FOUNTAIN LAKE — Although the Fountain Lake School Board voted to approve the high school football program’s transition to 8-man football for the 2022 and 2023 seasons Tuesday night, the Cobras have firm intentions to return to 11-man play after the two-year cycle.
Fountain Lake struggled with numbers last season, usually dressing out around 20 players throughout the year. Despite making the Class 4A playoffs, the team dealt with four season-ending injuries, and head coach Kenny Shelton said around 16 players missed at least one game with an injury last season.
Shelton realized over the previous seven days that numbers were still very low as spring football at Fountain Lake came to a close, and that ultimately led to the decision to play 8-man football.
“It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve made as a head coach,” Shelton said. “Last three years we’ve been in the low to mid 20s. As we were going through spring practice this past week, our numbers continued to deteriorate. We’re in the low 20s.”
The Cobras had 17 players dressed out on the last day of spring practice Friday, and that proved to Shelton the switch to 8-man was needed.
“I had a few more kids decide to quit early on in the week,” Shelton said. “Our numbers were dramatically going in the wrong direction, so that’s when those talks intensified this past Tuesday.”
Illustrating the team’s depth last year, Fountain Lake beat Nashville on the road but had just 17 players available for the contest against the Scrappers.
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Shelton said he felt if the Cobras tried to continue in 11-man football this season that the team would have to shut down the program after just three to four games, barely making it out of the nonconference schedule.
“Comparatively speaking, a lot of the teams in our conference, the 7-4A conference, suited out 40 to 50 kids,” Shelton said. “Our kids were having to play 130 to 140 snaps.
“I think we had one game when we had five or six guys play close to 145 snaps in one game. Our opponents were playing half of that and sometimes, if they had more of a rotation, even less than that.”
Shelton said his team had a fantastic year last year and stayed in games against tough opponents for at least a half. However, by the time the second half rolled around, the team ran out of gas.
“Very, very difficult decision,” Shelton said. “I think it’s in the best interest of the kids right now. … This is something that’s been gradual and our numbers unfortunately due to a lot of outside issues — you know a lot of kids want to specialize in one sport. You throw COVID into the mix. We had some kids that were injured the last couple of years that decided not to come back afraid of possible further injury.”
Shelton also highlighted that some ninth-grade players who would have transitioned to the high school program for this upcoming season saw previous injuries and decided not to play.
Despite the decision to move to 8-man, the future looks bright for the Fountain Lake football program. The seventh grade and junior high teams will continue to play 11-man football.
The seventh-grade team currently sports 28 players on its roster, and the junior high team has 40 players. After the two-year cycle of 8-man, the program expects to be back in 11-man football with the number of players moving up to the high school team.
“Our going-to-be seventh and eighth graders will never have to play 8-man football,” Shelton said. “We’re going to have the best experience we can and keep those kids together as a group to really help bolster those numbers.”
The program has been receiving plenty of negative feedback on social media about the decision to transition to 8-man football.
“It’s not a decision any of us wanted to make,” Shelton said. “To me, it’s a decision that had to be made.
“For those keyboard warriors that are very uninformed and haven’t been to too many games and haven’t seen the heart we’ve fought with these last few years with such low numbers, they’ve been crucifying us on social media.”
However, parents of the students playing now tend to be supportive of the decision with a chance to play a full football season instead of possibly having to cancel just a few games into the year.
“A lot of people who aren’t aware of the whole situation, they don’t know everything that’s going into the decision and how we got here,” Shelton said.
Fountain Lake head girls basketball coach Matt Carter will be taking over the athletic director role at the school this summer, and he noted the Cobras will still get the Friday night football experience for the next two seasons.
“This gives us an opportunity to compete and put a team on the field on Friday nights,” Carter said. “And still go out and celebrate playing football. I think football is a big deal for schools all across the state. Friday nights are awesome in the fall when the weather starts changing and the kids are out there. It’s kind of a big celebration.”
Shelton plans to have a parent meeting with parents and players this week to inform them about the details of the transition.
He did not have the chance to talk in-depth with his team about the switch until the school board approved the transition, but he had been answering questions from his players about the potential switch before it became official.
Shelton said he watched more 8-man football during the past week than he had in all of his life and pointed out that 8-man football is a more offensive game. He hopes some of that buzz created around a new style of play can bring players back.
“I’m hoping this year in 8-man football will bring some excitement,” Shelton said. “Bring some of those kids who might have decided not to play for various reasons in high school, hopefully, bring those kids back the next season. … This move was made strictly due to numbers, not about competition.”
The switch to 8-man also gives the Cobras a chance to renew Garland County rivalries with Cutter Morning Star and Mountain Pine.
Fountain Lake will play the Red Devils in Week 1 and the Eagles in Week 8 while competing in an eight-game regular-season schedule.
Fountain Lake will compete in the large school classification consisting of eight teams, and the top four from the conference will go to the playoffs.
Shelton said he appreciates the support from a lot of the community and hopes those not as familiar with the game will come and check it out.
Fountain Lake put pride aside when choosing to play 8-man football, and the program looks to return to the 11-man field after just a couple of seasons.
“8-man is not designed for 4A football,” Shelton said. “That’s something unfortunately we’re in that position again for some of those reasons I mentioned.”
The combination of injuries, fear of injury, specialization in one sport, the pandemic, more options of things to do and just the fact that football is a tough, physical sport that prepares for the season in the heat of summer created what Shelton called “the whole perfect storm.”