Safety concerns are forcing Lake Minneola High School's football team to delay its first home game of the season until October.

Friday was supposed to be a home game at Lake Minneola High School, but their game against Lake Weir has been moved to East Ridge High School in Clermont.

Lake County School Board member Bill Mathias noticed a huge problem on the school's football field when he went to graduation at the end of last school year.

“There were patches that were no grass, there were huge patches of weeds growing, it was in really bad shape,” Mathias said.

When we approached the team’s coach about the issue, Coach Corey Brinson showed us dips in the field where players had been injured, and said something had to be done before he put his team on the field.

“It’s really not safe,” Coach Brinson said.

Friday, there was a pep rally for Lake Minneola’s "home" game against Lake Weir, but the football field was locked, designated a construction zone. It’s the second straight week the team has had to move its home game, and one of six straight games the team will play away from the school. Last week's game was moved to the opponent's field, Lake Nona. The schools agreed to split the revenues that would have gone to Lake Minneola.

They have to wait for $70,000 worth of repairs and fresh sod to take root. The dips in the field have already been leveled. The school board’s original plan was to patch the field, then fix it at the end of the season, but that has changed.

“The consensus was it was better to approach it that way than waste the $10,000 that would all be mowed over or re-planed,” Mathias said.

There’s been plenty of finger pointing about who was to blame for the deterioration of Lake County’s newest $4.5 million athletic facility. As a result, the school district has taken over more responsibility for maintenance of all school grounds. Mathias said, in this case, experts found the sandy soil was simply susceptible to settling.

“Maybe there wasn’t enough water or maybe there was too much water or maybe it was cut too low, all those were just minor factors," Mathias said. "The truth is the ground had just changed and needed to be redone.”

The first home game scheduled for the field is October 10.