ALLEGANY — The Allegany-Limestone football team didn’t want a slash in its name.
It wasn’t particularly willing to don new colors, travel to another school for practices and games or go by a nickname different from “Gators.”
A-L, after all, had been its own program for nearly 30 years, since 1995, when the Al-egany and Li-mestone school districts merged to form the (Alli-) Gator name. And in that time, it created its own likeness, one forged from moments green and black on Friday nights at Fred Grace Field.
So when, in the face of concerningly low numbers, A-L had to make a decision about its football future in the early months of 2023, it knew what it had to do. The choice was arduous but appropriate for its circumstances:
A-L, more than anything else, wanted to maintain its identity.
So A-L, under coach Marcus Grove, a former player whose passion for the program is evident and unfeigned, made the move to the 8-man ranks.
“That was our main goal,” said Grove, whose squad is about to enter Year 2 in Section 5’s 8-man league. “And we’ve done that; we’ve kept the A-L identity for football.
“I didn’t want to be the coach — nobody wanted to be the coach — to tell our seniors, ‘Hey, you’ve played Allegany-Limestone football for the last 8-9 years, your senior year we’re gonna send you somewhere else.’ Through 8-man football, that gave us an avenue (to continue as us).”
A YEAR later, the Gators are now well-versed in 8-man’s wildly wide open aesthetic. And, by and large, their first taste was a pleasant one: A-L won its first four games en route to a 4-4 finish, came within six total points of being 6-2 and played for a de facto Section 6 championship vs. Frewsburg.
Admittedly, there’s an aspect of which Grove isn’t exactly fond. He’s a defense-first guy, and his team surrendered an average of 35 points in 2023 (though it did produce a rare shutout), including outputs 68, 50 and 48. But that, he learned quickly, is merely the nature of this level.
“I coached the defense, so for me, with the high scoring, it maybe wasn’t so enjoyable,” he said with a laugh. “But on the defensive side, you almost kind of feel helpless. You gotta try to find a way to slow teams down rather than prevent them from scoring, because it’s almost impossible to prevent teams from scoring.”
YES, THE game, he saw firsthand, is faster-paced and much higher-scoring. There’s more offense and, given the airy environment, even more action on special teams, where punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns are common.
Though that style might not be his favorite, “my offensive coordinator, Rick Owen, loved it,” Grove added. “He could do almost anything he wanted to in the playbook, and we’re looking to do more of the same with that.”
The defining snapshot of 8-man’s essence might have come in A-L’s final contest of the season, a heartbreaking, yet thrilling 50-48 double overtime loss to Frewsburg (a championship in that the Bears and Gators are the lone Section 6 squads in the Section 5 circuit). That game featured a combined 58 second-half points, blow-for-blow scoring and one player, A-L quarterback Michael Frederick, accounting for nearly 500 yards of offense.
It might not be what many football purists want to see.
But it’s been fun for the players, exciting for those in the stands and, as such, has only reinforced A-L’s decision to go this route. And even Grove can admit: there’s a beauty to the back-and-forth.
“It’s definitely an exciting game,” he said. “I’ve talked to people in the community and they were uncertain about what it would look like. (But) a lot of people came down and said, ‘that’s actually a lot of fun.’ It’s fun to watch. People love the high-scoring games when you watch the NFL or college. That’s almost what we bring every Friday night.”
FOR A-L, this was the right next step.
It was right when A-L first made the call early in 2023 and it is so again ahead of the 2024 campaign. Now having experienced it (and assessed it), Grove issued a sort of public service announcement:
If your program is struggling with numbers, finding it increasingly difficult to finish the season or don’t want to lose your identity to a cooperative agreement, the 8-man league might be right for you too … even as a temporary stopgap.
“There were a lot of forfeitures in Section 6 last year because of teams not having enough kids to play,” Grove noted. “Our hope is to open that window of saying, 8-man football is an option and it is at a championship level now. So if we can inspire other teams to maybe come down to that 8-man league and give it a try, revamp your numbers at a lower level and then make that jump to 11-man, that’s what we’re trying to do.”
In fact, that’s what A-L itself is trying, and had always wanted, to do.
For the Gators, as fun as it’s been, it was intended to be temporary. And given that A-L has 12 underclassmen on this year’s varsity roster and 19 on its modified team, the plan is to make the move back to the 11-man level with a group of around 30 players next fall.
“Now, you gotta see what happens,” Grove said. “But the plan was a two-year fix, then move back to 11-man football next year.
“We’ve enjoyed 8-man football; it’s been a great opportunity to keep our program alive, and we want to keep our own identity, and that’s what we’re really looking for. So we’re going to do whatever allows us to proudly play Gator football.”
