What Is Eight Man Football?

Eight-man football is similar to standard, 11-man football in its objective, if not its approach.

Teams need 10 yards for a first down, earn six points for a touchdown, three for a field goal, etc. In California high schools, games unfold in four 12-minute quarters, just like in 11-man. Quarterbacks still throw, running backs run, and linebackers hit.

But that's where the similarities end.

Eight-man football, which emerged in California in the mid-eighties as a way for small-enrollment schools to field teams, is played on fields that are shorter -- 80 yards instead of 100, and skinnier -- about 40 yards instead of 50, at least in theory. SCCS, like many schools, play on borrowed fields, where changing the width just isn't practical.

Even on fields that are 40-yards wide, play is wide open; points tend to come in bunches. With just eight defenders covering, a running back, for example, can slip one tackle and find himself behind the entire defense. A receiver can beat one defensive back and be standing alone in the end zone.

It's not unusual for a team to score 30 points by halftime and lose in eight man. For SCCS, which played on fields 10 yards wider, that fact was exaggerated. A touchdown was never more than a well executed sweep away ... provided the team had at least one good athlete carrying the ball.

In 2003, the Cardinals possessed two such athletes in a pair of juniors: The speedy Orlandi Pena and the slippery Stephen Mercier. Pena routinely beat defenses to the edges and always gave more than he got when he and the defense collided. Mercier had a knack for pinballing off of would-be tacklers without losing his feet or his momentum.

Both were tough to catch and even tougher to bring down. 

This was the dynamic pair that first-year coach Garrick Moss had inherited in 2002, when SCCS surprised everyone with a winning season and a playoff appearance.

By 2003, the Cardinals were bigger, faster and more experienced. Moss and his staff were also more experienced. The team unveiled new schemes on both sides of the ball in '02. In 2003 SCCS was ready to spread its wings.

People who followed the team closely were anticipating it. The Cardinals' rivals in the Heritage League, on the other hand, never saw it coming.