High School team forfeits due to size discrepancy

Play the game! Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Play the game! Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

I would feel differently if these were two clean public schools playing and one cancelled.

Did William Wallace forfeit against impossible odds?

We were a very small public school going up against a Catholic school that recruited from all over our area. At some point, a game can become like Homer punching the fake Hamburglar.  It's pointless. 

I can say because of that game that I tackled a guy who went on to play tight end at Northwestern.  It was maybe my greatest athletic acomplishment!

Looking at the scores of the 3 games that Archbishop Murphy has played, they have outscored the opponents 170-0. Certainly there must be an intimidation factor.

Looking at the roster (http://www.am-hs.org/page.cfm?p=659&teamID=112) the offensive line is massive, but the rest doesn't seem that out of the ordinary. Not knowing the injury reports from the first 3 games, I would say the fear is only somewhat justfied.

growing up and was on both ends of curb stompings. I'm definitely not against lessons learned on both ends of that spectrum. However, there was never a safety concern.  I did play games where teams have taken cheap shots and it was a danger.  It really is not worth it to suffer a major injury in high school sports if it can be avoided. This isn't near the same as PSU taking the field goal type thing.  That is two teamsable to recruit similar type players with players getting major spotlight and scholarships.  

http://www.king5.com/sports/high-school/football/archbishop-murphy-h-s-…

It's a 22-minute video; still watching it.  No summary yet, other than they're "disappointed."

EDIT (summary of press conference video):

• Extolling academic and religious virtues of the HS
• Seniors had losing record as freshmen
• Players remain focused, used week of first cancelation to focus on studies
• Player reps came to school for academics, not football
• Team just wants to play football
• Coach feels bad for the seniors, who are losing games of their final season
• Audience questions are hard to make out, but one is about recruiting "perceptions"
• Coach says the school's conference considered some "competitive balance" proposals in the offseason but chose not to implement them
• After the first two forfeits, there was apparently an agreement among conference ADs not to forfeit any more games
• Coach hopes rules are enacted to prevent short-notice forfeits
• With more notice, team might've been able to find an alternative; opposing team was asked three weeks ago about their intentions and said nothing
• Coach admits the likelihood of staying in the conference is low if this is what can be expected in the future

It sounds like Archbishop Murphy might need to consider joining a different conference or going the route of other elite HS football programs (Paramus, Don Bosco, Valor Christian, etc.), loading their schedule with similar programs (even if out-of-state).

who played for a really small high school in the 70s. His team only had like 30 players availible for any game. They were so bad they used to punt on third down just to surpise their opponents. 

Eons ago I played football in an Ann Arbor Junior High (to you youngsters that was 7th-9th grades). We were allowed to play tackle in 8th and 9th grade. We had 5 footbally teams - lightweight, two middleweight teams, light heavyweight and heavyweight.  As a middle weight we scrimaged the lightweights and even a dozen pounds made a difference. 

I know the heavyweights would have crushed us even if they only outweighed us by 30+ pounds. 

Imagine being such a feared team that you just show up and the other team looks at you and quit.

I do not like what this school is doing.  It is teaching the kids to lay down and quit, rather than to face adversity. 

Never quit because of what might happen.. sometimes you're the foot and sometimes you're the ass but, you'll never know which until you start kicking

Hard to tell from the article, and I am reading between the lines a bit, but it sounds to me like the opposing coaches all got together and agreed to forfeit to the private school to draw attention to their complaint about recruiting and competition. Too much of a coincidence that three different teams independently decided to forfeit. Looking at the school districts' websites, Granite falls has about 600 students in the HS, and the private school as 525. Also you can actually look at Bishop Murphy's roster online.

These three teams probably got together and are using player safety, the hot-button issue of the day in HS football, as a PR wedge to get media attention for the private-public school football debate, which rages on.  Actually a pretty good strategy if you are into that sort of thing, and will probably be copied as a strategy in other areas of the country as well.

is scheduling wrong.

Why not have the smaller school teams like Granite Falls play the freshman or Junior varsity team from the Archbishop Murphy?  The Archbishop Murphy should be looking to get higher profile matchups for his varsity team if everyone in their conference is scared to play them this year.  It's not fair to the kids from either team to have them miss games, because the adults can't go the extra mile to find appropriate opponents for both teams.