MHSAA To Conduct Meetings On Football Format For Fewer Than 11 Players

This is a hot topic lately as I've heard A-F, CPS and possibly Owen-Gage are considering this:
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Jan. 6 - The Michigan High SchoolAthletic Association will conduct a series of meetings this month todetermine interest on the part of its smallest schools for a footballformat utilizing fewer than 11 players.
The meetings will take place at Escanaba High School on January 12 at 1 p.m., in Indian River at theCheboygan-Otsego-Presque Ile Educational Service District building on January 13 at 10 a.m., and in East Lansing at the MHSAA office onJanuary 29 at 9:30 a.m.
The Representative Council authorized the meetings at itsDecember 5, 2008 meeting, following a review of a survey conducted ofmember schools in the fall. Every Class D and C school in the MHSAAmembership has been invited to attend.
The meetings will review the different formats used in otherstates for fewer than 11 players. Twenty-one state associations conductpost-season tournaments under three different formats. The nine-playergame takes place in Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota; eight-playerfootball exists in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas,Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington and South Dakota; and the six-player version is played in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Texas.
Discussion will also take place at the meetings about ruledifferences between the 11 player and the reduced player formats, theimpact of schools sponsoring reduced player teams on neighboringschools, and a potential MHSAA-sponsored football playoff for a reducedplayer format.
The feedback received will be shared with the MHSAAFootball Committee and the Representative Council at upcoming meetings.
Back in the 1930s, upwards of 75 small schools sponsoredsix-player football in Michigan. Sponsorship declined throughout the1950s as smaller school districts consolidated, giving way toeight-player and eventually to eleven-player teams.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntarymembership by over 1,600 public and private senior high schools andjunior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules forathletic eligibility and competition.
No government funds or taxdollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such associationnationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees fromschools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted toparticipate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract approximately 1.6million spectators each year.