A growing number of Michigan high school are shelving playoff dreams and making the move to 8-man football.
This fall, 83 teams will be eligible to play 8-man football -- up 23 from the 61 teams that were eligible just five years ago.
But while schools with less than 215 students are eligible for 8-man football playoffs, there is no postseason for the nine schools that have more than 215 students.
Still, that did not stop 400-student Fennville High School this week from making the move to 8-man football.
The Blackhawks are making the move for the same reason NorthPointe Christian announced in December that it is doing so -- too few players.
“It is always a numbers game, and that’s what it comes down to a lot of times,” said Geoff Kimmerly, publications coordinator for the Michigan High School Athletic Associations. “It’s either too few numbers or having a couple of classes in a row where you would have too few players at the varsity level, so maybe they want to go down to 8-player but come up to 11-player in a couple of years.
“It really is a numbers game. With fewer people on the field, it’s a way for them to keep playing. We are glad for that opportunity.”
Playoffs or not, Fennville athletic director John Guillean said the decision to go to 8-man is the best for a Blackhawks program that had 13 healthy players by season’s end.
The Blackhawks went 0-7, including three losses by forfeit.
“Numbers-wise, it just made sense,” Guillean said. “Our goal in Fennville is to create a safe environment for our student-athletes. Once we have that safe environment established, our next goal is to grow the program with a JV team. In order to field a JV team, I think it will be easier at this time to make our switch to 8-man. That was our discussion right now. How can we safely field a JV team to include more students in football? That’s why we made the switch.”
Teams above the 215-enrollment threshold expected to play 8-man next year include Benton Harbor Countryside Academy, Bloomingdale, Bridgman, Burton Atherton, Concord, Lake Michigan Catholic and Vandercook Lake.
Concord also will be new to the 8-man game, as will Countryside, and with NorthPointe and Fennville, that nearly doubles the number of 8-man teams that weren’t eligible to participate in the postseason last year.
“8-player always had one division (of playoffs) beginning in 2011 until we went to two divisions in 2017,” Kimmerly said. “We had 61 teams that were eligible in 2017, so that gave us 30 in each group, and I don’t think we split it evenly.
“We are up to 83 teams eligible to play 8-man football in 2021 and only nine are above (the 215 enrollment limit). I would expect that we would need to have many more schools above 215 to make the move (to the playoffs). It’s hard to give a championship in a division that small when the other divisions are so much bigger.
“It’s not that we don’t want to give that opportunity to the bigger schools, but we have to figure out a different playoff situation for them because we can’t put them in a division that has potentially half the number of students. It defeats the purpose.”
The Blackhawks are making the change under a first-year coach in Richard Roth, who previously served as head coach at Colon and Bloomingdale. This will be his first opportunity to coach the 8-man game.
“I think my option philosophy translates well to the 8-man game,” Roth said. “Most of the games are running a similarity to an option game. Even though I’m a flexible triple-option guy, we can go spread option pretty fast and score points quickly.
“Defensively, we are putting the nuts and bolts together. We always feel like you are a man short on the defensive side in 8-man, so we are for sure going to know how to tackle and take the football away. But for now, we are ironing out the Xs and Os. Are we going to run a three-front defense or a two-front? It is a very interesting dynamic going from 11-man to 8-man defensively I feel.”
Kimmerly said there could be more teams switching to 8-man play, adding that some programs may wait until May to confirm with the MHSAA.
NorthPointe and Fennville officials both expressed interest of returning to the 11-man game in the future, but neither team has set a timetable.
“We don’t have a set date or year,” Guillean said. “We want to provide the best and safest opportunity for kids, whether it takes one year, two years or 10 years. That’s our mentality right now.”
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