WIAA Eight-Player Football Championship

press release: The second Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association eight-player football State championship final will be held Saturday, Nov. 16, at Dorais Field in Chippewa Falls, Wis., at 1 p.m. Chippewa Falls High School will serve as the host of the event.

Ticket prices for the event are $10 per game and $1 for children 6-years old and under. Tickets are available at the schools and are available at the venue the day of the game.

Last year’s runner-up Luck is back in the title game for the second year. Prior to transitioning to the eight-player option, the Cardinals qualified for the 11-player playoffs 14 times in either Division 6 or Division 7 with an 8-14 playoff record. Their furthest advance in the 11-player playoffs was to Level 3 in Division 6 in 1996 and 1997. Newman Catholic qualified for the eight-player playoffs for the second straight season. Last year, they fell in Level 2 of the playoffs to eventual champion Sevastopol. They made five 11-player playoff appearances and compiled a 2-5 record. Their furthest advance in the 11-player playoffs was to Level 3 in 2010.

The eight-player football championship game will be streamed live on the WIAA.TV portal of the NFHS Network on a consumer subscription basis. To purchase a subscription to the live programming, log-on to www.wiaa.tv and click on the “Subscribe” link at the top of the page. Archived streams of the games will be available on demand on the NFHS Network 72 hours after the tournament without requirement of a subscription.

In the first year the WIAA has sponsored a State Tournament Series for reduced-player football, Sevastopol defeated Luck 38-30 in the title game played at Stanley-Boyd. The first year featured an eight-team bracket. Reduced-player football has had a long history in the association. The WIAA introduced a reduced-player football option for the first time in 1937 with a six-player opportunity intended to serve small schools. An eight-player option was introduced a few years later, and prior to 1941, there were 90 schools playing either six- or eight-player football. World War II had an impact as the number of reduced-player teams declined to 70. In 1950, there were 50 six-player teams and 26 eight-player squads. By 1956, the eight-player game had all but replaced the six-player option as 71  programs were playing eight-player to only six schools sponsoring the six-player option. By 1969, almost every football program was 11-player with the number of teams playing eight-player dwindling to six. In 2012, the WIAA reinstated reduced-player football with 16 teams optioning for the eight-player format that season. For six seasons, the top four teams in two separate regions were afforded an opportunity to match-up and play in a four-game jamboree at the end of the season.