By Marshall Tempest
Reporter
The 2025 Apopka Blue Darter football team still needs to put in a lot of work before the start of the fall season after taking a 31-14 loss to the Jones Tigers last week in the annual spring game.
Head coach Jeff Rolson emphasized that injuries and missing players contributed to the performance, but more importantly, his team is very young and needs to develop skills.
“Some stuff looks really good, and some stuff looks poor,” Rolson said after the loss. “We don’t need to give up 31 points. We need to score 21 or 28 points. But we can’t give up 31.
Rolson said the team has a long way to go, but it’s spring, and the kids played hard.
“We’ve got some stuff on film now, and that was the first game for a lot of guys, so it’s going to be a learning process,” he said.
The proved the Blue Darters can compete at a high level. Even with Jones more than doubling Apopka’s point total, the Blue Darters put up a good fight against the 2024 state runners-up.
The Jones offense put up 333 total yards, 278 of which were passing. In the loss, Apopka amassed 240 total yards, 154 of which were rushing yards.
The Blue Darters actually had a better third-down conversion rate than Jones, 50% to 16.6 %, but Jones had fewer third downs (six) than Apopka (10) to convert.
The Tigers’ passing game has been lethal over the last few years, and it looks like this year will be no different.
The opposite is true for Apopka. The Blue Darters have been known forever for their smashmouth approach to offense. Last year, that disappeared from the offensive attack, but with Rolson heading the offense, the famous Apopka single wing appeared and proved to be as valuable as everyone remembers.
Jones’s offense was explosive, consistent, and efficient, racking up almost 100 more yards than Apopka in 20 fewer plays. The Tigers averaged 8.32 yards per play compared to Apopka’s 3.93.
But the revamped Apopka offense looked great, Rolson said, and the players are still just getting familiar with it.
“The stuff we wanted to do was there,” Rolson said. “We had numbers, we would do certain things, and it was there, but they just had really good athletes. But this is spring, and I think we showed some things we can do and some things we have to work on. We didn’t have a bunch of throw game in, but we’ll get more in.”
The run game was the centerpiece of the Apopka offense, and Rolson was true to his word with a 70-30 run-pass split. The single wing was responsible for both Apopka touchdowns, with Elijah Frazier scoring both times. Frazier and fellow back Jakyvion Kemp led the Blue Darters in the run game, with quarterback Tyson Davison also picking up some small gains.
The Apopka passing game looked decent. Davison completed a few great passes in challenging scenarios that gave Apopka first downs. Davison finished with 86 passing yards, a 58.8 completion percentage, and one interception.
Like last season, Apopka struggled to score points when the offense pushed the ball into the opponent’s side of the field. Jones had nine drives, five of which resulted in points. Apopka also had nine drives but only scored on two of those drives.
Defensively, Apopka did great in the run defense but was shredded in the passing game. The Blue Darter run defense gave up just 55 rushing yards for an average of 2.9 yards per rush.
Apopka’s secondary was responsible for every Jones touchdown, as the Tigers collected four passing touchdowns. The Blue Darter defense gave up a 23-yard passing touchdown in the first quarter, a 12-yard passing touchdown and an 80-yard passing touchdown in the second, and an 11-yard passing touchdown in the third.
Rolson said that, overall, he was very happy with the team’s performance and has great hope for the fall season. With just two months to go until the start of August, the Apopka football team has a few weeks to improve significantly in a few areas and potentially grow as a team as the season progresses.
August will also bring a slew of preseason matchups. The 2025 Preseason Kickoff Classic for Apopka will once again be against Tampa Bay Tech, with the Blue Darters hosting this year. Kickoff for the game is set to be at 7 p.m. on Friday, August 15.
