than a zero percent chance of winning state so it made sense. 
 

my hope is one day there is a group of quality teams in one division and a group of not quality in the other. like a division one and division two. The SSAA can be the league of teams who have no chance to win a real championship so they can compete in a bottom tier league for their own title

it’s a win-win. Because it trims off all the fat and allows the teams who have a real chance compete for a real championship. While the other teams who normally would have no shot can stay separated, so it doesn’t water down the real league with a bunch of sacrificial lambs.

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3 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

I love this idea. More teams need to follow suit. I believe some Orlando area teams did this but they remained in the FHSAA as independents but only played each other. There was about 10 teams and they all played each other and I think 1 “non district” game. 
 

 

It was 10 of the worst teams in the Orlando area who had less than a zero percent chance of winning state so it made sense. 
 

 

my hope is one day there is a group of quality teams in one division and a group of not quality in the other. like a division one and division two. The SSAA can be the league of teams who have no chance to win a real championship so they can compete in a bottom tier league for their own title

it’s a win-win. Because it trims off all the fat and allows the teams who have a real chance compete for a real championship. While the other teams who normally would have no shot can stay separated, so it doesn’t water down the real league with a bunch of sacrificial lambs.

I can't wait until what's left of FHSAA is less than a handful of schools. Then you will have you "elite" division. 

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As a proponent of "like vs. like", I applaud the move by these schools.   But this represents a 1% net loss to the FHSAA of the 460 schools playing football (2 of the 7 already play in the SSAC).  So doubtful this even registers on the FHSAA's radar, as the loss of revenue is miniscule and new teams will be coming in.  I'm afraid it will take a loss of 10 times as many to get the FHSAA's attention and for them to ask the question, why?  Maybe this is the tipping point, and others will follow in significant numbers.  Or not.  Time will tell.  

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21 hours ago, Dr. D said:

As a proponent of "like vs. like", I applaud the move by these schools.   But this represents a 1% net loss to the FHSAA of the 460 schools playing football (2 of the 7 already play in the SSAC).  So doubtful this even registers on the FHSAA's radar, as the loss of revenue is miniscule and new teams will be coming in.  I'm afraid it will take a loss of 10 times as many to get the FHSAA's attention and for them to ask the question, why?  Maybe this is the tipping point, and others will follow in significant numbers.  Or not.  Time will tell.  

I believe more will follow. 

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On 1/18/2025 at 5:08 PM, Hwy17 said:

I can't wait until what's left of FHSAA is less than a handful of schools. Then you will have you "elite" division. 

There is levels to everything: even in the NFL there are teams that are “horrible” by their own standards. So every level of athletics has horrible teams, bad, good, great and elite. That’s the name of the game. There is no way to make it where everyone is just “good”. To make it fair. That’s not the way competition is designed. 
 

But I do agree that teams that would be classified as “horrible” or “bad” should remove themselves from the competition that is way above their pay grade so that they can work on developing into something good. 
 

It’s no different than soccer in Europe. England has about 5-6 leagues. The bottom 4 one league gets demoted into the league under it, and the top 4 get promoted. I love that idea. We need a promotion/demotion system here 

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On 1/18/2025 at 1:46 PM, nolebull813 said:

I love this idea. More teams need to follow suit. I believe some Orlando area teams did this but they remained in the FHSAA as independents but only played each other. There was about 10 teams and they all played each other and I think 1 “non district” game. 
 

It was 10 of the worst teams in the Orlando area who had less than a zero percent chance of winning state so it made sense. 
 

my hope is one day there is a group of quality teams in one division and a group of not quality in the other. like a division one and division two. The SSAA can be the league of teams who have no chance to win a real championship so they can compete in a bottom tier league for their own title

it’s a win-win. Because it trims off all the fat and allows the teams who have a real chance compete for a real championship. While the other teams who normally would have no shot can stay separated, so it doesn’t water down the real league with a bunch of sacrificial lambs.

defintely was, and some false sense of hope for a couple of those schools that went 6-4, 7-3, 5-5, 10-0.  the 10-0 team was getting all kinds of publicity in the local paper and online, good for them, seriosuly they beat up on the teams that are below the have nots, the never will haves or never come close's, 

fhsaa and ssac should team up.

the bottom 25% of the bottom 25% get kicked to the other league.  the best 1 or 2 teams in the other league have an option to join the big timers.  do that every 2 years and literally at some point you will have 1 league very very high profile teams and 1 league of complete parity, any given year someone can win it all.

which is exaclty what we all want.  the studs play each other and the ones who are not ready for that level play each other.

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On 1/18/2025 at 1:46 PM, nolebull813 said:

it’s a win-win. Because it trims off all the fat and allows the teams who have a real chance compete for a real championship. While the other teams who normally would have no shot can stay separated, so it doesn’t water down the real league with a bunch of sacrificial lambs.

You do realize that every team adds to the whole and not just the good teams?  What was so beautiful about the system before the transfer/super team era was that sometimes the traditionally bottom teams would have a special player or group of players move through their system and have a special season(s) that would talked about for decades.  Do you think Derrick Henry would have played for Yulee today?  Sometimes the great teams would have a rebuilding year too, giving others that window of opportunity to win that year.  Now, it's which transfers moved over to Venice, MNW, etc. to fill the graduation gaps for next year?  Not everybody wants to see the same teams over and over again *and* we don't want to see any new blood jump in due to a sudden transfer influx.  

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3 hours ago, PinellasFB said:

You do realize that every team adds to the whole and not just the good teams?  What was so beautiful about the system before the transfer/super team era was that sometimes the traditionally bottom teams would have a special player or group of players move through their system and have a special season(s) that would talked about for decades.  Do you think Derrick Henry would have played for Yulee today?  Sometimes the great teams would have a rebuilding year too, giving others that window of opportunity to win that year.  Now, it's which transfers moved over to Venice, MNW, etc. to fill the graduation gaps for next year?  Not everybody wants to see the same teams over and over again *and* we don't want to see any new blood jump in due to a sudden transfer influx.  

You get it. None of these schools in this new conference are in metropolitan areas were they can pick off talent from a neighboring school.  These schools share a number of similarities in demographics and traditions. It's my hope that the conference expands to 10 or 12 members and a few more  conferences like it form around the state.

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6 hours ago, nolebull813 said:

There is levels to everything: even in the NFL there are teams that are “horrible” by their own standards. So every level of athletics has horrible teams, bad, good, great and elite. That’s the name of the game. There is no way to make it where everyone is just “good”. To make it fair. That’s not the way competition is designed. 
 

But I do agree that teams that would be classified as “horrible” or “bad” should remove themselves from the competition that is way above their pay grade so that they can work on developing into something good. 
 

It’s no different than soccer in Europe. England has about 5-6 leagues. The bottom 4 one league gets demoted into the league under it, and the top 4 get promoted. I love that idea. We need a promotion/demotion system here 

NFL and FBS college football is about how much money you want to invest.  Bad teams in the NFL are bad because they won't spend the money on free agents and trade their best players for profit ( the late Hugh Culverhouse was tops at it, lol). FBS requires a financial commitment higher than FCS or Division 2 or 3. Plus college football allows for recruitment of talent.  High school football doesn't,  or at least isn't supposed to. But then we see threads, like the another one on this page where 25 players follow a coach across the city to another school.  That's not right. 

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5 hours ago, PinellasFB said:

You do realize that every team adds to the whole and not just the good teams?  What was so beautiful about the system before the transfer/super team era was that sometimes the traditionally bottom teams would have a special player or group of players move through their system and have a special season(s) that would talked about for decades.  Do you think Derrick Henry would have played for Yulee today?  Sometimes the great teams would have a rebuilding year too, giving others that window of opportunity to win that year.  Now, it's which transfers moved over to Venice, MNW, etc. to fill the graduation gaps for next year?  Not everybody wants to see the same teams over and over again *and* we don't want to see any new blood jump in due to a sudden transfer influx.  

Sounds like the teams at the most disadvantage in the entire state by far is the metro teams no talent wants to play for. Because how is 80 percent of the teams in Dade and Broward scary bad? They get their talent plucked by the top 20 percent. And those teams don’t have to recruit. Players know who is good and who has coaches with the right connections to increase their chances to get to college. And if they are already D1 they know which teams have the best chance to win a title. They don’t need to recruit anymore. 
 

The only thing I can think of that would make any sense to the issue with transfers is any team with 7 plus transfers in a offseason (random number. It can be 5-10 etc), that team automatically has to play in an open division bracket for the playoffs. 

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52 minutes ago, nolebull813 said:

Sounds like the teams at the most disadvantage in the entire state by far is the metro teams no talent wants to play for. Because how is 80 percent of the teams in Dade and Broward scary bad? They get their talent plucked by the top 20 percent. And those teams don’t have to recruit. Players know who is good and who has coaches with the right connections to increase their chances to get to college. And if they are already D1 they know which teams have the best chance to win a title. They don’t need to recruit anymore. 
 

The only thing I can think of that would make any sense to the issue with transfers is any team with 7 plus transfers in a offseason (random number. It can be 5-10 etc), that team automatically has to play in an open division bracket for the playoffs. 

Agree! But FHSAA won't go for it so we have to do something else. 

FYI, the SSAA just tweeted that Hardee will compete in the SSAA Atlantic division for 2025.

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1 hour ago, nolebull813 said:

The only thing I can think of that would make any sense to the issue with transfers is any team with 7 plus transfers in a offseason (random number. It can be 5-10 etc), that team automatically has to play in an open division bracket for the playoffs. 

I've been an advocate for an open division if you have X+ number of transfers in.  I think 5 is a good number so that it will force the good teams to be choosy and not just pluck every decent player they can.  This could solve the issue but I know it's just a pipe dream.  One can hope though.

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Here’s the one issue. If schools have open enrollment, then the coach or AD couldn’t stop football players from transferring there so they couldn’t be picky or choosy. 
 

5 might be too small. There are teams who get 5 transfers who aren’t very good. I think Middleburg got 5 plus transfers one year and they got thrown out of the 1st round: not all transfers are created equal. It’s a little more complicated. 

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I seem to recall having this discussion before.  I recall mentioning limiting transfers & roster size, basing classification on transfers, and requiring transfers to either sit a year or play JV.  Nobody seemed to like those ideas. 

Just so we're clear,  I never have had an issue when a player transfers due to a legitimate bona fide move.

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Under School Choice laws and Controlled Open Enrollment, essentially every transfer is considered a bona fide move by the state of Florida.  So the FHSAA will never be able to impose limitations or restrictions based on transfer movement.  The best they can hope for is to make adjustments based on results after the fact (e.g. Open/Championship proposal for 2026).  

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9 minutes ago, Dr. D said:

Under School Choice laws and Controlled Open Enrollment, essentially every transfer is considered a bona fide move by the state of Florida.  So the FHSAA will never be able to impose limitations or restrictions based on transfer movement.  The best they can hope for is to make adjustments based on results after the fact (e.g. Open/Championship proposal for 2026).  

Defeats the whole concept of classification.  No school should bother reporting enrollment numbers then. 

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If your goal is fair and equitable competition for all teams -- you're screwed by the current environment.  If you believe in some kind of Darwinian "survival of the fittest" competition, the current system is right for you.

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49 minutes ago, Dr. D said:

If your goal is fair and equitable competition for all teams -- you're screwed by the current environment.  If you believe in some kind of Darwinian "survival of the fittest" competition, the current system is right for you.

Except it's not "survival of the fittest". More like who can manipulate the system the best.  I find it fascinating how certain programs that were average at best, or couldn't beat a certain rival for years, all of a sudden are tops in their class. 

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