Apr. 11—COLOME, S.D. — Though a frequent point of discussion at football advisory committee meetings in recent years, introducing six-man football to the South Dakota high school athletics catalog hasn't gotten far off the ground.
Colome High School hopes to change that.
Tasked with looking into the feasibility of six-man football by the school board, Colome Activities Director Kathy Hrabanek invited several of the state's smallest schools to attend an informational meeting at the South Dakota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association's spring conference earlier this month in Chamberlain. Though Hrabanek didn't disclose her list of invited schools, she added that representatives from several additional schools attended the meeting due to their interest in the discussion.
Topics ranged from travel concerns to potential alterations to rules such as field dimensions, according to Hrabanek. Still early in the process of potentially bringing six-man football to the Rushmore State, Hrabanek said the primary purpose of the meeting was to inform interested parties and engage as many of them in discussion as possible.
"I didn't ask for commitment," Hrabanek said. "I asked for people to think about this for the next three or four weeks, visit with their people, their teams, their coaches, their communities, their boards and find out how they would feel about piloting a six-man format."
"I believe there are high schools that will take a serious look at this," she later added. "There are teams that are unsure because there are just so many things out there that go into that decision. I think that's going to take some hard looking and some hard discussions."
Last spring, Colome, which is one of 22 programs in Class 9B, considered playing a junior varsity only schedule due to concerns with roster size and the inability to form a cooperative with a neighboring school district. At that time, the Colome School Board voted 4-2 in favor of the Cowboys playing a varsity schedule. Last fall, Colome listed 14 players on its roster, had a 0-8 record and had to forfeit one game due to lack of available players.
Some programs, such as Langford Area and Newell, have chosen to forgo playing varsity football schedules in recent years.
"I believe that there are some high schools out there that this is definitely an option for them. It's not a vast number, but I do believe there is some interest out there," Hrabanek said. "Whether that's enough to seriously consider six-man football as an option for (the SDHSAA), I do not know."
According to the average daily memberships reported to the South Dakota High School Activities Association, Colome's current male-only ADM is 10. That is the eighth-smallest figure in the state and by far the smallest of any school not in a co-op for football. The next-smallest school that fielded a standalone football program during the 2024 season was Hitchcock-Tulare, with a male-only ADM of 21.9.
"After some conversations I've had with them over the last couple of years, I think that they (the SDHSAA) are willing to listen to a proposal," Hrabanek said. "But I think everything has to be right."
Of South Dakota's neighboring states, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming each have six-man football divisions. Nebraska had a 32-team division in 2024, while Wyoming played with 13 six-man squads in 2024 and North Dakota had an eight-team six-man division last season. Montana has 39 schools set to play six-man football in 2025.
Nebraska has two divisions of eight-man football, while Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming each have one division of eight-man or nine-man.
