Barron Collier's head football coach has resigned after his DUI arrest, and the interim coach named in the principal's letter was already set to run the team under a season long FHSAA suspension

Brannon Tidwell has resigned as head football coach at Barron Collier High School in Naples, two days after his arrest on driving under the influence charges. Gulf Coast News, whose assignment editor Carson Zorn reported the resignation on Monday afternoon, says the resignation was submitted on Sunday.

This site reported early on Monday that the Collier County Sheriff's Office arrest report was not yet public and that Collier County Public Schools had said nothing about Tidwell's position. Both of those points have now moved.

Gulf Coast News has published an account of the arrest report. According to that account, deputies were sent to a report of a suspicious vehicle at about 3.28 a.m. on August 1, at the RaceTrac on Airport Pulling Road North, where a car was parked at a noticeable angle at a fuel pump. Deputies say they found a man asleep behind the wheel with vomit on his face, shirt and shorts and on the floorboard, and that when they woke him he smelled strongly of alcohol and had glassy, bloodshot eyes. The report says the man, identified as Tidwell, told deputies more than once that he lived nearby, declined field sobriety exercises after being told that refusing would mean arrest, and refused to give a breath sample.

All of that is the sheriff's office's account, set down in a document written to support an arrest. It has not been tested in court. Tidwell has not been convicted, and his first court appearance is scheduled for August 26. He faces a charge of driving under the influence and a separate charge of refusing to submit to DUI testing, which under Florida law runs on its own track through the driver licence system.

The school's principal, Sean Kinsley, issued a statement to football families on Sunday. It says Tidwell submitted his resignation as head coach earlier that day, thanks him for his service, and names Andrew Clawson as interim head football coach effective immediately. It says practices, conditioning sessions and team activities will continue as planned, and refers to a challenging period for the football community.

That last line, and the naming of Clawson, both read differently against a fact that was not in this site's earlier item.

Tidwell was already barred from coaching this season before the arrest. On July 20, the Florida High School Athletic Association suspended him for the entire 2026 season and fined him $5,000 over improper contact with a student-athlete at another Collier County school, according to a Fort Myers News-Press and Naples Daily News report credited by On3, which also reported that the association confirmed a sanctions letter had gone to the school that morning. Barron Collier had self-reported the matter earlier in July, after complaints from the other school, identified in that reporting as Lely. Sports Illustrated, reporting the same sanctions a day later, added that the school was placed on administrative probation for a year.

Tidwell accepted responsibility at the time. In a statement quoted in that reporting, he said students with questions needed to be directed to the district over open enrollment, that some of them had come to watch an open spring practice but should not have been on the sideline or the field, and that he should not have asked or permitted them to be there.

The same July reporting named Andrew Clawson as the Cougars' interim head coach for the upcoming season.

So the change on Sunday is narrower than the principal's letter makes it sound. Clawson was already going to be running the team in 2026. What ended on Sunday is the job and the title, not the arrangement on the sideline, and families reading the letter should take the continuity it describes at face value.

Tidwell graduated from Barron Collier in 1996 and returned to lead its football program in 2025. His one season in charge finished 4-6. The outlets differ over which season that record belongs to, so it is given here without a year.

No comment from Tidwell on the arrest has been published. WINK News reported on Sunday that it called him and did not immediately receive a response. This site has not contacted him. Neither the arrest report nor the principal's letter has been published anywhere this site could obtain directly, and both are reported here as Gulf Coast News described them.