Time for OHSAA to explore football alternative

In the off-season, the OHSAA will have to decide what will happen should a team walk off in the future.

In Week 5, the game between Richmond Heights and Kirtland was the talk of Northeast Ohio.

Whether you cared about either team — or the Chagrin Valley Conference, for that matter — didn’t matter. You knew of how the Spartans packed up and left midway through the first quarter after an injury to a player.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association has an issue on its hands that it will need to address. It has since been announced that no sanctions will be issued against Richmond Heights, but that is a temporary answer. In the offseason, the OHSAA will have to decide what will happen should a team walk off in the future.

There have been plenty of suggestions as to how to avoid a similar situation in the future. My colleague Nate Barnes last week wrote that perhaps the OHSAA should look into requiring a minimum roster size for football teams.

While that could work, perhaps there is another option that the OHSAA should look into.

Maybe it’s time for the governing body of Ohio high school sports to sanction the addition of a football alternate to schools that can’t field an 11-man team.

Maybe it’s time the OHSAA look into adding six-, eightor even nine-man football. It’s something that is becoming an increasing trend nationwide.

The governing bodies of all 50 states offer high school football to their schools. Thirty offer an alternative option in addition to 11-man football.

Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota sponsor nine-man football. Texas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming all sponsor six-man teams. And eight-man football — by far the most popular alternative option — is sponsored by 30 states.

The OHSAA could speak with other governing bodies to figure out the best way to implement the sport. It could find out the way others states determined if a school should be eligible for 11-man football or an alternate. It could follow templates made by

30 other states.

This is an idea that has been bouncing around in front of the OHSAA since at least 2016 when it was discussed at the annual OHSAA Media Advisory Committee meeting.

Perhaps this situation with Richmond Heights will resume the conversation. Maybe it won’t.

Either way, one thing is clear. Change will have to come, so be ready.

NICHOLAS PFEIFER — THE MORNING JOURNAL Wellington’s Parker Adler reels in the pass off a trick play to score a touchdown against Firelands on Oct. 5.

Jon Behm