Indiana High School eight-man football, a numbers game

WALDRON – On a picturesque October afternoon, a high school football team concludes practice under a clear blue sky chanting “One, two, three, family!” how it breaks up the crowd.

There are dozens of teams across the state that probably finish practice around the same time and have roughly the same closing message. The only difference here at the Waldron football field, which sits between a high school and a harvested cornfield, is the style of football.

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

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

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

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

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

Waldron came into the game with a lead. Barton started a youth soccer program in the community in 2014, moving to an eight-man program after playing the traditional 11-man soccer rules for four years. When the IFCA test pilot program began, Waldron was ready.

“I think the hardest part for us is mostly over,” Barton said. “As far as building the culture, these kids grew up playing (eight-man). I think we did it right: started them young and let them grow up so they could play football. Some of these children don’t know any different. They don’t know that at some point Waldron never played football. I forget that sometimes.”

The biggest hurdle to the annual tradition of eight-man football is not the number of players, but the number of teams participating. Ohio has an eight-team conference, the Northern 8 Football Conference, which was launched in 2019. The Ohio High School Football Coaches Association held a state championship for eight-man teams for the first time last year. In neighboring Illinois, 30 teams are playing eight-man football this season under the supervision of its football coaches association.

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

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

Tippmann said he believes there will be two new eight-man programs starting next fall; The IFCA believes there is enough traction to move forward. Tippmann called Waldron 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.

“Some churches have contacted the founding teams,” Barton said.

One of those who could potentially start on the eight-man team in the future is Morristown. Like Waldron, Morristown built its youth program around eight-man football. Barton said Waldron typically has about 20 players (21 this year).

“That was our sweet spot,” he said. “This year we have 20 boys and one girl. I think if you are 25 players or younger, eight-man is definitely the sport for you. If you get over 25, you could be on the verge of being an 11-man. You have to be consistent and be able to maintain those numbers every year.”

IHSAA Assistant Commissioner Robert Faulkens previously said schools’ financial commitment was the biggest obstacle to launching a football program. There may also be the unknown and unfamiliarity of football with reduced players. Although Midwestern states like Missouri and Iowa have eight-player state championships, and the game is popular in states like Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, where small towns and consolidated schools don’t have the numbers for the traditional 11-player games, the story of Known aft American football in Indiana essentially ended with the start of school consolidations under the School Reorganization Act of 1959.

Most notably, the Pocket Athletic Conference in southwest Indiana was a conference of eight-man teams that began in 1948 and played until 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 began as six-man football programs in the late 1930s/early 1940s before disbanding 11 switched to -man football.

But for decades in Indiana, it was “Eleven Men or Nothing” on fall Friday nights. In Waldron, a community where basketball has reigned supreme for decades, football has carved out a small niche of its own.

“I didn’t think there would be a high school team at all,” said sophomore receiver and cornerback Tad Crosby. “I wanted to play soccer in high school and enjoyed it throughout my youth. I was excited to have a high school team that I could actually play with.”

Crosby calls it “just like regular football with three fewer players.” While some states played football with reduced numbers on 80-yard fields, Indiana teams 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 fewer people out there,” said Crosby, who has played in the Waldron youth league since second grade. “It’s the same scheme, just playing football and having fun.”

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

“We had a rough start my freshman year, but there were a lot of freshmen and sophomores playing,” Dodson said. “We took part in this competition, built ourselves up and are helping these underclassmen work their way up and hopefully continue the program.”

Waldron, with an enrollment of 175 students in the IHSAA’s most recent enrollment classification for the 2024-25 school year, wants to be a model for other programs looking to start football without big numbers. There may also be smaller 11-man programs that choose 8-man programs as a more viable alternative.

Barton believes the number of schools would “double or triple if the IHSAA adopted eight-man football as a sanctioned sport.”

“We had doubters and some people talked badly about it,” Barton said. “You can’t make everyone happy. If you look at the number of people we have involved from K to 12, it’s a huge amount. It’s growing. People come to watch because they like watching football.”

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

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

An achievement regardless of the number of players.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

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