MARCELLUS, MI - As a self-described football traditionalist, Nathan Davies has a wealth of knowledge in the 11-player version of the game from his days as a player and his current role as a coach.
But at one point last year, it became painfully obvious to the Marcellus head football coach that the traditional version of the game wasn't compatible with his program.
"There was a game last year, where I told the officials before kickoff that if I lose another skill position player to injury, I might not be able to line up on offense legally," he said.
A student body that has declined from 354 in 2006 to 206 in 2020 has decimated Marcellus' pool of potential football players, so the program will begin its inaugural season of 8-player ball this fall.
"A lot of factors went into making the decision," Marcellus athletic director Don Price said. "The first thing, just like every schools that's decided to do that, was a numbers game. We looked at projections going all the way down to Rocket, and found that football participation is dwindling, and in a small school like ours, if you have low enrollment numbers and low participation for football, the decision is kind of easy."
Heading into his third season as Marcellus' head coach, Davies sees a link between declining enrollment, low football turnout and injuries, with low enrollment and turnout forcing kids to play a full game on offense and defense, which results in more injuries, and seeing their football-playing classmates fighting injuries on a weekly basis doesn't exactly motivate the rest of the student body to join the team.
"I think when you look at where the game of football is headed, there are lot of kids that choose not to play as much as they used to back in the day," Davies said. "When we look at why that is, you talk about kids with injuries and things like that, and one of the things I look at in our squad is that we if we have difficulty scrimmaging 11 on 11 and you have a kid that never leaves the field, I think that's where a lot of the injuries take place.
"At the next level, not many people play both ways, and that's for a reason. Its' a physical game. Our kids getting the opportunity to play and play more injury-free is really important."
Marcellus isn't the only school dealing with declining enrollment and low football turnout, and many of those programs have made the same decision to switch to the 8-player game.
In Southwest Michigan alone, Bloomingdale, Gobles, Bangor and Eau Claire will join Marcellus in making their 8-man debut in 2020. Since four of those schools came from Marcellus' conference -- the Southwest 10 -- putting together a nine-game 11-player schedule was going to be difficult and could have exasperated the injury concerns.
"The timing was a factor, too, with other schools that were moving to 8-man -- Bangor, Eau Claire -- when those schools decided to go to 8-man, that takes schools away that are at our competitive level of 11-man," Price said. "Having to find 11-man teams to schedule, you're looking at the Schoolcrafts and the Lawtons, and that would not be good for us."
So, when the Southwest Michigan 8-Man Football League was looking to fill add a couple more teams on a first-come, first-served basis, Price said his school couldn't pass up the opportunity.
"We've been throwing around the idea (of playing 8-man) for a couple years now, and (the Southwest Michigan 8-Man League) had eight teams in the league, and basically, they said the first two that commit are in the league because they wanted to go to 10," Price said. "We wanted to get in on that and not miss that opportunity."
There were still some 8-player skeptics in the community, however, many of whom remember a Marcellus program that had 11 consecutive winning seasons from 1966 to 1976 and finished on the plus-side of .500 five times in the 1990s.
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"Your traditionalists that were football players in the past, they are still naysayers a little bit and wish we could be successful in 11-man, but when we presented it to our school board and the projections of looking at 14 total players in two years and 15 the next year, that's not sustainable," Price said. "When you give them numbers to look at, they see the big picture."
Even Marcellus' JV team, which moved to the 8-man version of the game in 2019, had its share of skeptics, but Davies said they eventually embraced it as being football at its core.
"Our JV played an 8-man schedule this past year, so they got a taste of it," Davies said. "They were a little put-off about it, but at the end of the season, they were saying, 'It's still football. You still have to block, tackle and take care of the ball. Just because there are three less doesn't mean it's any different.'
"Some of the older kids are a little worried about it, but once we get going, they'll see it's not much different."
Like his juniors and sophomore that played on the varsity team last year, Davies will be diving into the 8-player game for the first time this fall, and there will probably be some uncomfortable moments for him, but that's a secondary concern in his mind.
“I’ve always coached 11-man, and that’s probably what I’m better at coaching now, but it’s about doing what’s better for our kids,” he said.
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