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Florida high school football coach speaks out on Open Division

IMG_8358by: Andy Villamarzo06/23/25Andy_Villamarzo
Syndication: Daytona Beach News-Journal
Mainland’s new head coach Jerrime “ squatty” Bell is ready for the spring football game against Booker High School hosted by Spruce Creek in Port Orange on Wednesday, May 22. 2024.

Earlier this month, a final plea by The First Academy to the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) to be reinstated for the 2025 football playoffs was denied. A head coach in the region spoke out Sunday morning and gave some interesting takes on The First Academy and the FHSAA’s future Open Division.

Daytona Beach Mainland head coach Jerrime ‘Squatty’ Bell posted on X and voiced his take on the FHSAA’s Open Division, which isn’t set to begin until the 2026-2027 season. The Buccaneers’ lead man proposed the state move up the eight-team elite bracket sooner rather than later, giving football programs like The First Academy a chance to rejoin and compete.

‘Other schools are doing exactly what TFA got in trouble for but the state continues to look away. Might as well push that open division through and force all of those schools to compete in one bracket instead of singling TFA out.’

‘I don’t want anyone to get in trouble. Just create an open division so that everyone can compete. Those TFA kids deserve a shot like the other kids.’

The Royals were forced to forfeit all of their games from the 2024 season after an FHSAA investigation found the program guilty for a series of alleged rules violations. With the ruling, the FHSAA placed the program on ‘restrictive probation’.

What the FHSAA found in their investigating was the Royals had at least 10 players that were not enrolled at the schools last summer, but were participating in team off-season activities nonetheless.

The Gainesville-based governing body of Florida’s high school sports sanctioned TFA $36,000 and forced the program to forfeit all nine wins from the 2024 season. The Royals before then were considered a contender for the Class 1A state championship.

The FHSAA approved the start of a designated eight-team Open Division for the 2026-2027 season, which would be determined by using the MaxPreps rankings to select the top eight teams in their own separate bracket. The prospect of seeing a Chaminade-Madonna versus St. Thomas Aquinas for a state championship could become reality, but that’s still a year away.

If Mainland’s Bell could have it his way, the Open Division would start a year earlier instead of going through another high school football season without.