The temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees as the final minutes of a special season for the Pace football team neared its end.
Here in Gainesville, on a chilly evening in late November, the Patriots had just lost possession of the football off a fumble and now all that was left was for Buchholz to run out the clock in a Region 1-6A semifinal.

I hope you all are taking time to enjoy Thanksgiving week and are taking a break from the madness of the daily grind.
I can tell you I am certainly doing that after months of bouncing around football fields, golf courses, gyms and more.

Flipping commitments is a common thing in collegiate athletics. An athlete might decide in July that North Carolina is the place for him to play.
And then a few months later, an athlete might say, ‘I’d rather take my talents to Auburn or Alabama.’

Great job Central. You won a football game. That’s a big deal.
After starting the 2024 season 0-7, the Jaguars notched their first win as a varsity program on Nov. 1, edging Wewahitchka 34-28 on the road.

Someone made a post about coaching on social media the other day. And it is so very true.
Summarizing it, the post stated that everyone knows more than you and wants your job on Friday nights, but they don’t want your job every other day and month of the year when games aren’t being played.

I’m not sure what has gotten into some of Florida’s school districts lately, but they have clearly gone too far in the wrong direction.
Volunteer forms to get clearance to be on the sideline for shooting photos might be the craziest of them all.

Give the Florida High School Athletic Association a little credit. At least it didn’t wait until a third major hurricane hit the state to make changes to the football schedule.
Last Monday, a press conference was held to announce that the regular season was going to be extended by a week to allow for extra time to get all the games in that might have been impacted by the hurricanes.

I went out to the University of West Florida a couple of weekends ago ready to cover a cross-country meet bright and early on a Saturday morning after a late night of covering football in the rain.
I don’t mind waking up early. I’ve always been an early riser.

The arrival of October means things get a little more interesting when it comes to high school football in the area.
For teams like Pace and Jay, it’s about continuing their respective pushes for the playoffs. The Patriots are the second-best team in Region 1-6A and a top 10 team in the state. Jay is in the same position in the Rural Classification.

I saw a Facebook post a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday morning that caught my attention. It was on one of the Milton pages and featured photos of several players doing yard work just hours after they walked off the field at Bennett C. Russell Stadium in Navarre. They were holding rakes, working and smiling.