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FHSAA Football State Championships moving to Daytona Beach & Tallahassee


Joshua Wilson

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I like the move overall, but I don't like 2A and 3A being in Tallahassee.
2A only has 6 teams within an hour of Tallahassee. 
3A only has 3 teams even in the Panhandle. 

I do appreciate the move to night time games, but I would prefer a double header on Saturday and a Thursday and Friday (if we are going to move). Wednesday Night games are unacceptable. I know it will be the 4A game as they will have a week and half to get prepared for the game, but still seems wrong. 
 
I think 1A in Gene Cox is great. Citizen's Field in Gainesville, Tiger Stadium in Lake City, or Gene Cox would all would be great. I am willing to make a bet that 1A will have the 3rd largest attendance next year with crowds nearing 5000 if the team isn't Pahokee. 

I think 2A and 3A should be held at home institutions until they can bring a crowd larger than 2500 people. I know I railed against home games for basketball state championships, but in football I feel like the crowd is less likely to be physically on the playing surface than basketball.  I think 3 games over 2 nights would be fine.

If they are going to have the games at Gene Cox, I would hope they would do a double header on a Saturday and a Friday night game instead of stretching it over 3 nights.

I think the 4A-8A schedule should be

4A: Thursday 7:00 pm (they would have an extra week to prepare anyway)
5A: Friday at 2:00 pm which would be give enough time for the stadium to be cleared out, which I believe is the big fear about Daytona. (Last year, the Friday afternoon game was at 3 and over at 5:30)
7A: Friday at 7:00 pm 
6A: Saturday at 2:00 pm
8A: Saturday at 7:00 pm

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10 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

I like the move overall, but I don't like 2A and 3A being in Tallahassee.
2A only has 6 teams within an hour of Tallahassee. 
3A only has 3 teams even in the Panhandle. 

I do appreciate the move to night time games, but I would prefer a double header on Saturday and a Thursday and Friday (if we are going to move). Wednesday Night games are unacceptable. I know it will be the 4A game as they will have a week and half to get prepared for the game, but still seems wrong. 
 
I think 1A in Gene Cox is great. Citizen's Field in Gainesville, Tiger Stadium in Lake City, or Gene Cox would all would be great. I am willing to make a bet that 1A will have the 3rd largest attendance next year with crowds nearing 5000 if the team isn't Pahokee. 

I think 2A and 3A should be held at home institutions until they can bring a crowd larger than 2500 people. I know I railed against home games for basketball state championships, but in football I feel like the crowd is less likely to be physically on the playing surface than basketball.  I think 3 games over 2 nights would be fine.

If they are going to have the games at Gene Cox, I would hope they would do a double header on a Saturday and a Friday night game instead of stretching it over 3 nights.

I think the 4A-8A schedule should be

4A: Thursday 7:00 pm (they would have an extra week to prepare anyway)
5A: Friday at 2:00 pm which would be give enough time for the stadium to be cleared out, which I believe is the big fear about Daytona. (Last year, the Friday afternoon game was at 3 and over at 5:30)
7A: Friday at 7:00 pm 
6A: Saturday at 2:00 pm
8A: Saturday at 7:00 pm

I saw that Gene Cox holds 6500

 

Lake City holds 7500 and has much more space parking as we normally able to park over 8k people during graduation ceremonies, Everytime I've been to Gene Cox it's been overcrowded with maybe 1k fans

 

citizen's field also is very terrible in terms of parking space as I found out this year when I went to Columbia vs Gainesville and the parking lot was completely filled with maybe 3-4k fans and I had to park down the street

 

 

In terms of capacity Tiger stadium is far more equipped to handle it then Gene Cox or citizens field

 

I guess they say that Tallahassee or Gainesville has more to do in local activities but they are going to play a football game not go to some nightclub and get drunk so the surrounding area shouldn't really matter as long as the city has the hotel and restaraunt capacity which Lake City does as they annually handle the Olustie festival with no significant issues 

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20 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

I like the move overall, but I don't like 2A and 3A being in Tallahassee.
2A only has 6 teams within an hour of Tallahassee. 
3A only has 3 teams even in the Panhandle. 

I do appreciate the move to night time games, but I would prefer a double header on Saturday and a Thursday and Friday (if we are going to move). Wednesday Night games are unacceptable. I know it will be the 4A game as they will have a week and half to get prepared for the game, but still seems wrong. 
 
I think 1A in Gene Cox is great. Citizen's Field in Gainesville, Tiger Stadium in Lake City, or Gene Cox would all would be great. I am willing to make a bet that 1A will have the 3rd largest attendance next year with crowds nearing 5000 if the team isn't Pahokee. 

I think 2A and 3A should be held at home institutions until they can bring a crowd larger than 2500 people. I know I railed against home games for basketball state championships, but in football I feel like the crowd is less likely to be physically on the playing surface than basketball.  I think 3 games over 2 nights would be fine.

If they are going to have the games at Gene Cox, I would hope they would do a double header on a Saturday and a Friday night game instead of stretching it over 3 nights.

I think the 4A-8A schedule should be

4A: Thursday 7:00 pm (they would have an extra week to prepare anyway)
5A: Friday at 2:00 pm which would be give enough time for the stadium to be cleared out, which I believe is the big fear about Daytona. (Last year, the Friday afternoon game was at 3 and over at 5:30)
7A: Friday at 7:00 pm 
6A: Saturday at 2:00 pm
8A: Saturday at 7:00 pm

Nm

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51 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

I saw that Gene Cox holds 6500

Lake City holds 7500 and has much more space parking as we normally able to park over 8k people during graduation ceremonies, Everytime I've been to Gene Cox it's been overcrowded with maybe 1k fans

citizen's field also is very terrible in terms of parking space as I found out this year when I went to Columbia vs Gainesville and the parking lot was completely filled with maybe 3-4k fans and I had to park down the street

In terms of capacity Tiger stadium is far more equipped to handle it then Gene Cox or citizens field

I guess they say that Tallahassee or Gainesville has more to do in local activities but they are going to play a football game not go to some nightclub and get drunk so the surrounding area shouldn't really matter as long as the city has the hotel and restaraunt capacity which Lake City does as they annually handle the Olustie festival with no significant issues 


Lake City Columbia would struggle with the crowds the same as Citizen's or Gene Cox.(the only reason you never realize it, is that you are at the games probably 2.5 hours early) Try to think of a night like graduation at Lake City, when every seat is packed, the parking lot is packed, and you are walking nearly the entire campus to get to the game (or parking at the local service organization's parking lot). That is what the state championship would be like, except you would have thousands of people who had never been on the campus and would have no clue on where or how to park. 

Gene Cox has a large parking lot with the fairgrounds able to provide additional parking as well. It is the middle of the "North" and "South" regions. Like I said, I think any of the 3 would be perfectly fine with holding a 1A-3A state championship. I just wish they would adjust the schedule to be a double header on Saturday.

The other big concern that nobody has brought up, what happens if Lincoln, Godby, etc host the state semis who gets preference for the stadium.  

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4 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

 


Lake City Columbia would struggle with the crowds the same as Citizen's or Gene Cox.(the only reason you never realize it, is that you are at the games probably 2.5 hours early) Try to think of a night like graduation at Lake City, when every seat is packed, the parking lot is packed, and you are walking nearly the entire campus to get to the game (or parking at the local service organization's parking lot). That is what the state championship would be like, except you would have thousands of people who had never been on the campus and would have no clue on where or how to park. 

Gene Cox has a large parking lot with the fairgrounds able to provide additional parking as well. It is the middle of the "North" and "South" regions. Like I said, I think any of the 3 would be perfectly fine with holding a 1A-3A state championship. I just wish they would adjust the schedule to be a double header on Saturday.

The other big concern that nobody has brought up, what happens if Lincoln, Godby, etc host the state semis who gets preference for the stadium.  

They would likely in that case move the times around and have a state game earlier in the day and have the host game at night 

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5 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

 


Lake City Columbia would struggle with the crowds the same as Citizen's or Gene Cox.(the only reason you never realize it, is that you are at the games probably 2.5 hours early) Try to think of a night like graduation at Lake City, when every seat is packed, the parking lot is packed, and you are walking nearly the entire campus to get to the game (or parking at the local service organization's parking lot). That is what the state championship would be like, except you would have thousands of people who had never been on the campus and would have no clue on where or how to park. 

Gene Cox has a large parking lot with the fairgrounds able to provide additional parking as well. It is the middle of the "North" and "South" regions. Like I said, I think any of the 3 would be perfectly fine with holding a 1A-3A state championship. I just wish they would adjust the schedule to be a double header on Saturday.

The other big concern that nobody has brought up, what happens if Lincoln, Godby, etc host the state semis who gets preference for the stadium.  

Yes you are correct with Gene Cox as I forget about the fairgrounds (since every time I've been there for playoff games it's been during the week of fair so that space isn't available)

 

And while I'm normally at games early I have seen how packed it is during graduation the past 2 years however I do notice that because of how spread out and open the campus is they have a lot of capacity in parking

 

However there is no doubt tiger stadium is much more equipped than citizens field to handle parking as I found out this year when I got in line right before kickoff and the entire parking lot was filled with maybe 3-4k people in stands so if that stadium did hit Max capacity you would have people parked miles out so logistically unless Gainesville wants to build a parking garage near that stadium it will never be equipped to hold a state championship (even though in terms of stands it could work just like the other 2)

 

 

I am glad though that Daytona now hosting 4-8a as now I'm more likely to go to one in near future because of it being more reasonable distance and it is more centrally located than Orlando for the panhandle teams

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When I click and read the comments on the Twitter feed, I can't help but feel sad. 

We don't deserve the Citrus Bowl (I refuse to call it whatever the corporate sponsor is). We can't fill it, we can't even bring it close to being filled. It is an empty, lifeless place and it makes me said that we host the games there.

Yes, Georgia holds state championship in the Georgia Dome 
Yes, Texas holds state championships in Cowboy Stadium
Yes, South Carolina uses USC's stadium.  
Yes, even New Jersey uses Giants Stadium for some of their state championships.
No, I don't care if some of those stadiums have been demolished, that is what I will forever call them.

2018 Texas:
"The total attendance for this year's 12 UIL state finals, all played at AT&T Stadium, was 228,105 - an average of 19,009 per game. That included 28,792 for Highland Park's 27-17 win against Alvin Shadow Creek in the 5A Division I final that was the first game Saturday"

2016 Georgia:
47,922 (8 games) or about 5,990

After that it is actually really hard to find out the numbers of attendance at state championship (so kudos to FHSAA). Also kudos to the FHSAA for putting together comprehensive record books for all sports (even if some of them haven't been updated in like 3 or 4 years). It is nice to see a sense of history. 

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1 hour ago, gatorman-uf said:

When I click and read the comments on the Twitter feed, I can't help but feel sad. 

We don't deserve the Citrus Bowl (I refuse to call it whatever the corporate sponsor is). We can't fill it, we can't even bring it close to being filled. It is an empty, lifeless place and it makes me said that we host the games there.

Yes, Georgia holds state championship in the Georgia Dome 
Yes, Texas holds state championships in Cowboy Stadium
Yes, South Carolina uses USC's stadium.  
Yes, even New Jersey uses Giants Stadium for some of their state championships.
No, I don't care if some of those stadiums have been demolished, that is what I will forever call them.

2018 Texas:
"The total attendance for this year's 12 UIL state finals, all played at AT&T Stadium, was 228,105 - an average of 19,009 per game. That included 28,792 for Highland Park's 27-17 win against Alvin Shadow Creek in the 5A Division I final that was the first game Saturday"

2016 Georgia:
47,922 (8 games) or about 5,990

After that it is actually really hard to find out the numbers of attendance at state championship (so kudos to FHSAA). Also kudos to the FHSAA for putting together comprehensive record books for all sports (even if some of them haven't been updated in like 3 or 4 years). It is nice to see a sense of history. 

Ohio 2017 finals attendance 61,312

Indiana has its state title games at Lucas Oil Stadium(Colts).  There are 6 classes in IN.  The top 2 classes have each pulled 20,000+ fans to title games in recent years.  The 2016 6A final had 26,000 in attendance. 

 

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...concerning Tallahassee

Pretty good chance a Dade/Broward team will be in the 2A and 3A final.  One has to wonder if folks will be willing to drive 7-8 hours each way to watch a game...not to mention $25 in tolls each way on turnpike (unless one adds miles to the trip) plus hotel cost for 1 night.  Personally, I would not find it very enjoyable to watch a game after driving all day in a car.  It's that or spend 2 nights in a hotel.

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7 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

...concerning Tallahassee

Pretty good chance a Dade/Broward team will be in the 2A and 3A final.  One has to wonder if folks will be willing to drive 7-8 hours each way to watch a game...not to mention $25 in tolls each way on turnpike (unless one adds miles to the trip) plus hotel cost for 1 night.  Personally, I would not find it very enjoyable to watch a game after driving all day in a car.  It's that or spend 2 nights in a hotel.

If I were Chaminade-Madonna I would be upset about it. While I agree they're likely to be in the 3A final, they'll just as likely have to travel to CCC for a third year in the final 4, turn around and travel to Tallahassee the following week to get thumped by JaxTCA. 

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37 minutes ago, SPCjessica2004 said:

If I were Chaminade-Madonna I would be upset about it. While I agree they're likely to be in the 3A final, they'll just as likely have to travel to CCC for a third year in the final 4, turn around and travel to Tallahassee the following week to get thumped by JaxTCA. 

Imagine what pahokee might have to travel.  Maybe Madison then right back to Tallahassee on a Thursday. 

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1 hour ago, SPCjessica2004 said:

If I were Chaminade-Madonna I would be upset about it. While I agree they're likely to be in the 3A final, they'll just as likely have to travel to CCC for a third year in the final 4, turn around and travel to Tallahassee the following week to get thumped by JaxTCA. 

So Chaminade has finally met there match ?? lol 

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Damn all the people crying on Facebook and Twitter make me think that we had 20K at 2A and 3A instead of the 1000 that were actually there.

 

I am willing to bet the attendance is higher this coming year than 2018 (if Pahokee isn't in 1A finals). 2A and 3A will be a wash and lower but it won't matter as they are so low already. 4A attendance will be fine as long as Cocoa is one of the teams (especially if it is Wednesday night). 

 

5A-8A will be their norms with 8A maybe being lower since they won't have the really local team. With some of the major Miami teams spread out in different classifications, I think you might see a higher attendance. I don't think there is that much of a difference between Daytona and Orlando in terms if driving from South Florida. 

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1 hour ago, gatorman-uf said:

Damn all the people crying on Facebook and Twitter make me think that we had 20K at 2A and 3A instead of the 1000 that were actually there.

 

I am willing to bet the attendance is higher this coming year than 2018 (if Pahokee isn't in 1A finals). 2A and 3A will be a wash and lower but it won't matter as they are so low already. 4A attendance will be fine as long as Cocoa is one of the teams (especially if it is Wednesday night). 

 

5A-8A will be their norms with 8A maybe being lower since they won't have the really local team. With some of the major Miami teams spread out in different classifications, I think you might see a higher attendance. I don't think there is that much of a difference between Daytona and Orlando in terms if driving from South Florida. 

Most the people crying are just South FL people who want it held at traz Powell with SFL officials 

 

a lot of the SFL people think the rest of the state is shit and that everything should revolve around them and Because of that think it should be all South FL games like they are their own state

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6 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Most the people crying are just South FL people who want it held at traz Powell with SFL officials 

 

a lot of the SFL people think the rest of the state is shit and that everything should revolve around them and Because of that think it should be all South FL games like they are their own state

Lol I mean we technically are our own state lol #FACTZ south Florida is a entire demension within its self lol

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9 minutes ago, THIS_IS_DILLARD said:

Lol I mean we technically are our own state lol #FACTZ south Florida is a entire demension within its self lol

Wasn't that long ago that SFL was getting over powered by panhandle teams who were more physical and better coached

 

Runs in cycles and the rest of FL is slowly catching up to South FL, just look at this past year

 

Only one Miami team won a title and it came over the bridesmaids named armwood who seem destined to always lose to a Miami team in the finals

 

You had a SFL vs SFL matchup in 3a 

 

You had Cardinal Gibbons winning in 5a

 

And that was it

 

Miami Columbus lost to Jacksonville Mandarin

 

Raines beat Cocoa

 

1a involved 2 north FL teams

 

Lakeland beat St Thomas Aquinas by double digits

 

 

 

 

 

So think about this a second, if you take out the 3a SFL vs SFL game then the big 3 counties in South Florida (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) had the same number of state champs as Duval county who until Mandarin won this year had never had any public not named Raines win a title

 

I wouldn't call the performance this year dominate by any means

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15 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Wasn't that long ago that SFL was getting over powered by panhandle teams who were more physical and better coached

 

Runs in cycles and the rest of FL is slowly catching up to South FL, just look at this past year

 

Only one Miami team won a title and it came over the bridesmaids named armwood who seem destined to always lose to a Miami team in the finals

 

You had a SFL vs SFL matchup in 3a 

 

You had Cardinal Gibbons winning in 5a

 

And that was it

 

Miami Columbus lost to Jacksonville Mandarin

 

Raines beat Cocoa

 

1a involved 2 north FL teams

 

Lakeland beat St Thomas Aquinas by double digits

 

 

 

 

 

So think about this a second, if you take out the 3a SFL vs SFL game then the big 3 counties in South Florida (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) had the same number of state champs as Duval county who until Mandarin won this year had never had any public not named Raines win a title

 

I wouldn't call the performance this year dominate by any means

Of course not and I’m glad it was some new blood and I hope for more new blood this upcoming season

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12 minutes ago, ColumbiaHighFan2017class said:

Wasn't that long ago that SFL was getting over powered by panhandle teams who were more physical and better coached

 

Runs in cycles and the rest of FL is slowly catching up to South FL, just look at this past year

 

Only one Miami team won a title and it came over the bridesmaids named armwood who seem destined to always lose to a Miami team in the finals

 

You had a SFL vs SFL matchup in 3a 

 

You had Cardinal Gibbons winning in 5a

 

And that was it

 

Miami Columbus lost to Jacksonville Mandarin

 

Raines beat Cocoa

 

1a involved 2 north FL teams

 

Lakeland beat St Thomas Aquinas by double digits

 

 

 

 

 

So think about this a second, if you take out the 3a SFL vs SFL game then the big 3 counties in South Florida (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) had the same number of state champs as Duval county who until Mandarin won this year had never had any public not named Raines win a title

 

I wouldn't call the performance this year dominate by any means

Let's also remember that we have had Carol City, Northwestern and Central knocking each other out in the playoffs.  Had those 3 teams been in 3 different classes, south FL could have had 1 or 2 more state champions.  just sayin'

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13 minutes ago, OldSchoolLion said:

Let's also remember that we have had Carol City, Northwestern and Central knocking each other out in the playoffs.  Had those 3 teams been in 3 different classes, south FL could have had 1 or 2 more state champions.  just sayin'

Couldn't that argument be made that had TCA been in 3a (like they would have had they not elected to move up) that north FL would have another head to head win in Duval vs South FL 

 

Trinity was dominating 3a and Chaminade failed head to head in 2016 to knock off TCA so who's to say Chaminade even hoists the trophy last 2 years if TCA stays in 3a

 

 

My point is there is potential missing rings on both ends of the argument, but we will soon find out OSL as those 3 did get separated with Carol City in 4a, MNW in 5a and Central in 6a

 

This year is shaping up to be a very interesting one in terms of how regions are set up and the potential final 4 matchups we could see in a lot of these classes are money matchups

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