Florida High School Football: Gadsden County reportedly hires new head coach

Daniel Fish will be the next head football coach for Gadsden County, according to a report from WCTV’s Allison Posey.

The Jaguars had a chaotic 2025 as former head coach Russell Ellington left the program before the beginning of the season. They began the year without an official interim head coach and finished with a 3-5 record.

At the end of July, Ellington and eight Gadsden County players were facing a one-year suspension after the Florida High School Athletics Association’s “preliminary finding of registration irregularities.” A week later, it was ruled that the eight players would be eligible to play in 2025, though they couldn’t play for Gadsden County.

The FHSAA sent a sanctions letter to Gadsden County that they had violated the following: Not reporting non-traditional student-athletes, student-athletes submitting forms with falsified information or participating with incomplete forms, and players participating in summer activities without completing the non-traditional student registration process.

Ellington then stepped down from the 2A program, taking an assistant job at Savannah State. In his two seasons leading the Jaguars, Ellington went 18-7.

After the 2025 season got underway, Posey reported that the Jaguars were practicing without an official interim head coach and were averaging 20-25 players at practice. They forfeited an early-season road game at Illinois powerhouse East St. Louis after losing their season-opener at Tift County (Ga.).

The season did end on a high note, as Gadsden won its final three games of the season. The expected 2A contender finished as the No. 120 team in Florida, according to the Rivals Composite Rankings.

After spending two seasons at Flagler Palm Coast, Fish was let go after the 2024 campaign for “failures in his teaching and administrative duties.” In May of last year, he was tabbed the inaugural head coach of First Baptist Christian, which joined the Sunshine State Athletic Association. Now, he’s reportedly headed from Palm Coast to Havana.

During his two seasons at Flagler, Fish went 12-9. In 2024, the Bulldogs went 9-2.

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