Tiny Waldron turns eight-man football into a winner. But in Indiana, it's a numbers game.

[Muda69]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2024/10/16/indiana-high-school-eight-man-football-a-numbers-game-waldron-ihsaa-ifca-8-man-football/75584400007/

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WALDRON — On a picturesque October afternoon, a high school football team concludes its practice under a bright blue sky with the chant of “One, two, three, family!” as it breaks the huddle.

There are dozens of teams around the state probably finishing practice right around the same time, with roughly the same closing message. The only difference here on the Waldron football field, situated between the high school and a harvested corn field, is the style of football.

Waldron is one of the few teams in the state that plays eight-man football instead of the traditional 11-player game.

“Do it,” Waldron junior Troy Atwood said when asked his message to schools considering eight-man football. “It’s worth it. If you want to play football in high school, eight-man is where to start if you have 20 players.”

Waldron, 7-0 this season, is the No. 1 seed in the postseason eight-man tournament with home game on 7 p.m., Saturday against fourth-seeded Traders Point Christian. The setting on Saturday night (games are played on Saturdays to secure officials) will look like most small-school football games around the state, maybe even a little cozier. Because there are not many seats available in the bleachers, fans can sit in lawn chairs on the field behind roped-off areas.

After a win, “All I Do Is Win!” from DJ Khaled blares of the loudspeakers. “There’s nothing better than bringing home a win under the lights,” Waldon coach Corey Barton said.

For a school looking to start football from scratch, Waldron might be a blueprint. The Shelby County community of 819 residents never had high school football until eight-man was offered by the Indiana Football Coaches Association with the support of the Indiana High School Athletic Association with a pilot season in 2022.

Waldron came in with a head start. Barton started a youth football program in the community in 2014 and transitioned to an eight-man program after four years of playing the traditional 11-man football rules. When the IFCA test pilot program began, Waldron was ready.

“I think the hardest part for us is gone for the most part,” Barton said. “As far as building the culture, these kids have grown up playing (eight-man). I think we did it the right way: starting them young and letting them grow up and play football. Some of these kids don’t know any different. They don’t know Waldron never had football at some point. I forget that sometimes.”

The biggest hurdle to making eight-man football an annual tradition is not the number of players, but the number of teams playing. Ohio has an eight-team conference, the Northern 8 Football Conference, created in 2019. The Ohio High School Football Coaches Association hosted a state championship for eight-man teams last year for the first time. Neighboring Illinois has 30 teams playing eight-man football this season under the oversight of its football coaches association.

Growth in Indiana for the eight-man game has been slower than hoped. Blackhawk Christian out of Fort Wayne won the inaugural state championship in 2022, but then moved up to play 11-man football last year and will compete in the Class A sectional for the first time next week. Faith Christian from Lafayette made a similar move, moving from eight-man to 11-man this year, though the Eagles are not yet sectional eligible. Irvington Prep also made the transition to 11-man.

This year, there six teams playing a full eight-man schedule: Waldron, Rock Creek Academy, Traders Point Christian, Union (Dugger), Indiana Deaf and Tri-State Crusaders, which is based out of Fort Wayne. The goal, said Fort Wayne Snider coach Kurt Tippmann, who oversees the eight-man programs for the IFCA, is to get to 16 teams before making it another division under the IHSAA umbrella.

Tippmann said he believes there will be two new eight-man programs starting next fall; the IFCA is satisfied that there is enough traction to keep moving forward. Tippmann pointed to Waldron as a "great story in the making" when it comes to building an eight-man program, particularly Barton and defensive coordinator Chandler Miller, a history teacher in the building.

“We’ve had a couple of communities reach out about starting teams,” Barton said.

One of those potentially that could start eight-man in the future is Morristown. Like Waldron, Morristown has built up its youth program playing eight-man football. Barton said Waldron is normally right around 20 players (21 this year).

“That’s been our sweet spot,” he said. “This year we have 20 boys and one girl. I think if you are 25 players and under, eight-man is definitely the sport for you. If you get above 25, you might be on the verge of 11-man. You have to be consistent and be able to sustain those numbers every year.”

IHSAA assistant commissioner Robert Faulkens said previously the financial commitment from schools is the biggest hinderance to start up a football program. There is also, perhaps, the unknown and unfamiliarity of reduced-player football. Though Midwest states like Missouri and Iowa have eight-man state championships and the game is popular in states like Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, where small towns and consolidated schools do not have the numbers for the traditional 11-player games, the history of eight-man football in Indiana essentially ended with the start of school consolidations following the School Reorganization Act of 1959.

Most notably, the Pocket Athletic Conference in southwest Indiana was a conference of eight-man teams that started in 1948 and played through the 1960s. The Wabash Valley League of Cayuga, Covington, Ladoga, New Market, Perrysville and Veedersburg played eight-man football until 1963.

Even locally, programs like Center Grove, Beech Grove, Lawrence Central, Pike, Greenwood, Speedway, Decatur Central, Plainfield, Danville and Franklin Central started out as six-man football programs in the late 1930s/early 1940s before making the transition to 11-man football.

But for decades, Friday nights in the fall in Indiana have been 11-man or nothing. At Waldron, a community where basketball has been king for decades, football has carved out a little niche of its own.

“I didn’t even think at all there would be a high school team,” said sophomore receiver and cornerback Tad Crosby. “I wanted to play football in high school and enjoyed playing it my whole youth. I was excited to get a high school team to actually play with.”

Crosby calls it “just like normal football with three less players.” While some states played reduced-player football on 80-yard fields, the teams in Indiana play on a 100-yard field that is 40 yards wide instead of 53 1/3 like an 11-man field.

“More opportunities to make big plays with less people out there,” said Crosby, who played in the Waldron youth league since second grade. “It’s the same schemes, just playing football and having fun.”

Hunter Dodson, a junior who plays running back, attended North Decatur through eighth grade. Though his move to Waldron had nothing to do with football, he figured it was “worth a shot.” His older brother, Walker Dodson, is the starting quarterback for the Mohawks and one of just three seniors on the team.

“We started off rough my freshman year, but we had a lot of freshmen and sophomores playing,” Dodson said. “We played that competition, built up, and are helping these underclassmen to work their way up and hopefully continue the program.”

Waldron, with an enrollment of 175 students at the last enrollment classification by the IHSAA for the 2024-25 school year, would like to be a model for other programs looking to start up football without big numbers. Eventually, there may also be smaller 11-man programs that choose 8-man as a more viable alternative.

Barton believes if the IHSAA would take 8-man football on as a sanctioned sport, the number of schools “would double or triple.”

“We’ve had doubters and some people talk bad about it,” Barton said. “You can’t make everybody happy. If you look at the amount of people we have involved K through 12, it’s a huge amount of people. It’s growing. People come out to watch because they like to watch football.”

The winner of the Waldron-Traders Point game (Waldron won the regular season game 34-14) will play the winner of the Tri-State vs. Union Dugger game the following week for the championship.

“It’s been great,” Atwood said. “I love it here. We’re building something that no one has ever seen before here. It’s been amazing — 7-0 and undefeated.”

A feat no matter the number of players.

Nice story.  Does 8-man football truly have a future in Indiana?

[Coach Nowlin]

Yes