High school football: American Heritage head coach Patrick Surtain leaves for position with Miami Dolphins

One of the premier high school football programs in South Florida will be looking for a new head coach after Patrick Surtain announced Friday he's taking a position with the Miami Dolphins as a defensive assistant.

He took over as head coach at American Heritage (Plantation) in January of 2016 when Mike Rumph took a position with the University of Miami and went 65-10 during his six-season tenure.

He led the Florida power to state titles in 2016, 2017 and 2020. They finished ranked in the MaxPreps Top 25 in each of those three years.

Some of the best talent in the country came from Heritage during Surtain's time with the school. Six players from the program were selected in the 2021 NFL draft headlined by his son Patrick Surtain II who was taken ninth overall by the Denver Broncos.

The six players selected in one draft from one school was the second ever to IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.) with seven in 2021.

A three-time Pro Bowl selection, Surtain returns to the place he played seven NFL seasons before moving on to Kansas City. He joins his former teammate Sam Madison coaching defensive backs. Madison spent two years coaching as an assistant at St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) before taking a position with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019. The Dolphins hired the four-time Pro Bowler on Wednesday.

Heritage instantly becomes one of the best job openings in the country. They have five players rated as three-star recruits or higher in the Class of 2023, headlined by five-star wide receiver Brandon Inniss and four-star running back Mark Fletcher.

The Patriots have gone 111-18 since 2012 and won state titles in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2020.