You only need 8: Belle Plaine football team doing just fine despite few players

CEDAR RAPIDS — Theoretically you only need 11 to play a football game. Or in Belle Plaine’s case, eight.

Which is a good thing because there aren’t many more guys than that on the Plainsmen roster.

The school has 14 varsity players ninth through 12th grade as it embarks on its very first excursion into the 8-Player game. It has been a successful excursion so far, considering Belle Plaine takes a 3-2 record into its home tilt Friday night against old South Iowa Cedar League rival Montezuma.

The two losses were to good teams and by a combined nine points.

“We’ve got 14 kids, that’s it, so the most challenging thing for us is not Friday night games,” said Coach Todd Bohlen. “It’s trying to prepare during the week in practice. Trying to simulate what the other teams are going to do and what not. We can’t go eight against eight in practice, so that part has probably been the biggest challenge I think, even for our kids.”

It’s just circumstance how the roster got to be this low on manpower. Bohlen said there are a couple of very small back-to-back classes at the school, which has decreased overall enrollment to the point where Belle Plaine was able to drop from Class A in the 11-player game to the 8-Player class.

There are four Plainsmen freshmen, three sophomores, four juniors and three seniors. That’s it.

As Bohlen pointed out, it creates problems at practice. Not only is it difficult to mimic the opposing team’s offense and defense, but any and all hard contact is pretty much out the window for fear of injury.

As is any real conditioning work at practice. The few guys who are playing need to conserve as much energy as possible for games.

This is Bohlen’s 20th season as head coach and his 34th overall in the program, and he has crafted a good program. Belle Plaine was a playoff team in Class A last season and had winning seasons in seven of the eight seasons prior to that.

But the ol’ coach has found himself learning a brand new game right along with his players and his other coaches.

“I still think it’s kind of a little bit of an ongoing process this first year,” he said. “I’m at the age now where I could have retired the past couple of years. I’ve got two daughters left in college, but I always thought that if we ever get to eight-man, it’s probably my time to step down. But I have some really good kids, and I’ve got a couple of young coaches that are still kind of learning.

“I thought, well, maybe if I can show them the ropes a little bit, I’d feel comfortable retiring, stepping down and having them step up. I think they’ve both done a really good job. I’m hoping they are understanding the preparation it takes to get ready for a game week to week. When you are playing in a new division against a lot of different teams, it really is a lot of preparation.”

Belle Plaine dropped its inaugural 8-Player game to Clarksville (coached by Bohlen’s brother, Darren), 34-32, then beat HLV (60-6) and Melcher-Dallas (92-6). A tough 53-46 loss to Moravia ensued, with a come-from-behind 66-35 win over BGM coming two weeks ago.

The Plainsmen, who had last week off, outscored BGM in the fourth quarter, 38-0. Wade Sankot and Ty Alcott each had three touchdowns and over 100 yards rushing.

Alcott leads the team this season in rushing and rushing TDs. Seven different guys have scored touchdowns for Belle Plaine and 10 have two-point conversions.

“Like I’ve kind of been telling the kids is what I think eight-man football is, as a long-time coach and of other sports as well, it seems like it’s kind of like fast-break basketball,” Bohlen said. “It’s really hard to get the momentum away from someone once they get it. We were playing BGM a couple of weeks ago and were down 27-35, and we just exploded.

“As a long-time, my thoughts always were if you score 40 or 50 points, there is no way you can lose a game. In eight-man, if you score 40 or 50, it’s 50-50 whether you’re going to win.”

Belle Plaine and BGM have two losses each in District 7, with Moravia in first place with one loss. A district championship is well within reach, as is, obviously, a playoff berth.

That’d be something for a team with just 14 members.

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