Florida high school football powerhouse hit with 2-year postseason ban

One of Florida’s top high school football programs at the Class 1A level will miss the playoffs in 2024 and 2025 due to a postseason ban levied by the state’s athletic association.

On Friday, the FHSAA board of directors voted 11-0 to uphold the findings that Orlando’s The First Academy violated rules that included: reaching out to players unenrolled in their school; allowing unenrolled players to compete for them during summer tournaments; and offering ride-hailing services to players not yet enrolled.

On Saturday, the Orlando Sentinel reported the news of both their postseason ban and forfeiture of wins this season. TFA appealed the decision earlier this week to a committee, which upheld the decision. They then went in front of the FHSAA in a last-ditch effort, but were again denied.

The Royals won six consecutive games to start the season and were 9-1 heading into the playoff selection, where they would’ve been one of the top seeds in Class 1A.

Prior to its forfeiture of wins, TFA was ranked as the No. 51 team in the state across all classifications, according to the On3 Massey Ratings.

In addition to these violations, the school was ordered to pay $36,000 in fines and assistant coach Steven Moffett was banned from coaching until Oct. 31, 2025. Whether those have been upheld remains to be seen.

Moffett had led Leesburg to the state playoffs in 2023 before taking an assistant job at TFA. A number of Leesburg players followed Moffett to TFA in the offseason.

Multiple Florida high school football teams have vacated wins this season

The ruling comes just a few days after Miami Central, one of the top programs in Class 3A, was retroactively forced to forfeit nine games this season because of the use of an ineligible player.

The school self-reported the violation to the FHSAA, according to SI High School’s Andy Villamarzo. In accordance with FHSAA’s bylaw 10.2.1, the Rockets’ record has been changed to 0-9 with the postseason bracket reveal this weekend.

The team’s only loss of the season came at the hands of No. 7 Lakeland in the opening game of the year, and the Rockets went on to beat state powers American Heritage, Northwestern, and Norland before closing out the regular season last week.

Per the fact findings letter, the ineligible student-athlete entered the 9th grade in 2020-2021 and entered the 2024-2025 school year as a fifth-year student, yet was allowed to play in nine games, violating bylaw 9.5.1.