Sarasota Booker (Fla.) looking to take next step

One possession. One quarter. One more chance.

That’s all Sarasota Booker (Fla.) felt like they needed in order to book their tickets to Miami and challenge Northwestern (Fla.) for the FHSAA Class 3A state championship.

Now under a new head coach in Carlos Woods, the Tornadoes are filled with Power 4 talent up and down their roster, and have completely set its sights on winning a state crown this fall.

“What do we got to do to get there? Well, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we were talking about the game of football, it really comes down to three to five plays,” Woods said.

“We’ve already identified those three to five plays that we could have approached it differently or we could have handled differently, we could have done a few things here at there to have a different outcome with that particular play. We’ve already addressed that, but we use everything that happened during that game as fuel for our whole offseason program. We’ve had one hundred percent attendance.”

The Tornadoes went through a bit of a transition during the off-season with Scottie Littles stepping down as the team’s head coach/athletic director and the school naming Woods, a Super Bowl XLI champion, as the new lead man. Woods, who now also serves as the school’s athletic director, coached in the NFL for the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals before returning to the high school level.

Though the program has seen much change at the top, including seeing Tyree Manning Jr. transferring to Venice recently, Woods has Sarasota Booker focused on the task at hand of the 2025 season.

“I’m very grateful to be in the position that I am, to have the community support, to have the players support their parents,” Woods said. “It’s just an amazing feeling and I don’t want to do anything less than help this program get to where it needs to be. Our whole thing is we’re not focused on the end goal, just focus on right now. Like, how can we make those one percent gains? We’re focused in on the details.”

The details that the Tornadoes remain focused on are the upcoming contests they lay ahead as Sarasota Booker faces 2024 Class 5A state semifinalist Manatee this Friday in a kickoff classic before taking on Alabama state power Auburn on the road.

Sarasota Booker’s front end of the schedule poses challenges in Auburn (Ala.), Berkeley Prep, Naples and Naples Lely. If Woods’ bunch can get by the first half of the slate unscathed, there’s a chance the Tornadoes could run the table to an undefeated regular season heading into the Class 3A postseason.

“I feel like our guys have already been battle tested,” Woods said. “When you think about the long drive that we had to make to Jacksonville, to Duval County to play Raines. You think about the long ride, we had to play Cocoa. So those guys, they’ve been on those long journeys before, and you know, kind of had to get up the next day off the bus and compete. So, our guys, they’re accustomed to it.”

The Tornadoes’ showcase a slew of Power 4 commits as they head into the fall, with Sarasota Booker featuring five-star 2026 cornerback Chauncey Kennon (Florida State commit), wide receiver Tyren Wortham (Michigan State commit), linebacker Kevontay Hugan (Indiana commit), wide receivers Dylan Wester (Pittsburgh commit) and safety Karaijus Hayes (Vanderbilt commit).

Ryan Downes, now at Cornell, has graduated but in steps Joel Morris as the new starter under center. Morris was slated to play last season until a injury derailed his season, but now returns fully healthy and ready to shine for his senior year.

With the plethora of talent returning and experience now under their belt, Sarasota Booker’s window to compete for a state championship looks to be in this 2025 campaign. The question is have the Tornadoes learned from 2024 and be able to use that going into this new campaign.