2024 Osceola County High School Football Season Kicks Off Tonight!

Camp is over, the dress rehearsals have been played and now it’s for real as the 2024 high school football season kicks off tonight for all eight Osceola County public high school teams.

Friday’s marque game will take place at Markus Paul Stadium when the Kowboys host Treasure Coast, a team that Osceola has played four times in the last two seasons. Osceola won both a regular season and playoff game against the Titans in 2022 but lost the season opener (22-8) and a playoff game (28-0) last year..

Although the Titans graduated 30 seniors from a year ago, Osceola coach Eric Pinellas expects a tough game. “Like us, they have been a perennial playoff team and it’s because they tend to reload not rebuild,” the Kowboys’ third-year head coach said. “It’s just going to be the first of many outstanding teams we will face this season.”

Osceola dropped a 21-20 decision to Bishop Moore in Friday’s Kickoff Classic, but Pinellas came away with a ton of positives in the game. “The winning score came in the fourth quarter with our junior varsity on the field, so as with spring games the pre-season game means little,” he said. “Our running game was solid and our first team held them to under 50 yards passing. About the only negative was our special teams, we missed two field goals and an extra point and that is something we will need to clean up.”

Across town, St. Cloud has won more games in the last two season (15-6) than any team in the county and there is a lot of buzz surrounding the program as Coach Mike Short has a senior-laden class returning for the 2024 season that features quarterback Logan King, wide receiver Alex Springs, linebacker Landon Millman, and running back TJ Griffin.

The Bulldogs, minus Griffin (sprained ankle), were dominant in their Kickoff Classic Friday – defeating Innovation, 45-0. King threw for three touchdowns in the first half, including a shuttle pass to Springs on the first play of the game that turned into a 75-yard touchdown.

The first team defense limited Innovation to just six yards of total offense in the first half – recording five tackles-for-loss, two quarterback sacks and four interceptions.

“Other than the penalties (11-130), we played really well on both sides of the ball and got our work in,” Short said.

St. Cloud opens its 2024 campaign at home 7 p.m. Friday night against Freedom.

Either Celebration or Poinciana will be guaranteed a win on Friday night as the two square off in their season opener. Both teams are under new leadership as Chris Blanton took over the Storm this spring after Celebration recorded back-to-back 1-9 campaigns and Taron Mallard is the new man in charge at Poinciana.

Blanton has created some early excitement into the Celebration program as evidenced by the estimated 1200 people who packed the home field and watched the Storm’s dominating performance over Colonial; while Mallard delivered an impressive 48-0 win over Cypress Creek in his pre-season game.

“Our game with Colonial wasn’t as close as the score, we gave up one big play that gave them their first score and then kept a second drive alive with numerous penalties,” Blanton said. Other than that, we really played well on both sides of the ball. The thing I like most was the fight we put up. They went up early on the big play and unlike previous seasons we did not get down on ourselves. We focused on the future and that is what we are trying to teach here.”

The Eagles were dominant in their tune-up game.

Poinciana scored on defense (strip sack, recovered fumble in end zone) and on special teams in the win but it was the offense that stood out. Quarterback Cameron Brown completed 8 of 13 passes for 133 yards and three scores and also rushed for a TD; while Will Nezius rushed for 200 yards and two scores.

It’s that offense that Mallard says he must rely on in the Celebration game. “We are most explosive and experienced on offense then we are on defense, so controlling the ball and keeping our defense rested will be a huge goal against Celebration,” Mallard said.

Gateway coach Marlin Roberts said his team has a lot to work on before Friday’s 7 p.m. home opener with Space Coast. The Panthers dropped a 35-0 decision to Windemere in its Kickoff Classic. “It wasn’t as bad as the score indicated, we did move the ball some and our defense played okay but we kept making the same mistakes that hurt us last year,” Roberts said. ‘We’re still a young team and young kids are not as disciplined as they need to be. We had three personal fouls that were called for retaliatory pushes – those things are killers. We thought we had a couple of defensive stops that were negated by offside penalties – those things need to be cleaned up for next week.”

Harmony opens its 24 campaign at home Friday night against Windermere. Second-year head coach Nick Lippert was definitely encouraged with what he saw from his team in a 16-9 road loss to The Villages Charter. “Our goal this spring and summer was to identify who are front line players were and come out of training camp healthy and ready to play,” Lippert said. “That mission was accomplished. We made some errors in the Kickoff game that are definitely correctible.

Record setting quarterback Sabby Meassick threw for almost 300 yards but no scores in a 41-14 loss to Timber Creek in its pre-season game and will open on the road this week Melbourne. Some may think the Tigers could be looking for some payback after several highly questionable fourth quarter and overtime calls cost them in a 31-24 loss to Melbourne last year, but Head Coach Anthony Paradiso downplays that notion.

“New year, different teams so what happened last year will not be a factor,” Paradiso said. “The important thing will be to work on the things that we can improve on. We are playing a lot of young players around Sabby and we will work on becoming a better version of ourselves.”

Liberty took a 20-12 decision against University in its Kickoff Classic and should has a solid chance to go to 1-0 when they travel to Innovation for its opener. Innovation opened this fall and has just seven juniors and no seniors on its roster and struggled to move the ball against St. Cloud.

“It’s going to be a good test for us, as both teams are young and very similar in make-up,” Liberty coach Dee Hart said. “I know they will be well-coached so we will need to go in there, execute and play as hard as we can.”

Hart said he saw a lot of good things in his team’s effort against University. Zxavier Cobb went over the 100-yard mark in receiving and Richard Monplasier threw for three touchdowns in the win. “I loved our team’s competitiveness and resiliency in the game against an established team like University,” Hart said. “We need to clean up some things this week in practice, but we got everything we asked for in the pre-season.”

WEEK 1 GAMES