football classes same as basketball classes

[bigpoppakdog]

Class A has more poor teams than they have good teams, and from what i've heard they are going to 9 man next year. 9 man has some good teams, but also many poor teams. Why not move some of the schools that are traditionally good and join them up with 11 man and move some of the traditionally poor 11 man teams down to 9 man and thus make the travel time much more reasonable and make the competition more enjoyable? I know enrollment is always the consideration, but why not move napolean up for a while or move r/t hebron and mott up for a while and some of those other 9 man teams that put out good football teams and move some of the consistently poorer 11 man teams down. Looking at the scores this year in 9 man there are an unbelievable amount of 60 point blowouts. 60 point wins was unheard of in the hey day of 9 man. Heck, scoring 60 points to me is something I cant even imagine doing. I'm not trying to bash 9 man since I grew up playing 9 man. The towns nowdays in A 11 man use to compete against all of the 9 man teams in my day. Also would be nice to have those rivalries again. When you travel 3 hours for a football game there is no rivalry or tradition there. But, when you travel 30 mins to a neighboring town there is that element of excitement because of the dads in the stands who remember playing against that town years ago. There has to be a way to set up districts again that will eliminate the insane travel trips to towns you probably will never step foot in again, and bring back the tradition and rivalries that were established. You have beulah, hazen, new salem glen ullin, richardton/taylor/hebron, mott/regent, center/stanton, killdeer, grant county in the same area. I believe these schools can all compete together in football as well as basketball.

[Twinkie12]

You are talking about not wanting to see 60 point blowouts, but yet you want to see teams like Center/Stanton play Hazen?!?!? Do you realize what the score of that game would be?Just use some common sense. Hazen dominates against the "big" schools around that area. They would destroy most of the schools you mentioned by 40 or more points.

[GRIDIRON GURU]

There is no better way to do a 4 class system than the male enrolement, is the only way to go. The 4 class system my not be perfect every week but it is perfect for North Dakota to have a 4 class system.

You can argue all you want but it is by far the most fair to everyone.

The only other thing I would not mind seeing is a 5th class of 6-man football and stop some of the co-ops

There are a lot of states with 6 man football. North Dakota should have looked at it several years ago. Again because of the horrible distance some kids have to drive to be able to play football in a co-oop.

[Flip]

You can't punish teams, like Napoleon, for being successful.
Back in the day what was the biggest complaint about the old 3 class system? I'm not that old.

GG is 6man football played on a regulation football field? I know MN plays their 9-man on a 40 yard wide field.

[bigpoppakdog]

You are talking about not wanting to see 60 point blowouts, but yet you want to see teams like Center/Stanton play Hazen?!?!? Do you realize what the score of that game would be?Just use some common sense. Hazen dominates against the "big" schools around that area. They would destroy most of the schools you mentioned by 40 or more points.

okay sorry, put one school in there that might be up to the caliber as the rest. But if you used your common sense and read my complete post you would have seen the objective. But, do you object to these teams playing in basketball? Why is one sport okay, but the other sport not? Is it that we have too many one sport athletes versus 3 sport athletes? It was not uncommon to play football, basketball, track, golf all in one season. Now days it appears athletes only want to play one sport. So my BIG ARGUMENT against you is if they can compete on the bb court shouldn't they be able to compete on the football field? When my school was at 120 h.s. kids, hazen was at its peak of enrollment and we played them. We played beulah, center, mott..etc...I don't see why they cant play again.

No, its not to punish successful teams, but to combine and make the competition better, yet eliminate traveling 3 hours for a football game. Look a 1-7 team made the class A playoffs. Ridiculous, they couldn't beat r/t/hebron, mott, and probably would be a good game against center/stanton. By the way it wasn't more than a couple years ago center stanton was still very respectable in football. So if there are a few lean years thats just the way it goes. Look at Stanley now.

Going to 6 man football, well, I don't know. I'd hate to see the competition adding another class to a system that already has too many classes to begin with.

[Twinkie12]

You are talking about not wanting to see 60 point blowouts, but yet you want to see teams like Center/Stanton play Hazen?!?!? Do you realize what the score of that game would be?Just use some common sense. Hazen dominates against the "big" schools around that area. They would destroy most of the schools you mentioned by 40 or more points.

okay sorry, put one school in there that might be up to the caliber as the rest. But if you used your common sense and read my complete post you would have seen the objective. But, do you object to these teams playing in basketball? Why is one sport okay, but the other sport not? Is it that we have too many one sport athletes versus 3 sport athletes? It was not uncommon to play football, basketball, track, golf all in one season. Now days it appears athletes only want to play one sport. So my BIG ARGUMENT against you is if they can compete on the bb court shouldn't they be able to compete on the football field? When my school was at 120 h.s. kids, hazen was at its peak of enrollment and we played them. We played beulah, center, mott..etc...I don't see why they cant play again.

No, its not to punish successful teams, but to combine and make the competition better, yet eliminate traveling 3 hours for a football game. Look a 1-7 team made the class A playoffs. Ridiculous, they couldn't beat r/t/hebron, mott, and probably would be a good game against center/stanton. By the way it wasn't more than a couple years ago center stanton was still very respectable in football. So if there are a few lean years thats just the way it goes. Look at Stanley now.

Going to 6 man football, well, I don't know. I'd hate to see the competition adding another class to a system that already has too many classes to begin with.

Basketball is much easier to compete in than football if the numbers are low for a few years. You only need to have 5 guys on the floor in basketball and often times if 2-3 of those 5 are good, you can compete with a school of larger numbers. In football, those small schools would need to have 11 guys on the field and that can be tough to do considering that a lot of schools only get 18-24 kids out. Finding 5-6 quality players is tough enough. I can't imagine finding 2-3 more quality kids to put on the field and to try to compete with the likes of Hazen, who probably get 40-60 kids out for football. A lot of these schools have an offensive 11 and then bring in new guys for 6-8 positions on defense. There is my argument for why they can't compete in football but can in basketball.

[bigpoppakdog]

good response. I always thought, that it was easier to hide weaker players in football than it was to hide weaker players in basketball. You could field a team of 11 easier than 5 in basketball in my opinion. If you can field a competitive team in basketball you should be able without a doubt be able to field a competitive football team as well, that is, if those good bb players go out for football. Like I mentioned, seems we have a lot of one sport athletes now days. Am I right with that thought or is this not as bad as I thought?

[Twinkie12]

Ya, there are definitely more one sport athletes. Do more kids have D-1 dreams than before, so they try to "specialize" in one sport to get noticed? Not sure.

11 guys just seem hard to find. You can hide 1-2 on the football field, but not 5-6.

[Flip]

...
No, its not to punish successful teams, but to combine and make the competition better, yet eliminate traveling 3 hours for a football game. Look a 1-7 team made the class A playoffs. Ridiculous, they couldn't beat r/t/hebron, mott, and probably would be a good game against center/stanton...

You are punishing the the successful teams, even if that is not the purpose. Under your plan there will almost never be a good a 9-man team because all the good 9-man teams would be playing 11-man. How do you determine when a team is too good for 9-man or too bad for 11-man? and under a 4 class system I don't think you'll ever find a way to eliminate the long bus rides. There just aren't enough schools in the state.

[stormchaser10]

good response. I always thought, that it was easier to hide weaker players in football than it was to hide weaker players in basketball. You could field a team of 11 easier than 5 in basketball in my opinion. If you can field a competitive team in basketball you should be able without a doubt be able to field a competitive football team as well, that is, if those good bb players go out for football. Like I mentioned, seems we have a lot of one sport athletes now days. Am I right with that thought or is this not as bad as I thought?

It is probably easier to hide weaker players on an 11 man football team, but you are still gonna need at least 7 or 8 quality guys to be competitive. It is far harder to field a competitive football team than basketball team. Especially with the line. You see a lot of teams struggling with that now with 160-170 pound lineman. That size doesn't matter as much in basketball. And ya I do think there are more one sport athletes, but that's because, and not to say anything bad about previous generations, but people expect more out of athletes now. It used to be that if you had to help with something on the farm or something coaches would understand, but now there are a lot of coaches who would blow up at that. I think guys used to be tougher than kids today, but I think there is more pressure put on kids in sports now causing them to burn out and not want to go through 3 or 4 seasons a year.

[chevyman11]

I don't agree at all with moving the successful 9-man teams up to 11-man. It should be based on enrollment, as it is now. If you have a smaller town, but have good athletic kids in your whole high school who will build a good football program, I feel you should be able to compete at the same level you currently are-not have to be bumped up a class where there could be two to three times more "quality" players on a team than what your smaller towns can yield. If you have athletic and dedicated students in a small town who work their rears off to build an established program, well congrats to them they should be rewarded by staying in the same class, not have to move up to a "more competitive class". You will almost always have some weaker teams in every division, so I don't see how moving the better teams up will help. Having all the "worse" teams in one class will just lower the overall play quality of that class.

And one last thing. Having these "better" and worse" teams together just makes things that much more interesting. You will have your unbelievable upsets. This also makes the playoffs a more interesting atmosphere because the "better teams" will actually see how good they really are.