Father of Six

Some days things just work out and you get to enjoy your favorite past time with a mega dose.

The rivalry game between Heritage and Arapahoe was moved to 4pm to cut down on some student extra-curricular activity. This gave me a chance to squeeze in one half of 5A football.

Heritage has been much maligned in recent years, with fewer students going out for the team, and parents calling for the coach’s job. They have a good thing going this year and took it to Arapahoe in the first half, scoring four touchdowns to open an insurmountable 26-7 lead in-route to a 43-13 win.

This is what an offense and defense looks like in a 5A 11 man football game. Heritage in white, Arapahoe in black and gold.

It was now 5:30 pm and I was off to Deer Trail, Colorado to see the 6-Man game between the Deer Trail Eagles and the defending State Champion Idalia Wolves.

Oklahoma played a rare Friday night game against the in-state squad at Tulsa. I have Sirius radio in the Durango, so on my drive out to Deer Trail, some 65 miles from home, I listened to the pre-game and part of the 1st quarter.

On Oklahoma’s first possession, they drove the ball smartly to the Tulsa five yard line, where upon they committed two mistakes. First, an offensive lineman was flagged for a 15 yard personal foul, and then on the next play Sam Bradford threw an interception. Tulsa went the other way and scored a touchdown on their first possession, 7-0 Golden Hurricanes.

After trading possessions on a punt by Oklahoma and a turnover on downs by Tulsa, Oklahoma finally got going with a 8 play, 72 yard drive and a touchdown to tie the score at 7-7.

Time for some 6-man football.

6-man football is a lot of fun to watch. It’s a full contact track meet. The field is 80 yards instead of 100. Teams need to get 15 yards for a first down. Kicking an extra-point is worth 2 points. These are the main rule differences between 6-man and typical 11-man football.

Compare and contrast the photo above with the photo below.

Idalia is in white, playing defense of the left. Deer Trail is in red, on offense on the left. The quarterback is under center, standing sideways. He’ll take the snap and either toss it back to the kid who looks like he’s ready to punt, or he’ll throw a quick pass out to number 12.

Deer Trail ran this formation for the entire 1st half and their deep back had a very strong arm. He over threw two receivers early in the game that could have easily been touchdowns. Later he completed intermediate length passes over the middle, but the drives eventually stalled on incompletions. The deep back for Deer Trail was taken off the field on a stretcher and ambulance right before the first half ended after being tackled by an illegal facemask grab, which the referees missed. I’m not sure how badly the kid was injured.

Another unusual thing about 6-man football is the fact that spectators park their cars right on the sidelines. They either sit in their cars, or the pullout the lawnchairs. Check this out.

Meanwhile, Idalia runs a pretty plain offense. It’s like an I-formation, but with only three linemen. They just line up and come right at you, hoping to out-muscle you, then out-run you. They are pretty effective, with state championships in ‘98, ‘00, ‘01, ‘03, ‘05, and ‘06. They were also runners-up in ‘99 and ‘02.

Here they are running a single back formation while going for it on 4th and one.

Notice the Deer Trail defensive formation. They are all standing up, with two defensive lineman, three linebackers, and one safety. I think Idalia ran a hand off to the pulling guard play in which the quarterback handed the ball to the guard and he rumbled for five yards and the first down.

They opened up a 44-0 lead in the first half, then played their 2nd and 3rd stringers made up of mostly freshmen and sophomores in the second half and won comfortably, 50-6.

I got back in the car and headed for home at a little before 9pm.

Oklahoma was now up on Tulsa 42-21 in the fourth quarter. But the game and the scoring wasn’t over. The Sooners scored three more times - on a 1 play, 40 yard drive, on a 4 play, 29 yard drive, and finally on a on a 5 play, 47 yard drive to make the final score 62-21. Getting the ball in the opponents territory on three straight possessions makes the going pretty easy.

I got home at about 10:15.

And I got up at 5am, went to the gym, and swam a 2000 yard workout this morning.