SkyCoach Advantage: How a small Florida school thrives with instant replay technology
Photo credit: South Sumter High School Yearbook
If you haven’t heard of South Sumter, it’s a small Title I high school with a Class 2A football program within the Florida High School Athletic Association. It’s about an hour outside of Orlando along I-75. The little city of Bushnell is one of those classic American towns that shut down on Friday nights to attend high school football games.
And rightfully so.
For a small program, the Raiders have been extremely successfully on the football field over the last 25 years. They’re located in an area of the country that always has good athletes. South Sumter has had a first-round NFL draft pick, a Pro Bowl player and six players in the NFL. Currently, the Raiders have three juniors with Power 5 scholarship offers.
“We’re a step ahead of the other team if they don’t have SkyCoach.”
They’ve lost just three games in the last two years alone, and SkyCoach has helped them along the way, according to head coach Ty Lawrence.
“I get calls all the time. It’s like any other product, they all call you,” he said, adding, “But I always say, ‘No, we’re with SkyCoach. It’s never not worked. We’re very happy with what we’ve got.’ I take those calls every year.”
Lawrence has been part of the South Sumter coaching staff since 1998. He was promoted to head coach in 2016.
“The head coach I worked for was here for 34 years. His last year we were playing a team in Orlando. It was a really good ball game. We had a linebacker get beat outside. I was up top in the box as the defensive coordinator,” he explained. “When the kids came to the sideline he said, ‘Coach, he didn’t get outside of me. I kept him inside.’ And I was telling them on the headset, ‘Guys, I’m telling you he went outside. I’m watching the replay. I’m looking at the opposing team’s TV screen on the sideline and they keep replaying it. I’m watching this.’
“A few months later, I got the head job. The very first thing we purchased was SkyCoach. It’s very easy to work. It’s not expensive. We’ve never had any issues and we’ve been all over the state of Florida. SkyCoach has never not worked.”
Photo credit: South Sumter High School Yearbook
The Raiders use a one camera angle from the 50-yard line press box. They have three iPads on the sideline, plus a large TV screen, for the coaches and players to look at and make adjustments throughout the game.
They have never won a state championship. They are close, though. They’ve finished as state runner-up and have played in nine final fours. With the reliable instant replay system South Sumter has with SkyCoach, Lawrence feels that the technology plays a major role in his program’s success.
“I think it makes an extreme amount of difference. That’s why we got it. We’re a step ahead of the other team if they don’t have SkyCoach,” he said. “In this day and age with technology, we try to do something to better our program. We’ve been able to do the replay since 2016 and we feel like it puts us at an advantage. I don’t know what our coaches would do now if we didn’t have it. They would probably freak out. My defensive coordinator would quit, I promise you, if we didn’t have it.”
Lawrence added: “I’m extremely happy. I’ve never had a second thought of joining another company. I’ve talked to other coaches and a lot of them have complained about some of the other ones. I always tell them, ‘You might want to give SkyCoach a try. We never have issues.’“
South Sumter finished the 2023 as the No. 3 team in the Florida Class 2S rankings, per MaxPreps. The Raiders open the 2024 season on the road nearly six hours away at Niceville, a 4S program.
