First foray into 8-man football at Delco Christian scores a perfect 10

RADNOR — Obinna Nwobodo lifted his helmet above his face as he slowly strolled off the field with five minutes to play Saturday, careful not to take his headgear off completely and incur a penalty.

The 6-4, 245-pound senior two-way lineman barely made it to the visitor’s sideline at O’Hara Field before collapsing in a heap. Nwobodo stayed in a prone position, feet on the ground, knees bent, for a good minute or so before finally gaining the strength to get up and take a seat on the bench.

Nwobodo was exhausted, which was understandable. He had played nearly every snap to that point, which is when DC head coach Lloyd Hill sent the second team into the game, to close out a 30-6 season-opening win over Valley Forge Military Academy. The experience was enlightening for Nwobodo, who attended Villanova’s football camp over the summer and said he has received recruiting interest from the Wildcats along with Brown, Delaware, Monmouth and Shippensburg.

Eight-man football, which the Knights are playing for the first time as part of the newly formed Keystone State Football League, is no joke. It’s just as physically taxing — maybe more so, in certain regards — than the traditional 11-man game.

“You definitely have to be more conditioned for 8-man,” said Nwobodo, who also plays basketball. “There’s a whole lot of running. … I was surprised at how tired I was. In 11-man, I used to play every snap, too, but I wasn’t as gassed as I was today.”

With three fewer players on each side of the ball, there are more open spaces, even though the field is narrower than the 11-man game. The action is fast-paced, the emphasis is on passing and the games can be high-scoring.

In Texas, where six-man football is huge, 97 of the winning teams out of 127 games last weekend scored at least 50 points. Two teams topped 90 points. The explosiveness of 8-man, which is sanctioned in 30 states, is somewhere in between.

“I describe it as Arena Football on a football field,” Valley Forge athletic director Rich Casey said.

On this day, Nwobodo spent nearly three hours running from sideline to sideline, and the fatigue showed as he made the slow walk to the sideline for the final time. Yet as worn out as he was, Nwobodo had a blast being back on the football field after a one-year absence.

Delco Christian cancelled its 2018 season last August due to diminishing numbers, with just 25 players on the roster. The program, started in 2010, had enjoyed success in its short run, with a pair of District 1 Class A titles and state tournament berths. But with the injuries and attrition of a football season, they lacked the bodies to sustain the roster required for the 11-man game.

So the school turned to 8-man football, and Nwobodo now gets a chance to return to the gridiron.

“I missed football a lot,” Nwobodo said, “so it’s a blessing to be out there with my new teammates and some old ones.”

• • •

Eight-man football is an adjustment, for players, coaches and viewers. On offense, there are three offensive linemen instead of five, and a team must have five players on the line of scrimmage instead of seven. After the snap, like the 11-man counterpart, anything goes.

The formations are just as varied on defense. DC and Valley Forge used a 3-3-2 format with three linemen, three linebackers and two cornerbacks in press coverage.

The width of the field is 40 yards as opposed to 53 1/3 in 11-man. The length of the field can be shortened to 80 yards, but the four teams in the KSFL voted to keep it at 100, largely because of the fixed goal posts on existing fields.

“We couldn’t repurpose this field for an 80-yard field because our college team also plays on it,” Casey said. “So we all agreed to just move the sidelines in. It was an easy adjustment.”

Nwobodo and his teammates are still learning the nuances of the 8-man game, which is growing in popularity across country at a time when participation in 11-man football continues to decline, largely out of fear of concussions.

Involvement in 11-man football fell by 30,829 participants in 2018-19, according to the annual High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), even though 168 more schools offered the sport last year. Overall, 1,006,013 high school students played 11-man football at the varsity, junior varsity or freshman levels last year, the lowest figure since the 1999-2000 school year.

Meanwhile, participation in 6-, 8- and 9-player varieties grew by 156 schools and 1,594 players. Much of that increase was in the 8-man game, which went from 19,554 participants in 2017-18 to 20,954 last year.

The 8-man game is sanctioned in 30 states, but not in Pennsylvania, where 36 of the 89 schools that play Class A football in the PIAA an enrollment of fewer than 100 boys, according to the PIAA website. Imani Christian Academy in Pittsburgh is the smallest with 31 boys. Although more girls are playing football nationally than ever before, classification in the PIAA for football is based on male enrollment in grades 9-11, surveyed every two years.

“I think 8-man football is a viable option for small schools,” Hill said. “Michigan and New York have more schools going to 8-man football. Virginia started a league a few years ago. It’s just growing and I think it’s a good thing.”

Casey and Perkiomen School athletic director Ken Baker said Devon Prep is looking to form a team, possibly as soon as next season. The school does not have an 11-man squad.

“We’re exploring all options,” Devon Prep athletic director Jason Fisher said via email. “There is nothing definitive at this point, though, about starting it next year or at any point. We are definitely doing our homework, though, about football along with other sports.”

Chester Charter Scholars Academy, formerly Chester Charter School for the Arts, looked into forming an 8-man team, but decided against it.

“It was in the stage of the budget and seeing if it was possible,” CCSA athletic director Frank Vaccaro said. “But to be honest, we have so many kids playing for Chester High football and under charter school law, if I don’t offer a sport they can play at the district, so I have nine guys playing Chester High football so we’re letting them do that. I really like what Coach (LaDontay) Bell is doing there and I like the program so if I run an 8-man team it’s going to take away from that. And I don’t know if we have enough kids to do it because they’re all playing football at Chester.”

• • •

Delco Christian’s return to football in the 8-man format started with, of all things, a powderpuff flag football game between junior and senior girls. The event is one of the highlights of the school’s annual homecoming festivities in October, but it took on added significance last year as the only football on campus.

“We had more families at that event than we had any other event last fall,” Athletic Director Reggie Parks said. “That let us know that culturally, for our school, we need football. We planned on bringing it back, but we had to find a way to bring it back.”

A few weeks later, Parks had his answer.

At the time, Perkiomen School was the only school in the state playing 8-man football. Like DC, Valley Forge and Mercersburg Academy, Perkiomen School made the switch as a way to keep its program going rather than drop the sport altogether. The only problem was that the Panthers had to join the New England 8-Man Football League to do so.

Baker soon realized that taking bus trips of five hours or more to Connecticut and New Hampshire was not ideal and looked closer to home for viable options. Baker brought up the subject of at a meeting of the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association, and Mercersburg Academy showed interest, he said. Baker then reached out to Parks at Delco Christian, and the ball got rolling.

Parks reached out to Valley Forge, another Bicentennial League school struggling to find enough players for an 11-man team. Mercersburg also reached out to VFMA, and by January the four schools inaugurated the Keystone State Football League, the state’s first 8-man league. The teams will play a six-game, round-robin schedule, followed by a semifinal and championship game.

“It was all word of mouth,” Baker said. “I knew that Delco Christian had canceled its season, and we had a connection with them. We played them in a few sports and were in the old Keystone Conference together, and so I reached out to Reggie Parks. Delco Christian said Valley Forge might be interested and that’s how it all came about.”

At first glance, the move appears to be successful. Delco Christian and Valley Forge have seen an increase in participation since making the switch to the 8-man game. Delco Christian has 27 players listed on its roster and had 25 in uniform for the opener. Valley Forge has 26 players on its roster and 22 dressed.

“We could have played 11-man this year, but we feel this is the best fit for us,” Hill said. “We’re committed to this.”

• • •

The biggest hurdle was convincing those accustomed to the 11-man game that the 8-player version is football.

At Delco Christian, it didn’t take long.

“I was skeptical at first, but once I got to practice, the coaches really sold us on it and I realized it was going to be fun,” junior Jordan Mitchell said. “I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but I do. It’s football and football is football.”

“I was confused,” Nwobodo said. “I’d never heard of 8-man football, and the first few times we practiced I realized it was much, much different. It looked odd to me. After a while I realized that it’s basically the same game with three less guys. … The formations are very different for us. We used to run a lot and now we’re throwing more than we are running, but at the end of the day it’s still kind of the same.”

The action is fast-paced because players cover less of the field and have to rely more on athletic ability than bulk. Tackling fundamentals are critical, especially with no safety help in the secondary. One missed tackle can result in a long touchdown, as Mitchell proved. He scored four times Saturday and only had to break one tackle each time to find daylight.

“You miss a tackle, and he’s gone,” Hill said.

The fans liked it.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was impressed,” said Robert Lucas Sr., the father of Delco Christian junior Robert Lucas Jr. “It didn’t seem to lose as much as I thought it would in reducing the field and the number of players. I enjoyed it. I think I’m going to enjoy this season.”

Parks savored the moment, too. He spent most of the game with a huge smile on his face as he interacted with players, then posted pictures and video of the game on social media.

“I’m just happy to have football back at our school,” Parks said. “And I think this will be the standard for small-school football in the state. I feel we’re on the leading edge of this.”

Hill agreed.

“We’re the pioneers,” he said.