Sam’s 2025 spring football stops: Foundation Academy Lions

It’s the third week of the 2025 spring high school football session, and although the end of spring ball is just beyond the horizon, this is the week when questions begin to get answered and those speculating on what their teams will be putting on display under those Friday floodlights come the fall can start making more educated conclusions.

In the third edition of Sam’s 2025 spring football stops, we continue our 12-stop journey to take fans of West Orange and Southwest Orange high school football behind the scenes of the spring high school football. 

This week, we’re taking a deep dive into the Foundation Academy Lions, as they prepare for life under new coach Daniel White, the Horizon Hawks, as they look to bounce back from an injury-riddled 2024 season, and what second-year Windermere Prep coach James Hamilton expects to see from his Lakers in 2025.

More from Sam's spring football stops: The First Academy | Foundation Academy | Horizon High | Ocoee High | Olympia High | West Orange High | Windermere High | Windermere Prep

Foundation Academy Lions

2024 record: 5-5

Spring game: 5 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at Seffner Christian

Coach: Daniel White, first season

Key returners, additions: QB Gianni Rodriguez, OL/DL James Phillips, RB Sam Wood, LB Reece French, ATH Cole Huntley, ATH Noah McMullen and LB/HB Aiden Cubero

The 2025 spring football session marks the start of a new era for Foundation Academy football under first-year coach Daniel White, and my first impression of what the Lions are going to look like under the former Apopka High standout can be boiled down to two words: Energy and efficiency. 

From start to finish of the time I spent with the new-look Lions program, there was an energy of excitement and intensity permeating from the players and coaching staff. During the practice’s opening tackling drill, players competed hard and would fight to get more reps — especially when they lost the previous rep — and coaches celebrated players successes and challenged them to push themselves when they fell short. 

I had a lot of questions coming into this spring about what this Foundation program would look like in this new era and after seeing this team with my own two eyes, I can confidently say that Lions’ fans have a lot to look forward to this fall. 

No. 1: Tough as nails

One of the most noticeable aspects of this Foundation team’s energy under White is the emphasis on establishing a culture of toughness. So much so, that during tackling and blocking drills in practice, White could be heard repeating the phrase, “At some point, you got to be tough,” over and over again to his players. 

“We want to play a tough brand of football,” White said. “We don’t have the biggest guys, but that’s OK. I’m from Apopka, where we never had the biggest guys, but we played tough, and I definitely want to bring a tough mentality to the program and instill that in these guys — not just in football but for life, as well. That’s what we’re going to do here, and guys are being coachable and have accepted that as our approach. They’re all-in, and so far I’ve seen them respond to it. We’re going to continue to push that throughout the offseason and when we show up on Friday nights in the fall, we want to be the toughest team.”

No. 2: Battle for QB1

After seeing rising senior Braydon Marks and rising freshman Gianni Rodriguez split reps under center in 2024 — with Marks getting a majority of the reps — Foundation will once again see the two battle it out for the starting role.  

“Right now, we’re going to continue to have a QB battle,” White said. “It’ll go all the way up to the start of Game 1. I think both guys have strengths that can help us win games, but they both also have weaknesses that they can both get better at. We’re happy with where both of them are, and we just want to continue to coach them up. Our focus right now is just having those guys grow and be leaders for us. That’s kind of the biggest thing — getting them to understand that to be a quarterback, you are the leader of the team. Both are in good positions here in the spring, both are battling hard, and so we’ll keep that going.” 

No. 3: From young guns to veteran leaders

The 2024 season saw a large turnover to the Foundation roster, which meant a new group of players had to step up as starters and leaders for the team. In 2025, that group of young guns has become comfortable in those roles and are ready to take this program to the next level.

“Those senior class guys … they’ve done a great job being leaders,” White said. “A lot of times, leadership comes with playing experience and over the past few years a lot of those guys have played a lot of football and gained that experience. Having those guys serve in leadership roles is definitely something that we need, so I’m proud of all of those seniors who have been that for us. Guys like Reece, James Phillips, Aiden, Landen (Woods), Cole — who’s younger but is still a leader for us — John Rees, as well. All of those guys are leaders in their own right, whether it’s vocally or leading by example. They’ve done a good job leading this young group of guys that we have and we want to continue to build on that.”