Colome leads restored exploration of six-man football in South Dakota

COLOME, S.D.– Though a frequent point of conversation at football advisory committee conferences in recent years, introducing six-man football to the South Dakota high school sports catalog hasn’t gotten far off the ground.Colome High School hopes to change that. Entrusted with checking out the expediency of six-man football by the school board, Colome Activities Director Kathy Hrabanek welcomed numerous of the state’s smallest schools to participate in an informative meeting at the South Dakota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association’s spring conference earlier this month in Chamberlain. Though Hrabanek didn’t reveal her list of welcomed schools, she included that agents from numerous extra schools went to the conference due to their interest in the discussion.Topics ranged from travel concerns to potential changes to rules such as field dimensions, according to Hrabanek. Still early in the procedure of possibly bringing six-man football to the Rushmore State, Hrabanek stated the main function of the conference was to notify interested parties and engage as a lot of them in conversation as possible.”I didn’t ask for dedication, “Hrabanek said.”I asked for individuals to think of this for the next three or 4 weeks, check out

with their people, their teams, their coaches, their neighborhoods, their boards and find out how they would feel about piloting a six-man format.””I believe there are high schools that will take a severe look at this,”she later added.”There are teams that are not sure since there are just so lots of things

out there that go into that choice. I think that’s going to take some hard looking and some difficult discussions. “Last spring, Colome, which is one of 22 programs in Class 9B, thought about playing a junior university just schedule due to interest in lineup size and the inability to form a cooperative

with a neighboring school district. At that time, the Colome School Board voted 4-2 in favor of the Cowboys playing a varsity schedule. Last fall, Colome noted 14 players on its roster, had a 0-8 record and needed to surrender one game due to absence of offered players.Some programs, such as Langford Location and Newell, have actually picked to forgo playing varsity football schedules recently.”I think that there are some high schools out there that this is certainly an alternative for them. It’s not a huge number, but I do believe there is some interest out there, “Hrabanek said. “Whether that’s enough to seriously consider six-man football as an alternative for (the SDHSAA ), I do not understand.”According to the average day-to-day subscriptions reported to the South Dakota High School Activities Association, Colome’s present male-only ADM is 10. That is the eighth-smallest figure in the state and without a doubt the tiniest of any school not in a co-op for football. The next-smallest school that fielded a standalone football program throughout the 2024 season was Hitchcock-Tulare, with a male-only ADM of 21.9.”After some conversations I’ve had with them over the last couple of years, I think that they (the SDHSAA)are willing to listen to a proposition, “Hrabanek said.”However I believe everything has to be right. “Of South Dakota’s nearby states, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming each have six-man football divisions. Nebraska had a 32-team division in 2024, while Wyoming played with 13 six-man teams in 2024 and North Dakota had an eight-team six-man department last season. Montana has actually 39 schools set to play six-man football in 2025. Nebraska has 2 departments of eight-man football, while Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming each have one division of eight-man or nine-man. Dierks covers preparation and college athletics throughout the Mitchell Republic’s coverage region area. His focus areas include: Mitchell High School football and young boys basketball; location high school football, volley ball, basketball, baseball and track and field; and South Dakota State football. He is likewise at the forefront of the Mitchell Republic’s podcasting efforts. Dierks is a Mitchell local who finished from South Dakota State University with his bachelor’s degree in journalism in May 2020. He joined the Mitchell Republic sports staff in August 2021. He can be reached at ldierks@mitchellrepublic.com and discovered on Twitter at @LDierksy.