Lucas Labreque of Brunswick looks to get past Sam Bradford of Yarmouth/North Yarmouth during an 8-Man Large Football regional semifinal in Oct. 2023. Brunswick will move back to 11-man football in the fall. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Eight-man high school football in Maine is poised for one of its biggest shakeups since the division’s 2019 inception, with four programs targeting a return to the traditional 11-man ranks.
Maranacook, one of the 10 teams from eight-man’s inaugural season, along with Brunswick, Dirigo and Mountain Valley will make the jump to 11-man this fall.
“Eight-man exists to get your numbers back up and have some success, and hopefully, you can get your numbers back to 11-man football,” said Maranacook Coach Skip Bessey. “Now, you have some schools ready to make that jump back, and it’s happening.”
The departures, which Maine Principals’ Association Football Committee member Joel Stoneton said are finalized, mark the biggest movement at one time in the eight-man ranks. Previously, Cheverus High in Portland was the only eight-man program to return to the 11-man game. The Stags did so in 2022, a year after they rolled to an unblemished season and the Large School championship.
Maranacook and Dirigo competed in the eight-man Small School class last season. Mountain Valley and Brunswick, meanwhile, competed in the Large School division. Brunswick made its eight-man debut last fall, going 6-4 and reaching the Large School South title game under first-year head coach Mark Renna.
Brunswick’s move to eight-man in 2023 followed two tough seasons for the program. In 2021, Brunswick canceled its season after four games in the wake of a hazing investigation. The following season, the Dragons had low participation numbers and finished 0-8. Like Maranacook, Brunswick had one of eight-man football’s biggest rosters this season, as it regularly dressed 35 players.
“When they made that decision to go to eight-man, that was prior to me getting the job,” Renna said. “If I had came on there earlier, and they had asked me, I would have said, ‘no, let’s stay in 11-man football with 35 kids,’ but they’d already made (the move), so we played eight-man. Now, we have the numbers again, and we should be set there for a while.”
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