Bob McMorris and his kids heard the chatter a year ago.

Steve Smith and his group have been on the receiving end just in the last two weeks.

“Eight-man football isn’t real football,” they’ve been told, both in athletics meetings and on the playground.

In 2021, McMorris’ Wellsville program, due to a drop in numbers, became the first in the Big 30 to transition from the 11- to the increasingly popular, and necessary, 8-man ranks. Smith’s Bolivar-Richburg squad, in a proactive move that fit its current climate, followed suit this summer.

For each, the first order of business was a bit of persuasion.

“You had to convince them first of all, well, yeah, it’s real football … and we’re gonna come play real football,” McMorris recalled. “There’s hitting, there’s blocking, there’s tackling, there’s running, there’s passing, there’s everything with it. We’re teaching basic football that (we’ve always taught).”

As part of that, they did their best to have any remaining naysayers accept the black and white figures and the overall direction of high school football in this area.

“There’s probably some people that aren’t real pleased,” Smith acknowledged. “ … Well, there were 49 8-man teams last year and there were 52 Class D teams (in the state). And I know those numbers are gonna be different because we just dropped from D to 8-man. (So, this year, presumably), it’s gonna be pretty darn close to equal.”

AND ONCE they did that, McMorris last summer and Smith since before the decision was made official on Aug. 19, they could truly begin their process …

Of embracing the initially less desired of its choices. Of beginning the transition in earnest. Of accepting a new challenge, one which would require a new playbook, a new approach and, now, even new lines on the field.

And what an interesting challenge it’s been.

“Some of the plays are a little different because offensively sometimes you don’t have that extra blocker that you used before for certain things,” said McMorris, whose team had all of five days to make that shift before its first 8-man game in 2021. “You gotta learn to block a little bit differently. But they don’t have that extra defender either.”

YES, the primary difference is that there are generally two fewer linemen and one less back (in 8-man, teams need to have five on the line, including three true interior linemen). But the biggest contrast, at least prior to this year, was its wide-open nature, leading to higher-scoring games and bloated offensive statistics.

“The scores were outrageous because you only have so many players,” Smith said. “From what I saw, it looked a lot like youth football, where if you had a fast back and could get to the edge, there’s nobody there.”

Using a different analogy, he added: “What we saw on film … it just looked like the old USFL days, just run and shoot and everybody’s scoring all these points.”

To counter that dynamic, New York State made the decision this year to narrow the 8-man field width from the regular 53 yards to 40 while still playing at a 100-yard distance (though there evidently had been some talks of shortening the field to 80 yards).

And so, in their first year, the Wolverines will be part of a more controlled environment.

“We’ve noticed, just in practice, alright we’re running a sweep and that sideline comes in a hurry. You don’t have that extra space,” Smith said of the change. “What we think will happen is it will slow it down to 11-man speed.” He then added with a laugh, “Here we have this brand-new field and we gotta put more lines on it.”

PREVIOUSLY, McMorris had a read, an average score for an 8-man team was somewhere in the 30s, a good score was in the 40s and a great score in the 50s. “So there are some great plays, a higher pace of play usually.”

But that isn’t the only disparity between the two styles.

“Defensively, it’s definitely different,” McMorris said. “You see a lot of man coverage in the 8-man. Once in a while you’ll see a little bit of zone, but you run different patterns, different combinations to beat man.”

He then offered, “For anybody who hasn’t seen an 8-man game, there’s some licks put on and there’s some good runs, some great athletes. It’s exciting.”

And even with a tighter field, the difference in personnel can be felt even on special teams.

“I’m watching kickoffs, and I’m good friends with the Canisteo-Greenwood coach, and I asked him, how come everybody is just dribbling the ball down the field? It’s only going like 20 yards,” Smith said. “He said, we don’t dare kick it deep because there’s not enough people to cover …

“We’re gonna kick it deep, we’re gonna go ahead and play it how we always play it and see how it goes.”

Ideally, the coaches said, Wellsville and B-R would one day have the numbers for a return to regular sectional football. Failing that, a merger for one or both could potentially be an option.

Until then, they’re embracing the opportunity that comes with this new circuit.

“They’re buying in,” McMorris said. “We got beat pretty good (early on last season), but our kids, they started to pick it up as we went along. They really responded.”

Said Smith, “I think it was tougher for those kids who have always played 11-man. And credit to them for just saying, whatever we’re gonna play, we’re gonna play. We’re okay with that, as long as we’re playing football.”