On March 9th, FHSAA announced the decision to redistrict football teams from 8 divisions to 10 division classifications based on the city population and not the school population. The change will start with the 2022-2023 season, the vote was 9-7 to “even out the playing field.” Hillsborough High School head football coach Earl Garcia from the Tampa area told Fox 13 “That means when we make the playoffs we must travel farther, which means cost of travel is more.” Bobcat Football is in size class 4A-District 14 with Riverview, Sarasota and the state defend champions Venice Indians. That is not very fair for North Port if you look at the past seasons.

For the 2022-23 football season, FHSAA moved schools around to new districts to even out the playing field, but not all of it is even. North Port Bobcats got placed in Class 4A-District 14 with Riverview, Sarasota and the defending State Champions Venice Indians. The Bobcats Varsity Football program in the entire school’s history has not had a .500 season, meaning that have not had a winning season. Coach Belser (the Bobcats’ second-year Head Coach) and North Port High School made the decision to go independent for two years. “It gives us more time to develop our very young team to be able to compete with the high-level teams in our area,” said Coach Belser. Not only will it let us develop but will teach us how to win against evenly matched teams. Asking Coach Belser about how this change effects playoffs he said, “we need to learn how to win in the regular season before we give a postseason any thought.”