In Florida football, it's finals for some, semis for others

We're coming down the home stretch of the playoffs, with state championship games in half of the state's eight classifications to be played this weekend at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.

The championship games in Class 1A and 1B will be played Friday. The 2A and 2B title games will be played Saturday. All four championship games include a team from south Florida. The state semifinals in the four large schools classifications are Friday at various venues throughout the state.

Nine teams from the south Florida tri-county region are still playing, including four from Palm Beach County, three of which are playing for state titles this weekend.

MaxPreps' Florida football playoff brackets

In recent years, Palm Beach County has asserted itself as a high school football hotbed on the same level as Miami-Dade County. In the past eight years, teams from Palm Beach County have won 14 state titles, compared to six each for Miami-Dade and Broward counties, its south Florida neighbors. Twice in the past three years, three Palm Beach teams have brought home state championship trophies in the same year, and the county will have an opportunity this weekend to match that accomplishment.

STATE FINALS BREAKDOWN
Class 2A: Glades Central (Belle Glade), which has won six state titles, is making its 10th appearance in the state finals and was the runner-up last season. The Raiders (12-1) are coached by former Florida State and NFL wide receiver Jessie Hester and have a 62-21 record in the playoffs in their history and annually produce Division I talent. They will face unbeaten Cocoa (13-0) Saturday in a rematch of last year's title game won by Cocoa, which enters Saturday's final with a 37-game winning streak and will be trying for a state title three-peat. Cocoa could be without highly touted senior running back Chevelle Buie, a Rutgers commit who did not play in last week's semifinal victory against Madison County for undisclosed reasons. Coach John Wilkinson would not comment on Buie's status during a conference call Monday with statewide media. There will be plenty of speed on the field in this matchup.

Video of Chevelle Buie

Class 2B: Two 13-0 teams clash in this one. University (Fort Lauderdale) is making its first appearance in the state finals in the program's fifth year of playing football. The Suns run a no-huddle offense and senior quarterback Doug Cooke has passed for 3,050 yards and 29 touchdowns this season and also has rushed for 512 yards and five touchdowns. The Suns' opponent will be Trinity Catholic (Ocala), which is making its fourth appearance in the finals. Trinity has a balanced offensive attack and the Celtics are allowing opponents an average of 9.7 points a game this season.

Class 1A: American Heritage (Delray Beach) faces Trinity Christian (Jacksonville) in a rematch of last year's state final won by Heritage, its second state title in three years. Heritage runs a no-huddle spread offense very well. The Stallions enter the game with three losses, but all three have been to larger classification schools, all of which made the playoffs, in the first half of the season. They had the same record entering last year's championship game, so the challenging schedule could again pay off. The Stallions' defense will face a tough test against Trinity quarterback Andrew Buie, a Division I prospect who ran for three touchdowns and passed for two in a semifinal blowout against Northview (Bratt).

Class 1B: Glades Day (Belle Glade) is the third Palm Beach County team vying for a state title this weekend. The Gators are making their 14th appearance in a state championship game and will be gunning for the school's seventh state title. Glades Day enters the state final with four losses and might be viewed as a big underdog against unbeaten Warner Christian (South Daytona), which lost to Glades Day in last year's 1B final. However, Glades Day avenged one of those losses in the regional final, beating state power Jupiter Christian, and has one of the state's top running back prospects in sophomore Kelvin Taylor, the son of New England Patriots running back Fred Taylor. The younger Taylor rushed for a state playoff record 437 yards in the regional finals and has 956 yards and 11 touchdowns in three playoff games after undergoing knee surgery last spring for a slight meniscus tear. If Warner can't find a way to contain Taylor, Glades Day could bring home another championship trophy.

NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT ON STATE SEMIS
Two state semifinals in the large schools classifications will match nationally ranked teams. St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale), which is ranked No. 4 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 presented by the Army National Guard, will play host to Manatee (Bradenton) in the Class 5A semis, while No. 17-ranked Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) will travel across the state to square off against No. 6 Armwood (Seffner). Both games are rematches of last year's state semis and promise to be outstanding games.

Here's a glance at the south Florida teams involved in the semifinals Friday night:

Class 6A: Central (Miami) has plowed through its first three opponents in the playoffs, outscoring the opposition 133-34, with 27 of those surrendered in a 42-27 win against rival Northwestern (Miami) in the second round. The Rockets face Cypress Bay (Weston) at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Central quarterback Rakeem Cato, who has thrown 100 career touchdowns, leads a potent offense and is 319 yards shy of 3,000 yards passing this season. Central's suffocating defense has recorded at least nine sacks in each of its three playoff wins and limited South Dade (Homestead) to minus-36 yards rushing last week. Cypress Bay is making its first appearance in the state semifinals and hopes to spoil a much-anticipated matchup next week in the state finals between Central and No. 19-ranked Dr. Phillips (Orlando). The hunch here is that matchup will happen.

Class 5A: St. Thomas Aquinas is 13-0 and will be seeking to avenge last year's loss to 13-0 Manatee in the semifinals that snapped Aquinas' 37-game winning streak. Aquinas has won seven consecutive regional titles and has an outstanding quarterback in Jacob Rudock, who has completed 130 of 197 passes for 2,408 yards and 35 touchdowns this season, while throwing only two interceptions. However, Manatee counters with a solid quarterback in Cord Sandberg, who has passed for 2,736 yards, so this could turn into a wild shootout if both offenses are clicking. "All I remember about last year was that we tried to put them aside," Aquinas wide receiver Phillip Dorsett told the Miami Herald after the Raiders' 47-6 win against Boyd Anderson (Lauderdale Lakes) last week. "We're going to be focused this time (against Manatee). We're going to take it to them." This game will match two outstanding coaches in George Smith (359-66 record at Aquinas) and Manatee's Joe Kinnan (260-81).

Video of Cord Sandberg

Class 4A: Dwyer has steamrolled 12 consecutive opponents by a combined score of 550-45 since losing a controversial season-opening game to then-nationally ranked Glenville (Cleveland) in Ohio. The Panthers face unbeaten Armwood in a semifinal rematch of last year won by Dwyer 41-15. Armwood's defense last week held Charlotte (Punta Gorda) running back Mike Bellamy, who is the state's career scoring leader with 110 touchdowns, scoreless for the first time since his freshman year and limited him to a career-low 47 yards rushing. Dwyer quarterback Jacoby Brissett and tight end Nick O'Leary have been a lethal passing combination for opposing defenses this season, so that will be an intriguing matchup against the Armwood defense. This essentially is the state championship game in this classification.

Video of Jacoby Brissett

Class 3A: Norland (Miami) is one of two district runner-up teams still alive in the playoffs. Norland last won a state title eight years ago when it was a Class 6A school enrollment-wise. Norland (12-1) faces a 12-0 South Fort Myers team that is seeking to become the first state champion in Lee County history and has two potential game-breaking players in quarterback Dallas Crawford and wide receiver Sammy Watkins, who returned a punt 60 yards for the game-winning touchdown with 1:08 remaining against Southeast (Bradenton) last week. Norland counters with quarterback Benjii Phillips, who threw three touchdown passes last week, and standout running back Duke Johnson, who rushed for 161 yards and a score in the regional finals win against Archbishop McCarthy (Southwest Ranches).

RECRUITING NEWS
Highly recruited wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin of Glades Central (Belle Glade) has narrowed his choices to Florida and Florida State, according to Raiders coach Jessie Hester. "It's definitely going to come down to those two schools," Hester told the Palm Beach Post, adding that the firing of Miami coach Randy Shannon likely has diminished the Hurricanes' chances of landing the 6-foot-6, 220-pound Benjamin, who became ineligible following the eighth game this season because of state-mandated age rules after he turned 19 years, 9 months in late October.

Steve Dorsey, who covers the South Florida region for MaxPreps.com, is a freelance writer based in West Palm Beach. He has covered the South Florida high school sports scene for the past 29 years. He also is a contributing writer for American Football Monthly and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.