The road to a state football title for South Florida’s best ends in Tallahassee this year
Fuel up the buses, South Florida.
If you want to see Miami-Dade and Broward county’s best high school football teams continue to dominate the state in person, you’re gonna have to drive a lot more… maybe even fly.
The Florida High School Athletic Association announced Thursday that this year’s state football finals will be held at the newly renovated Ken Riley Field at Bragg Stadium on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.
All nine state finals will be held from Dec. 7-9 with three games being played each day. Exact times and schedule for each class will be announced at a later date by the FHSAA.
The FHSAA last held every state final in one week in Tallahassee in 2020 during the COVID-shortened season, playing those games at Doak Campbell Stadium at Florida State University.
In the FHSAA’s current football alignment, teams from Dade and Broward are located in four of the nine classifications, those being the four Metropolitan classes. The four Suburban divisions and the Rural class will also hold their finals that weekend.
Dade and Broward teams, however, swept all four Metro classes last year in the first season under this alignment with Miami Columbus (Class 4M), Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas (Class 3M), Miami Central (Class 2M) and Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna (Class 1M) winning championships.
None of those schools is located within 450 miles of Bragg Stadium, with some like Homestead located more than 500 miles, meaning a more than eight-hour trip should they make it to state.
Since 2019, Chaminade has made such a trip since it’s played all of its state finals in Tallahassee since 1M and, prior to that, Class 3A finals were held at Gene Cox Stadium.
But this season would mean a longer road for the other three teams likely to be playing for state titles in Classes 4M-2M come December.
Bragg Stadium now holds a capacity crowd of 19,633 after its renovations and will host a state final for the first time since 1978 and for the third time in its history.
Tickets will become available online at a presale rate of $17, and will be $20 if purchased the day of the game. Parking fees will be included in the price of each ticket. For more information, go to fhsaa.com.
This story was originally published September 21, 2023 at 12:14 PM.
