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Low football numbers pose challenge for schools

Since there are some coaches regular visitors here: Is eight-man or no HS football the future?

Quite different than Texas. With a proposal like this I suspect they do not have a lack of football players.

Quote: Voters in a Texas suburb rejected a proposed bond issue that would have paid for a $69 million high school stadium.

Colon didn't have a numbers problem until they started losing then they had a motivation and heart problem. Colon will be 8 man in two years. Colon hass 166 kids in the high school and we missed the playoffs once in my last 6 years. When we would play teams without a jv I would have to break several kids hearts because I only had 31 varsity jerseys. We never had less than 45 guys for two teams. Last game of the season out of the 32 kids they had left only 17 would dress for the last game with no jv game that week. We lost two-three kids per class to mendon even though we were a pretty good program. I hate to see what is happening but nothing I can do. I think about it every day. My jv coach says we would have made the playoffs easy this year. I have to spend this time with my own kid but by the time I can come back the damage will be done.

Football is hard. They have to feel a connection to what they are doing to go through all the work. I hope and pray I am wrong about colon, but I doubt it.

As Julie wrote part of it is population decrease and thus enrollment decline.

School I'm coaching at has dropped 20% in four years and trending further downward. So our numbers have gone from 65 9-12 in 2010 to 49 last Fall.

We have four Fall sports for boys. Some kids choose to "specialize" in others. Football starts three weeks before school does. All coaches (not just Football) seem to be asking for more and more out of season.

Kids (and parents) have to Pay to Play, pay for physical, shoes, Summer camp, Pre-Game meals, and fund raiser (new Superintendent cut our athletic budget to $0). And that's just one sport. Most of our kids play 2-3.

Like Hackett AD said, there are a lot of reasons.

Many smaller schools (<200) will go the 8-man route. But HS Football won't go away. It is still the most popular participation and spectator sport.

I agree that declining enrollment is a problem but from my first team at colon to my first district title we lost 100 kids out of a school of 268. The sad part is that true small school division 8 football is dead except for a small few that have total control of their district like mendon and climax. They took away my wt. Room class and now climax starts BFS in 3rd grade. I have a couple young kids at colon right now that if I was to be truly honest with them they should move because they are going to miss out on playing 11 man football. Schools like st. Phil that had a larger roster than colon this year would rather be good at 8 man then play 11 man football. I can't fault them because they will not get the support to be good when they have to play mendon and climax. Its kind of sad to watch it happen. I enjoyed small school football more than I enjoyed being at a school with 1500 students. I felt like I could make more of a difference and get to see the results first hand.

Do 8 man players ever get 1-A scholarships? Is that your hint with suggesting the young kids to move? Just wondering.

I saw several HS games this year both JV and Varsity and it was sad to see the lack of players on many of these teams. In some cases from what I understand JV teams consist of freshman and sophomores and have maybe 18 players on the team.

Not sure if 8 man players ever get D1 offers. The thing there is that most of the 8 man programs come from small schools anyways that don't produce many D1 athletes as it is.

I know that it our area Lawrence is playing 8 man, and its almost like watching flag football with guys running everywhere and passing on every play. Scores are generally in the 50s for each team. A completely different game.

I also went and saw Portage Central vs Battle Creek Lakeview last Friday night. Those teams are having no trouble filling a roster. The sidelines were packed and in my opinion BOTH teams have multiple D1 players and there were a dozen players that could play D2 or D3 somewhere.

(11-10-2013 10:16 PM)Charm City Bronco Wrote:  Do 8 man players ever get 1-A scholarships? Is that your hint with suggesting the young kids to move? Just wondering.

No. Just good hardworking kids that want to play 11 man and are freshman right now.

(11-10-2013 10:16 PM)Charm City Bronco Wrote:  Do 8 man players ever get 1-A scholarships? Is that your hint with suggesting the young kids to move? Just wondering.

My 3rd year as head coach I knew we would not have enough players for a varsity in 2003 and told a kid he should transfer. He did and won a state championship at mendon. He was the only junior going into the next year. I didn't want him to miss out.

I understand, that is what I thought you meant.

Participation numbers nation wide are starting to decline. Football in no way is doomed. But I do believe it has peaked.

I do know this though. Programs that do things the right way don't struggle for numbers.