Football Fridays now mean 8-man for Midland

 WYOMING, Iowa -- A new scoreboard has been installed. The goal posts have been moved, the sidelines reconfigured.A new era of football begins for the Midland Eagles on Friday.The Eagles jump into the ever-expanding pool that is eight-man football at 7 p.m., when they kick off the season at Springville."It's going to be interesting," said Kirk Park, the school's athletics director. "I've watched a couple of eight-man games, and I tell you, it's real football."It's becoming more popular among small schools by the year, and could eventually push Class A football out of existence.Consider this:In 2001, there were 26 eight-man teams and 66 Class A teams in Iowa. This year, there are 65 eight-man teams and 51 Class A teams.Schools with an enrollment of 115 or less in grades 10-12 are eligible to play the eight-man game. Midland dropped beneath that figure for the current two-year cycle, which contains the 2010 and 2011 seasons.After that?"Who knows?" Park said. "If our enrollment goes back up, we might have to go back to 11-man."Fortunately, we have removable goal posts."The change means something fresh for Midland, which is coming off back-to-back 0-9 seasons and has not posted a winning season since 1994.Low numbers have been an issue; only 19 players completed the season in 2009. This year, 28 boys are on the roster."I think the kids are excited about it," said first-year head coach Phil Whitman. "It's a completely different game -- like going from five-on-five to six-on-six in girls' basketball."Blocking and tackling, that's the same. But the X's and O's are completely different."Because of the dwindling number of Class A teams, the Iowa High School Athletic Association is looking at the viability of keeping the class."We activated our classification committee for the first time in about 12 years this year. Then the other thing we did was (at) this (recent) football playoff committee meeting is appoint a sub-committee to look at football classifications,   because of the growth of eight-player football," Rick Wulkow, director of the IHSAA, said at the state baseball tournament in late July."We all know that when we have less schools in a class, especially when you play district football and you're always playing against schools in your own class, you've got the greater travel to get games. As eight-player grows and Class A gets smaller, that's something we really have to take a hard look at."Travel will be decreased for Midland this season. Five teams on the Eagles' schedule will be within 30 miles.But not everybody is ready to jump on board, particularly Class A schools that have relatively large squads.Three prime examples: North Tama, HLV and Lisbon.North Tama has been a Class A power recently, advancing to the state final in 2008 and the semifinals in 2009."As long as I am the head coach, we will play 11-man football, period," said North Tama Coach Brent Thoren. "From my standpoint, 11-man football is a sign to reassure the stability of your school to your community."I have no desire to play eight-man football. If we have to choose, we will play 1A football and we will compete."HLV Athletics Director Cory Lahndorf echoed those thoughts."This is just my personal opinion, but if you're playing 11-man football, I think it's a sign that your school is still in good shape," he said."We've got a lot of kids out, so our program is doing something right."Lisbon AD Jim Schultz said, "I would be really surprised to see us play anything other than 11-man football. If it came down to playing 1A or eight-man, we would probably lean toward 1A."

FRIDAY'S AREA GAMESCentral City at MeskwakiClayton Ridge at Edgewood-ColesburgMidland at SpringvilleTripoli at West Central