I’ve noticed one thing this summer so far with a few 8 man programs and that would be some are struggling to field a team, It’s gonna be interesting to see how they do with practices starting in a couple weeks but there is a coach that seems to have a solution and that is 6-Man football. I recently spoke with South Coffeyville head coach Kathen Funburg who has brought the idea of this to mind. “The idea to start 6 man football in Oklahoma is to help smaller schools with participation issues and to able to still compete safely at a high level, Each year small school coaches are struggling to keep the rosters numbers up. This is the solution to save their programs” said Funburg on the thought of bringing 6 man to the state, There are already a few teams on board with the idea as well, He went on to say the goal is to get 12-16 teams for it to work.
What is 6-Man football?
I had to do some research on this and this is what I found. Six-man football was developed in 1934 by Stephen Epler in Chester, Nebraska, as an alternative means for small high schools to field a football team during the Great Depression, Scoring is the same as in 11-man football, with the exceptions being on the point after touchdown attempt and the field goal. A point-after kick is worth two points, while a conversion made by running or passing the ball is worth one point; this is the opposite of standard 11-man football. In addition, a field goal is worth four points instead of three. These rule changes were made because of the difficulty of successfully getting a kick off with so few blockers on the line compared to the number of defenders.
This is essentially some of the basics I found when reading up on the game, It may look like a similar playstyle to 8-Man but I went and watched some highlights of some 6-Man games from other states and there was a lot more scoring, I could see it becoming a reality in due time but it will be interesting to see how the coaches association or OSSAA approaches it.
The OKPreps Rundown 
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