By John Raffel

 

Crossroads Charter Academy in Big Rapids became the second area school to join the 8-player football ranks. This marks the fourth season for 8-player football, and 34 schools have signed up for the 2014 season.

St. Patrick Catholic is now in its third year of 8-player action.

Crossroads athletic director JJ Eads said that his school had tried to stay with 11-player football for one main reason: travel concerns. But participant numbers became too big a problem. A Class D school, Crossroads has successful cross country and soccer programs in the fall, and the football program struggled the past two seasons to field enough players. Like St. Patrick, Crossroads is a school that needs students to boost its revenues, and one of the ways to do that has been to increase extracurricular activities. That is one of the main reasons both have stayed with football.

Rob Rorie, an assistant, has taken over as Crossroads’ head football coach. During the first week of practice, he had about 16 guys on the roster and was hopeful of getting a few more. “It seems like every year, we get four or five kids who come out between now and the first part of the school year,” he said.

There obviously will be adjustments to make for this newer brand of football. “You’re changing the playbook a little bit,” Rorie said. “[The kids] are embracing it. It’s a little different, but they know the situation with the numbers and that it’s probably the best thing for the program.”

With the 8-player format, you take away your offensive tackles and a skill player, Rorie explained “If you watch arena football, that’s what it is,” he said. He acknowledged that the sport tends to lead to more offense. “Eight-man is a little more pro offense,” he said. “It makes it tough on your defense, even though it gives you the opportunity to shorten your field a little bit. Instead of 53 [yards] wide, it’s going 40 wide. But it puts more pressure on the defense.”

Crossroads jumps right into the fire when it plays the defending state champion, Peck, in the season opener. The Cougars play at Bellaire in northern Michigan the second week. Most trips will be two hours or more. They play Cedarville at a neutral site in Gaylord. There are three home games, two neutral, and four away. Madison Academy and Charleton Heston Academy are among the other teams Crossroads has on its schedule.

Rorie isn’t worried about the fatigue factor. “On the way there, it’s a long trip, but you can get sleep on the way back,” he said. “We had to travel last year, too. We know what it will be like. I think the guys did well with it.

“I think it’s going to be a .500 team,” he said. “We play some good talent at the start of the year, with Bellaire and Lawrence and obviously Peck. These were all playoff teams last year, Cedarville as well. We have three games against a team that has never played a game. Superior Central has only had football three or four years.”

In 8-player football, 16 teams make the playoffs based on computer points.

In 2012, St. Patrick lost to Deckerville, the eventual 8-player champ, 34-28, in the state semifinals. Last year, St. Patrick it qualified for the playoffs again but lost in the first round.

St. Patrick’s trips aren’t as long, with ventures to St. Joseph Michigan Lutheran, Tekonsha, Litchfield, St. Philip Catholic, and Morrice.

In its fourth season, 8-player football looks to be here to stay. But  Rorie admits that his school wouldn’t mind returning to the 11-player format. “Right now, our goal is to increase our numbers to the 8-man and try to put together a JV program that we could start feeding to the varsity program,” Rorie said.