WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. – Palm Beach County has been a middle ground for football in the South Florida region, while teams have gotten close to achieving the last dance not many can say that they’ve done it.
For teams in Broward and Miami-Dade, they usually look at Palm Beach County as a talent pool that they can take players from to help build up their own ranks. However, the tide seems to be turning.
This year Palm Beach County boasted an impressive four state champions across two high school athletic associations, two in the FHSAA and two in the SSAA. This also includes the winner of the first ever State Invitational Tournament, drawing the attention of those focused on Broward and Miami to Palm Beach.
The momentum in Palm Beach County since the realignment in 2023 has been swinging in favor.
- Nine Teams in Palm Beach County made the State Playoffs in their respective classes in 2023
- 2024 saw a dramatic increase in Palm Beach County representatives as 15 teams had made the State Playoffs
- 2025 saw the largest sum of representatives from the county as 19 teams made the playoffs, this does not include Jupiter Christian and American Heritage in the SSAA Tournament and the other four Palm Beach County teams that were invited to the FIT Invitational.
In this short time period, the number of teams from the County making it to the Final 8 each year has risen, from two in 2023, to four in 2025.
Some could say that Palm Beach County is only on the rise due to favorable realignment and class conditions, but it’s not really the case.
Cardinal Newman, for example plays in one of the toughest regions and classes in the FHSAA, many look at Class 2A as Chaminade-Madonna and everyone else. This year was not the case.
Newman, who was heavily outnumbered from a talent perspective, shocked the nation by upsetting Chaminade in last weekends State Championship game 17-14.
While many will excuse this as a down year for Chaminade, others are claiming that the old order in South Florida is slowly falling.
An example of this can be used from Miami-Dade County, Miami Central who’s been forever known as a powerhouse in the state, has missed back to back appearances, meanwhile their neighborhood rivals Miami Northwestern have made the State Final back-to-back years, going 1-1 in that span as they were upset by Raines in this year’s matchup.
This was also history for Palm Beach County, marking it the first time since 2009 where the county had two teams win championships in the same year. The landscape of Palm Beach County has changed dramatically since 2009 too, making this even more significant. Back then, the big public schools had dominated the mainland in Palm Beach County as Dwyer was a frequent visitor to the State Final. Meanwhile, the Muck was dominated by private school excellence at Glades Day who was the other winner in 2009.
Now, mainland Palm Beach County is dominated by private school excellence as Cardinal Newman who has been a frequent visitor to the later rounds of the state championship, won their first ever championship this year. While the Muck and outerlands have been dominated by rising powerhouse West Boca who won their second championship this season.
This also marks the first time since 2010 when Glades Day went back-to-back that the county had seen a team go back-to-back, as West Boca, who won last season, took back the championship in this year’s competition as well, and could be the first team in the county to potentially 3-peat next year.
However, West Boca wasn’t the only 561 team to repeat this year. On the other side in the SSAA, Jupiter Christian had completed the repeat by winning this year showing that the county can dominate in both Associations.
For those still doubting, believe what you want to believe, but the evidence and stats are there, Palm Beach County is back on the rise in football, with the landscape of high school football changing drastically, and new characters emerging in the story, we could very much see Palm Beach County continue to push forward and bring more teams into the state tournaments in the future.
