8 man football

[GatorBodine3]

After watching Texas 6 on tv and noticing some TN counties population shrinking, I wonder if TSSAA will ever sponsor 8 man football?

I know last year teams like Pickett County and Hancock County didn’t have the numbers to field a competitive team.

Heck maybe even Van Buren County might get in the mix and play football too with 8 man football. 
 

I know they do have some non TSSAA private schools that already play 8 man football. 

[rlh]

10 minutes ago, GatorBodine3 said:

After watching Texas 6 on tv and noticing some TN counties population shrinking, I wonder if TSSAA will ever sponsor 8 man football?

I know last year teams like Pickett County and Hancock County didn’t have the numbers to field a competitive team.

Heck maybe even Van Buren County might get in the mix and play football too with 8 man football. 
 

I know they do have some non TSSAA private schools that already play 8 man football. 

Van Buren has never got into football because they don't want to.  It hasn't been numbers with them.

[GatorBodine3]

19 minutes ago, rlh said:

Van Buren has never got into football because they don't want to.  It hasn't been numbers with them.

It was always weird to me, that far as to my knowledge they were the only county in TN that does not have at least one football team.

I wonder if 8 man would suit the smaller schools better? Maybe it’s just the coaches not getting out in the hall ways and getting kids to play? 

[rlh]

3 hours ago, GatorBodine3 said:

It was always weird to me, that far as to my knowledge they were the only county in TN that does not have at least one football team.

I wonder if 8 man would suit the smaller schools better? Maybe it’s just the coaches not getting out in the hall ways and getting kids to play? 

It has been the school board, school administrators and parents not wanting to build a football field and stadium etc.  If the did it, they would play regular football. Besides, in 2020 Van Buren's enrollment was 236.  That's about the size of Greenback and bigger than Lake County, Coalfield, and Cloudland.  In 2007 and 2008, So Pittsburg was at 243 and Van Buren was at 257.  I have had this discussion with people from Van Buren County several times over the years.

Edited April 13, 2022 by rlh

[vandyfan13]

Would love to see this, I think it would be great for the smaller schools. It's growing all over the country as rosters shrink and rural communties/schools continue to fade. Since TSSAA already justifies having 12 in D2AAA and 18 in D2AA, I think they could easily approach similar numbers for an 8 man classification, especially if most of the existing 8 man teams would join.

[ChineseFlu]

On 4/13/2022 at 10:51 AM, rlh said:

It has been the school board, school administrators and parents not wanting to build a football field and stadium etc.  If the did it, they would play regular football. Besides, in 2020 Van Buren's enrollment was 236.  That's about the size of Greenback and bigger than Lake County, Coalfield, and Cloudland.  In 2007 and 2008, So Pittsburg was at 243 and Van Buren was at 257.  I have had this discussion with people from Van Buren County several times over the years.

Clarkrange is the same way.  I think they could field a fairly competitive team in 1A.

[BobcatFan22]

the issues with the Range and with VB is their "Co-op" Schools pretty much make it impossible as both schools(York and White Co) are already somewhat succesful and the parents would rather have their kids play there than start up their own program and "suffer" like PC did for about 10 years before potentially 'catching fire' and doing well; also as stated earlier the price of getting  suitable field/stadium is a bit steep for these 2 schools as it is, 8-man however... well scheduling would probably be the main issue and distance traveled to some of the smaller schools, especially east of nashville, plus a lot of these schools would probably see it as a STEP DOWN, and have the "if you can't play full football, why are we playing this alternate format" mentality...

[mrbigster]

16 hours ago, BobcatFan22 said:

the issues with the Range and with VB is their "Co-op" Schools pretty much make it impossible as both schools(York and White Co) are already somewhat succesful and the parents would rather have their kids play there than start up their own program and "suffer" like PC did for about 10 years before potentially 'catching fire' and doing well; also as stated earlier the price of getting  suitable field/stadium is a bit steep for these 2 schools as it is, 8-man however... well scheduling would probably be the main issue and distance traveled to some of the smaller schools, especially east of nashville, plus a lot of these schools would probably see it as a STEP DOWN, and have the "if you can't play full football, why are we playing this alternate format" mentality...

I hope it never happens.LC is as small as any team in the state but have fared pretty well.

[rlh]

19 hours ago, BobcatFan22 said:

the issues with the Range and with VB is their "Co-op" Schools pretty much make it impossible as both schools(York and White Co) are already somewhat succesful and the parents would rather have their kids play there than start up their own program and "suffer" like PC did for about 10 years before potentially 'catching fire' and doing well; also as stated earlier the price of getting  suitable field/stadium is a bit steep for these 2 schools as it is, 8-man however... well scheduling would probably be the main issue and distance traveled to some of the smaller schools, especially east of nashville, plus a lot of these schools would probably see it as a STEP DOWN, and have the "if you can't play full football, why are we playing this alternate format" mentality...

Like I said before, Van Buren would be a mid-sized 1a school if they played football.  It has never been about the enrollment with them.