JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After spending all of spring and summer in the weight room and getting in shape, high school football season is back. Teams from all over the First Coast opened fall practice on Monday. While everybody is anxious to get back to work over 70 schools took a break on Tuesday morning for the 2017 High School Media Day at EverBank Field.
Winning a district championship is typically the goal for most schools. Doing so will still earn an automatic trip to the playoffs in classes 5A-8A. However there is a brand new playoff system that will determine the final four playoff spots from each region.
“Our coach says just play each game one at a time and focus on that team,” said Duncan Van Kouteren who returns to a Ponte Vedra team that lost in the state championship game last season. “You need to be able to win those games to get to state in the first place. Right now we’re just focusing on our preseason game against Fletcher.”
For Classes 1A-4A, district play is no longer a factor. Four teams from each region (16 total) will make the playoffs based on the new points system.
“The one thing we can control is you have to win,” said Raines head coach Deran Wiley. “We’re going to try and be undefeated every week. We know that strength of schedule is big. Outside of that we don’t understand it. We just know with the strength of schedule we have, if we win them all we’ll get in.”
Baker County is coming off of a 9-2 season where they won their district. They fell short in the regional semifinals against Clay High School and they’re using that loss as motivation heading into the 2017 season.
“A successful season would be back-to-back district titles,” said Wildcats senior offensive lineman Cooper Hodges. “We have to take it one step further. We have to be the regional champions. We’ve been there done that and won the district championship. We’ve got to go further and our expectations have to be higher. We got to get to Orlando.”