Emerald Coast High School Football District Rankings

Districts in high school football in Florida are determined by two factors – School enrollment population and the physical location of the school. The districts apply to all sports for a particular school. So, If you have Fort Walton Beach in your district for football, you’d also have them in your district for underwater basket weaving. In Florida, there are seven school classifications going from the smallest (Rural, which includes teams like. Baker) to the biggest (which includes Miami High School or Stoneman Douglas).

Schools in Okaloosa and Walton Counties play in four of the classifications: 2A (Freeport, Walton and South Walton), 4A (Choctaw and Fort Walton), 5A (Niceville) and 6A (Crestview). The population cutoffs are made so that you will see these schools drift between these classifications every couple of years when the state shifts the population sizes for each grouping.

The next piece of the puzzle is the district. That grouping takes the size of each school and puts several teams (usually four or five of them) into a single region – where all teams play each other for playoff consideration. In the past, the team with the best record against its fellow regional teams would earn a state playoff berth. With the advent of big data in college football, the means to get a playoff spot are more complicated.

These districts will stay in place until the end of the 2025-6 sports season.