Sam’s 2025 spring football stops: Legacy Charter Eagles

The fourth and final week of the 2025 spring high school football session is here, and West Orange and Southwest Orange teams have squeezed every ounce they could out of their allotted spring practices, scrimmages and exhibition games as they now await the start of fall camp.

This week, we dive into the area’s top 2024 team, the Dr. Phillips Panthers; update readers on the massive changes at the area’s only postseason trophy-winning team, the Legacy Eagles; and discuss one of the top candidates for this season’s breakout team, the Central Florida Christian Academy Eagles.

Legacy Eagles

2024 record: 5-6

Coach: Jed Ebersole, interim

Key returners, additions: ATH Jason Conserve and OL/DL Wyatt Canaan

After a 1-6 start in 2024, the Legacy Eagles rattled off four consecutive wins and claimed the SSAC Class 1A Championship — the only team in West Orange and Southwest Orange to win a postseason trophy. 

Since the miraculous turnaround of last season, Legacy has seen significant changes to its football program — and athletic department as a whole — with third-year coach Zachary Fox stepping down from his role and defensive coordinator Jed Ebersole being named interim coach. Along with the coaching change, the roster also has seen major turnover, with the majority of its key starters not returning in 2025. 

No. 1: Teaching the game
“We’re definitely young, and that’s honestly something I think is positive,” Ebersole said. “We’ve got some kids (who) have never played football before, but they are athletic, having played basketball, baseball. We have a couple of wrestlers out here, too, so it’s just a matter of getting them into football and teaching them how to take their athleticism and apply it to football. … There’s a lot of potential here, and as I’ve told these guys all year, the first year may be rough, we may go through some growing pains, but as long as we’re focused on getting better each week, in the next couple of years they’re going to reap the rewards of that hard work.”

No. 2: Flexible approach on offense
One of the biggest catalysts for Legacy’s 2024 run was a shift in offensive identity, moving from a spread-based concept to the single-wing. With the coaching change and roster turnover, the Eagles are taking a flexible approach this offseason toward their offense as the offseason unfolds.

“We’re still working through that decision right now,” Ebersole said. “When we went single wing last season, it obviously worked really well for us, but we made that call because we didn’t have a guy to run the spread concept. Right now, we have a young guy out here who is looking like he can be a promising quarterback. We still have to work with him to get him where he needs to be; that’s why, right now, our plan is to play a mix of single wing and spread. Not sure where we’re going to end up settling in the fall, because it’s going to really depend on how many big guys we end up having. ... Ultimately, we’re going to do whatever is best for the personnel we have.”  

No. 3: Preparing for permanence
Ebersole, despite being unsure whether the interim tag will be removed from his title, is approaching this spring as if he will be the program’s next permanent head coach.

“I really don’t know what the future holds,” he said. “From my end, I’m treating it as if I’m going to be the coach in the fall, because that’s how I would want someone else to do it. … But until then, we’re preparing for the fall under the assumption that I’ll be here.”