SPORTS
Six-man football is football for those who like speed
Football fans can be traditionalists.
Any other type of football that deviates from anything other than football played with no more or less than 22 men on a field measured exactly 120 by 53 yards is not “real” football.
Even at the professional level, leagues like the Canadian Football League and the various Arena Leagues get almost no respect even in the most football crazed parts of the country.
Along with this thinking, some people like to dismiss the most extreme version of high school football that cuts the player count almost in half, six-man football. In Montague County, Forestburg, Saint Jo and Gold-Burg play this brand of football at the high school level.
Played by necessity in school districts where the enrollment sometimes numbers less than a full 6A teams roster, this brand of football deviates more than the professional league off-shoots even more from the traditional 11-man.
Scores often look like basketball scores. The field is 80 by 40 yards. Everyone on the field is eligible to catch a pass. First downs are 15 yards instead of 10.
The person receiving the snap, who the quarterback would be in 11-man, cannot throw or run the ball. They must pitch, hand or throw it to someone behind the line of scrimmage who can. Field goals are worth four points due to the difficulty of getting a kick off with so few blockers.
With this in mind, extra points after touchdowns are flipped where a score from the two-yard line is worth one point and the kick is two. There is a 45 point slaughter rule.
With so much open space touchdowns are not a hope for every drive, but are expected. Defense comes down to not shutting a team down like what is expected out of most defensive units in 11-man, but coming up with a turnover here or a couple of crucial stops throughout the game. If a team’s offense does not make mistakes, they should score every drive.
With this expectation, field position is almost meaningless except for certain situation, rendering the act of punting almost useless.
“I think we punted about seven times total last year,” Saint Jo Coach Derek Schlieve said.
This has some teams thinking in some extreme ways that would almost never fly in 11-man football.
“Most teams will onside kick,” Schlieve said. “I think we onside kicked almost every time last year.”
With shorter rosters and kids playing most of the game with few breaks, the kids who play 6-man football are trained a little differently than usual 11-man football players.
“You have to be in way better shape, in my opinion,” Forestburg Coach Kyler Roach said. “I never played 11-man, but I’ve had some people I knew who came from an eight-man or 11-man school and they said it was the most running they had ever done in their life transitioning to six-man.” With so much space, tackling is even more at a premium since one missed tackle can be a catastrophe.
“It’s just a faster game,” Roach said. “You have to make very quick decisions and it’s a lot of one-on-one tackling. If you are a corner or safety and you miss then it’s a touchdown.”
This means every kid on the field will be counted on and tested on defense during a game.
“In 11-man football, you can kind of hide a weaker athlete in your scheme,” Gold-Burg Coach Gordon Williams said. “You can get your best players to the ball all the time. In six-man, it’s hard to get your best kids to the ball all the time. You may have to rely on a kid who is not a great open field tackler and he will be put in a spot where he has to be.”
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
A solid day was had by Montague county high school tracksters at the State Track and Field Meet May 16 in Austin.
Bellevue’s Mattie Broussard had a pair of second place finishes in both the 800-meter run with a time of 2:21.41 and the 3,200-meter run with a time of 11:31.33. Broussard also was 4th in the 1,600-meters with a time of 5:22.18.
Her teammate Brylie Hager was 9th in the 110-meter hurdles in 19.93.
Forestburg’s Brenna Briles was 4th in the triple jump with a 35’9 1’2” leap. Her teammate Jocelyn Rich was 4th in the pole vault with a 9’ leap.
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bowie had a pair of top four finishes at the State Track and Field Meet May 14.
Sophomore Brayden Willett made it onto the medal stand, finishing 3rd in the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:17.89. Bowie junior Tyler Richey finished 4th in the pole vault after a 14’6” effort.
The top two finishers from Holliday, also in Bowie’s district, celebrated with him after he crossed the finish line.
“It was kind of surprising,” Willett said about Ryder and Noah Stroman embracing him in a celebratory hug. “They’re good guys, so it was kind of cool.”
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
This past week found your outdoor scribe doing some rather mundane things such as yard work, vegetable gardening and repairs around the old cabin. Oh, I also wrapped up a couple of magazine articles. I always enjoy sharing my adventures with all of you in this column but to be perfectly honest, not nearly as much as my ‘field work’ hunting and fishing which is an iatrical part of any good outdoor column. If you’re like me, you much prefer reading about an adventure that you can also partake.
I am far more comfortable telling you about an outdoor experience I had firsthand knowledge of rather than the reporting part of my job as an outdoor communicator. So, this week, I’d do a bit of ‘reporting’ and share some planned adventures I have scheduled for the next couple weeks. By the time you’re reading this, I will have already been in the woods in quest of a fat ‘eater’ hog and probably have some freshly caught blue catfish fillets in the freezer, details will follow in the next couple of weeks.
I’ll kick things off early in the week heading down to my friend Jeff Rice’s Buck and Bass Ranch located on the upper end of Lake Fork. Jeff produces our weekly TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” which airs on Carbon TV and YouTube. Our plan is to film a segment of our show on stalking wild hogs. It will be a challenge to capture the shot with all the thick grown spring vegetation. It could happen fast and require a fast shot. We will be breaking in my CVA Cascade scout rifle in 308 caliber. This short barrel little rifle is light and easy to handle in thick cover, ideal for this type of hunting. Our plan is to hit the woods during the last couple hours of daylight and ease along the trails, watching and especially listening for hogs. Wild porkers are vocal critters and it’s common to hear them before seeing them. We will play the wind and attempt to get downwind and then close the distance for a shot but you can never guess how a hog hunt will unfold. Wild pork or not, Jeff and I always have a great time together and I plan to bring a side of wild pork ribs already slow smoked and covered in brown sugar and BBQ sauce with a side of camp baked beans!
After a tasty dinner we plan to get a good night’s sleep and head out the next morning for a planned fishing trip with guide David Hanson at Lake Tawakoni. Both channel and blue catfish are on a very good bite right but it’s hard to pass up those snow white blue catfish fillets when the bite is good. David is, to my knowledge, the most veteran catfish guide on the lake and became friends close to a quarter-century ago when we first began fishing
together. The plan is to use freshy cut shad in shallow water and target eater size blues weighing between 2 and about 10 pounds but as every catfish angler knows, it’s always possible to connect with a big trophy size blue when fishing Tawakoni.
Next week, I plan to join my long-time friend J.C. McCollough on the Red River below the Texoma dam. I’ve been fishing and hunting with J.C. for many years and look forward to getting with him again. I would describe this to catching big catfish in a barrel but in this case the deep holes in the river are comprised of several acres. The water level in the river below Texoma are dictated by the water release at the dam by the Corp of Engineers. When there is a current in the river, fish move upstream to feed on baitfish coming through the dam. When the water recedes, they fish move into the deeper holes where baitfish also seek refuge from the falling water. Catching will be fast paced with the chance to connect with some big fish as well as limits of “eater” size fish. We’ll be rigging with big live gizzard shad fished weightless on a free line, using medium spinning gear. The bigger fish will often nail the frisky live shad and the fresh cut bait is a sure way to connect with lots of smaller fish. There is something very exciting about fishing big live baits on a slack line. One minute your bait will be darting around and you will occasionally feel it taking up slack and the next when a big blue catfish grabs the bait, the rod will bow and the fight will be on. There is usually no ‘setting the hook’, by the time you feel the fish, it will already be hooked and making a strong run to the nearest submerged brush. Your job will be to keep the drag set just enough to keep pressure on the fish but not so much as to cause the line to break.
J.C. uses his airboat to access these deeper holes because of the very shallow water. While it’s not impossible to portage a kayak or small boat in the river, it often requires a few miles travel to get to these deep holes, this is best accomplished by experienced kayakers with plenty of endurance. There was a time when I was game for this type fishing but I much prefer to do my river fishing these days from a boat designed to negotiate the shallow waters.
Squirrel season is underway in many of the east Texas counties and there’s some pretty good fox squirrel hunting here close to home in Kaufman county and I’ve been thinking about how tasty a big skillet of smothered squirrel with rice, gravy and biscuits would be. Bream are on the beds now and my friend Edgar Cotton invited me to come do some ‘perch jerking’ with him and his son David-it’s in the plans! Well, hopefully next week I will have a ‘sure nuff’ adventure of two to relate you you-I’m ready to get some relief from all this work around the homeplace! LC
You can contact Tawakoni/Fork catfish guide David Hanson at 902-268-7391. Contact J.C. McCollough at 580-372-0320.
Listen to Luke’s podcast, “Catfish Radio” just about everywhere podcast are found.
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