Southern high school football power states Louisiana and Florida appear poised to push back their gridiron seasons significantly, though nothing as of Wednesday afternoon is official. The most concrete change is Louisiana, where the Louisiana High School Athletic Association sent an email Wednesday morning to member schools stating football will be bumped six weeks for an Oct. 8 kickoff. A few hours later, a Florida High School Athletic Association's athletic directors advisory committee voted to push back football to late November.
According to a story in
The Advocate, Louisiana High School Athletic Association Executive Director Eddie Bonine laid out a fall calendar in his email, though it did not list a football end date or championship game plan. Cross country and swimming still will begin seasons Aug. 31; girls volleyball start Sept. 8 and football a month later.
Louisiana is one of 37 states still planning for football in the fall, though it's the 12th to move its start date back. The first scheduled kickoff in the country is Aug. 13 in Utah.
Neighboring Louisiana states Arkansas plans to kick off football as schedules, Mississippi pushed back the season a week to Sept. 4 and Texas bumped its top two divisions (6A and 5A) to Sept. 24-26. Nine states and District of Columbia have moved the 2020 fall football season to sometime in 2021.
In Florida, the athletic directors' most popular plan would be to start practice on Nov. 30 and begin playing Dec. 14. Those recommendations will be brought to the state athletic association's board of directors for an Aug. 14 decision.
According to a
Sun Sentinel story and first reported by FloridaHSFootball.com, eight coaches voted the bump back as their top plan, but seven wished to keep things as is with an Aug. 24 practice start date.
The FHSAA Board of Directors, which makes the final decision, last week came under great scrutiny for keeping football on schedule with a July 27 practice start date (first games in middle of August). The Board reconsidered three days later and voted for an Aug. 24 start. That will still be the case unless the FHSAA board on Aug. 14 follows the athletic directors' recommendations.
Another southern football power, Georgia, could move its
season back but held off on a decision Wednesday despite another team
suspending practice indefinitely due to positive COVID-19 test results.
According
to the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, at least a dozen schools have
suspended practice or the season since July 27 due to positive virus results. But
Georgia High School Association Executive Director Robin Hines said a
decision on pushing back the season will have to wait. He met Wednesday
with the GHSA’s sports-medicine advisory committee.
On
July 20, the GHSA voted to delay the football season two weeks to Sept.
4, but kept a 10-game schedule and full slate of playoffs.
“I remain cautiously optimistic about our fall seasons,” Hines told the newspaper on Wednesday.
Perhaps later than expected, MaxPreps Freshman All-American Arch Manning of Newman (La.) hopes to improve even more his sophomore season.
Photo by Kenneth P. Steib
