BLOOMINGDALE, MI - Bloomingdale will roll out a new brand of football under the Friday night lights this fall, and if all goes according to plan, that will mean good things for the future of the Cardinals’ program.
But for the upcoming season, the team's move to 8-player football means it won't be eligible for the playoffs.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association set the enrollment limit on playoff-eligible 8-man teams at 215 students, and Bloomingdale's student body checks in at 323, according to the MHSAA's 2020-21 count.
Second-year coach Joe Good said talks about moving away from 11-player began last year, as the realization set in that another season of low athlete turnout would jeopardize the school's ability to have any kind of football in 2020.
"Last year about midseason, we had a meeting with the athletic director, the principal, some school board members and our Rocket (football) director, and we were looking at the numbers and seeing we wouldn't have been able to compete in an 11-man schedule, so we had to figure out some way to keep football in Bloomingdale and make it fun for kids again," he said.
Bloomingdale is far from the first Kalamazoo-area team to switch from 11-player ball to the 8-man game, with Lawrence making the jump in 2013, and Climax-Scotts and Martin making their debut last year.
Both Lawrence and Martin struggled in the years leading up to the 8-man move, with the Tigers going 7-38 in their last five seasons of 11-man, and Martin enduring 10 losing seasons in their last 11 years, including six consecutive 0-9 campaigns from 2008 to 2013.
The move to 8-man paid immediate dividends in the win column for both teams, as Lawrence won a state title in its second year in 2014, and Martin went 10-1 in its first season of the 8-man game in 2019
Officials at Bloomingdale are hoping the move also means good things for a Cardinals program that hasn't made the playoffs since 2004 and has just one winning season in the past 15 years.
The thought is that winning breeds excitement, and excitement brings kids out for football.
"Right now, the idea is just to build up the program to get kids excited about football again," Good said. "The way the 8-man has taken storm in Michigan, it's an exciting game.
"A lot of those smaller schools, like Colon and Climax-Scotts and Morrice and (Portland) St. Pats, their rosters were bigger than my 11-man roster last year. Mostly their kids were excited about playing football, and that's what happens when you're winning games. The biggest thing is getting it back to where kids are actually having fun and enjoying the game. That's where they saw their numbers increase."
Unlike those teams, wins won't equal playoffs at the 8-player level, unless the MHSAA increases its enrollment cap for postseason-eligible teams, but Good said that's not as big of an issue for the guys in his locker room.
"I'm in a group chat with them, and the encouragement and the leadership I've seen with the seniors -- they're ready to hit the ground running," he said. "COVID-19 has put a damper on things, but they're ready to compete and ready to grind.
"They understand they don't have a chance to go to the playoffs this year, but they have a chance to compete and have fun and do what they love to do, and that's play football."
Good said the transition for his coaching staff will be a significant one, especially on defense, and added that some coaches have decided to move to the middle school program, where they will continue to teach 11-player football with the hope of bringing it back when turnout improves.
“There are a couple coaches that were on the varsity staff last year that are taking the sacrifice of stepping down to our middle school and Rocket programs to help build that up to be that cornerstone and get more kids excited about playing football when they hit high school,” he said. “The transition right now is about building it as a whole, not just in the high school.”
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June 04, 2020 at 06:18PM
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Bloomingdale’s move to 8-player football brings hope, but no playoffs in 2020 - MLive.com
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