Meeting of champions awaits Lee County in Saturday morning special

LEESBURG — Not often do high school football state champions from different states meet on the football field.

But when a head coach of a champion in one state used to work for and has ties to a champion in another state, putting a head-to-head matchup of champions together gets much, much easier.

Dean Fabrizio, who led Lee County to last year’s GHSA Class 6A title, coached early in his career at Orlando’s Dr. Phillips, a program that won Florida’s Class 8A title last year.

The head coach at Dr. Phillips, Rodney Wells, played for Fabrizio. That made putting together Saturday’s 11 a.m. contest at Trojan Field a fairly easy chore.

“(Wells) was a great player, and he’s turned out to be a great, great coach,” Fabrizio said. “Their defensive coordinator, Steve Breitbeil, gave me my first coaching job in Florida coaching DBs in the early 1990s. Then for my first head coaching job, he was my defensive coordinator. There’s a lot of connections there for me.”

The unusual start time and day, Fabrizio said, allows Dr. Phillips to limit its lodging costs and time out of class while also keeping the team from having to travel back to central Florida in the early morning hours.

The weather forecast for Saturday, according to weather.com, calls for a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms in the morning and a high of 89 degrees.

“It’s going to be hot,” Lee County defensive back and return man Jammie Robinson said. “But we’re going to be ready for it.”

Dr. Phillips went 13-2 last year, beating Delray Beatch Atlantic 17-7 in the Class 8A final. This will be the season opener for the Panthers, who lost 21-3 to Osceola in a scrimmage last week.

Lee County opened its season last Friday with a 47-6 win over Dougherty in the Hamp Smith Classic in which the Lee County defense held Dougherty to negative yardage.

While some offensive miscues led to an early touchdown by Dougherty’s defense, Fabrizio said getting Lee County’s offense in front of some large crowds early on will help the unit tune up for competition in a packed region in which four of the region’s five teams in the Georgia Sports Writers Association Class 6A poll are ranked in the top four.

“This creates a lot of excitement and a big atmosphere,” Fabrizio said. “When you play the Northsides, the Valdostas, the Coffees, you better be ready to play in big atmospheres, ready to play teams that have lots of talent and are well-coached. This certainly gives us a test and lets us see where we’re at and to see early what we need to work on.”

The speed at which Dr. Phillips plays also should pay off for Lee County later on this season.

“We’ve got a lot of talent on our team, and they have a lot of talent on their team,” Robinson said. “The deciding (factor) in the game will be who can execute the most.”