Pine Ridge football joins Sunshine State Athletic Association

Pine Ridge football is moving from the Florida High School Athletic Association to the Sunshine State Athletic Association, the SSAA announced on social media Tuesday, Dec. 16. Coach Alex Russell confirmed the move to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

“At the end of the day, being able to schedule freely was my biggest reason for wanting to make a move like that,” Russell said. “Being able to schedule, I’m not gonna say winnable games, but just more competitive games … I wasn’t necessarily trying to get out of my district because of the teams in the new FHSAA district. It was really more so I want the freedom to go discover who I want and games that I thought were more beneficial for my program at this time.”

The SSAA would like to welcome Pine Ridge to the Atlantic League!@CenFLAPreps@ByCoreyDavis@FlaHSFootball

— SSAA Football (@SSAAFootball) December 16, 2025

By joining the SSAA, the Panthers are an independent entity that can schedule whoever they want, including FHSAA teams. Russell said the only stipulation is Pine Ridge must play at least three opponents in the SSAA.

The Panthers finished 2-8 in 2025 as part of District 6-4A, which featured three playoff teams in New Smyrna Beach, Rockledge and Deltona. Seabreeze, who just missed the playoffs, was also in the league.

Their two wins occurred against current SSAA teams Lake Weir and Atlantic.

Had Pine Ridge stayed in the FHSAA, it would’ve been placed in the same district as Seabreeze, New Smyrna Beach, Deltona, Bishop Moore Catholic and Winter Springs. Bishop Moore Catholic just capped a 12-2 season, while Winter Springs went 7-4.

The Panthers haven’t had a winning season since going 9-2 in 2008 and haven’t won more than three games in a single season in that span.

“When I was scheduling last fall, we ended up playing three games against opponents in the SSAA, and I mean, they were three of our most competitive games. Two of our wins came against teams in that league,” Russell said. “And then we had another very competitive game against Mount Dora Christian. So it kind of seemed like a level playing field.”

The conversations of a move to the SSAA surfaced last winter after Russell was hired as head coach in December. Russell attended a clinic and talked to a couple of coaches that had made the move and heard how it helped their programs.

Pine Ridge will attempt to do the same. Another positive is the Panthers can compete for an SSAA state title in a postseason structure that’s more inclusive than the FHSAA, with 16 teams per division rather than eight.

Pine Ridge plans to remain in the SSAA until Russell and athletic director John New feel the program is in a place where it can compete at the FHSAA level. New could not be reached for comment by publication time.

“Ideally, I think that’s what New wants us to do, is really build up our numbers, get consistent with not just being competitive on the field, but also getting our numbers right, getting everything installed that we want to in terms of holistically as a program,” Russell said. “But we haven’t necessarily set an end date to anything at this moment. It kind of depends on how quickly and how well we grow and if we feel that we’re ready to take on the competition, especially locally.”

Pine Ridge is the third school from the Volusia-Flagler area to make the move to the SSAA, joining Halifax and Atlantic.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Pine Ridge football shifts from FHSAA to SSAA