High school football players and coaches across Florida are increasingly seeing their Friday nights cut short due to a mandated emphasis on flagrant and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
According to data obtained from the Florida High School Athletic Association, ejections surged 20 percent from the 2021 through the 2025 seasons, far outpacing the 2 percent increase in the number of football teams competing in the FHSAA during that same period.
Since 2024, the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations (NFHS), which writes the official rules and guidelines for high school sports throughout the country, has made sportsmanship one of its annual points-of-emphasis. This year, it was the No. 1 item with game officials being instructed to penalize celebrations that are “prolonged, choreographed and directed at an opponent.”
Through the first four weeks of the 2026 regular season, there were four Southwest Florida football players ejected for non-contact unsportsmanlike penalties, matching the total for the previous two seasons combined. Each foul results in a 15-yard penalty and a player who receives two in one game is ejected. Such an ejection also triggers a mandatory one-game suspension by the FHSAA.
“Really the purpose of what we do is to more or less teach these guys to be disciplined young men,” South Fort Myers football coach Matt Holderfield said. “But some of those things get a little confusing.”
Preventing altercations before they start
Prior to the start of this season, the South Gulf Football Officials Association (SGFOA), which administers games in Lee and southern Sarasota counties as well as LaBelle, met with football coaches and athletic directors to discuss the heightened focus on flagrant and unsportsmanlike conduct.
According to the NFHS guidelines, actions that should be penalized by officials without warning include taunting, demonstrations of violence such as brandishing guns and throat slashes, excessive or choreographed celebrations, profanity, dunking the ball over the crossbar, removal of helmet to celebrate or protest, dancing, somersaults or flips, and aggressively spiking or spinning the ball.
“Anything directed towards an opponent, that’s going to be automatic with no warning given,” said Jakub Vaughn, who is in his first year as SGFOA president. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the first snap of the game or the season.”
The belief is aggressively monitoring such actions allows officials to maintain control of the game and will prevent escalations such as late hits or fights. That hasn’t always been the result this season in Florida, where the FHSAA has already banned five high school football programs from the postseason for being involved in brawls either during or after games.
Players mimic what they see at college, pro levels
Just like the playing rules differ between high school, college and NFL football levels, so too does the enforcement of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. Generally, college and the pros are more lenient toward expressive and celebratory behavior by players. Recently, the NFL clarified its celebration rules after a number of fines for celebrations that mimicked drinking were ultimately rescinded.
“Players run into some issues when they see things happening on Saturdays and Sundays and they’re wondering why they’re not able to do the same things at the high school level,” Vaughn said. “The NFHS considers (the football field) to be an extension of the classroom so those types of things, they can’t happen.”
That creates a learning curve for both players and the coaches who are tasked with educating their teams about what expressive gestures are permitted.
“The first few weeks, our kids still didn’t understand it,” said Holderfield, who had a player flagged for pointing after earning a first down, something that regularly occurs in college and pro football. “You have so many rules that are Saturday, so many that are Sunday and so many that are Friday. The kids emulate what they see at other levels of football so sometimes it’s tough.”
Another influence is 7-on-7 tournaments which take place throughout the state during the summer and feature made-for-social-media highlights where over the top celebrations are encouraged.
“You can say and do basically whatever you want,” Dunbar head coach Sammy Brown said of the summer events. “Then they have trouble cutting it out once they come back to real football.”
Teams adjusting to tighter regulations
Vaughn said he’s seeing far less unsportsmanlike actions in the recent games he’s officiated compared to the first month of the season.
“The players are starting to adapt,” he said.
But there have been growing pains and adjustments for both players and coaches. During its Aug. 27 game with rival Riverdale, South Fort Myers players Ja’Dell Carter and Aiden Boyd were both ejected and subsequently suspended after picking up multiple unsportsmanlike penalties. In recent years, this matchup has generated more excitement than normal with a handful of former South coaches now on Riverdale’s sidelines.
“I just think I got a little too overexcited,” said Carter, who sat out South’s next game, a 28-7 win over Gulf Coast, as a result of his ejection. “I couldn’t calm myself down, especially playing against my coach that left here. I tried to keep it a little cool, but it just got in my head a little bit.”
Holderfield said that following the Riverdale game, for the next two weeks the team carved out practice time for end zone celebrations, with coaches monitoring to make sure they were not excessive and timing how long it took players to get back in the huddle.
“You want them to be able to have some emotion,” Holderfield said. “But our biggest thing is just to keep talking to them and working through it.”
As for South’s Carter, the defensive end said he’s learned his lesson and won’t do anything to jeopardize his ability to finish out his senior season for the Wolfpack on the field, not on the sidelines. “I’m not celebrating anything anymore,” he said. “No more celebration for sacks, nothing.”
Florida high school football ejections
(Includes players and coaches)
2021: 353
2022: 368
2023: 450
2024: 435
2025: 423
Source: Florida High School Athletic Association
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Florida high school football ejections rise with emphasis on sportsmanship