North Dakota Preps

I sure hope they do something with realignment of teams. Driving 2 1/2 hours for a football game is nuts, especially when you are not from Beach. I remember when the 50 mile road trip to center was the long away game. How about eliminating 9 man and making everyone 11 man? Would require 2 more athletes at the minimum if they play both sides of the line of scrimmage. Not too much of a requirement if you ask me. Would bring back some rivalry games and cut the driving time way down.

poppa k dog 9 man Football is the brain child of the Mandan Refinery, the republican party and dude Cheney. If you didnot have 9 man I would never of visisted Crosby, Hettinger, Tioga all on back to back to back weeks. Think of the educational process if you are a 9 man fan you should be in the finials for Know your State contest

The good ol' days where when every town still had a school and a football team. Instead of closing schools and having coops, NDHSAA should have adopted 6-man football. Then we would still have old school rivalries it would be awesome.

I played in a very successful 9-man program, with a well-recognized coach. Not to offend 9-man teams, but the time may be here with our population declines and travel extent and costs, to encourage more co-ops for football, and everyone go 11-man. It's got to be tough for kids and coaches to be 9-man one-year and then have to redo their thinking for 11-man the next, only to drop back to 9. And if there are any college prospects in 9, it can be an eye-opener for some skill positions when getting to the college level. Harvey decided not to go 9 in 2009, and I think with their success, they made the right choice, especially if they later co-op with Wells County. If some of the posts are accurate, we may be looking for 3 classes anyway. Redo the levels, and fill all the upper two with enough teams to make 4 8-team regions each. If some teams are competing at a high enough level, think about DIII LaCrosse playing DI UND. Might be a giant killer in there somewhere each year. I'm proud of my 9-man heritage, but it's time.

7-11 wrote:I played in a very successful 9-man program, with a well-recognized coach. Not to offend 9-man teams, but the time may be here with our population declines and travel extent and costs, to encourage more co-ops for football, and everyone go 11-man. It's got to be tough for kids and coaches to be 9-man one-year and then have to redo their thinking for 11-man the next, only to drop back to 9. And if there are any college prospects in 9, it can be an eye-opener for some skill positions when getting to the college level. Harvey decided not to go 9 in 2009, and I think with their success, they made the right choice, especially if they later co-op with Wells County. If some of the posts are accurate, we may be looking for 3 classes anyway. Redo the levels, and fill all the upper two with enough teams to make 4 8-team regions each. If some teams are competing at a high enough level, think about DIII LaCrosse playing DI UND. Might be a giant killer in there somewhere each year. I'm proud of my 9-man heritage, but it's time.

i dont think the 9-man vs 11-man thing has a big impact on coaches recruiting talent is talent and they see that

Co-oping 9-man schools to make all 11 man schools wont save driving because the kids will still have to drive between towns to go to practice everyday.

the coops are already established, so we're not changing that, but making teams like new salem/glen ullin, rt/hebron,mott/regent,killdeer, center/stanton, grant county all within an hour or so from each other. Nice to get rivalries back again. No history between teams nowdays like there was before. Sure, Harvey is now on New Salem's lists, but how often are they going to play?

i dont think the 9-man vs 11-man thing has a big impact on coaches recruiting talent is talent and they see that

I'm sorry Homer but I'm going to have to disagree on this one. Is the kid from E-K (9man) who ran for what was it, 400 yards? against some small 9man High School is good enough to play college ball at lets just say NDSU. I mean, i know NDSU is D-1 but i mean come on, he ran for 400 yards didn't he. I know what you are going to say, "you can't just judge him on one game." But the thing about 9man is if you are a have decent RB in 9man and you don't get 100 yards a night it is a disappointment. It is 9man and the feild is HUGE for only nine players. Just pull a Napoleon-G-S and run a pitch, block one guy and you get 25 yards.