Most people who know six-man football know it from Texas. That is fair: more than half of the roughly 5,700 students who played six-man in the 2018 season played in Texas. But the game lives in many other places too, usually wherever towns are small and far apart.
Texas: the heartland
Texas adopted six-man in 1938 and never let it go. Public schools play under the UIL, which crowns Division I and Division II champions, and many private schools play six-man in TAPPS and other associations. West and Central Texas in particular are full of towns where Friday night six-man is the biggest event of the week. See how the UIL divisions work.
Nebraska: where it started
Six-man was born in Hebron, Nebraska, in 1934. Like much of the country, Nebraska later moved most small schools to eight-man football, and six-man almost disappeared: by 1999 only seven schools were playing. The game has since recovered, with playoffs reinstated in 2018 and around 30 high schools fielding teams by 2024.
The Mountain West and the Plains
Six-man is also played in states such as Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Idaho, typically by the smallest schools in very rural areas. Exact rules and the number of participating schools vary by state association and change from season to season, so check the state association’s site for current information.
Florida
Six-man has a foothold in Florida too, mostly among small private schools, with teams spread from the Florida Keys to the Jacksonville area.
Canada
Canada has its own six-man version built on Canadian football rules. The field can be 100 or 110 yards long and 40 yards wide, teams get three downs instead of four, and, unlike the American game, the player in the center of the offensive line is not an eligible receiver.
Six-man’s peak, for perspective
At its height in 1951, six-man was played at 2,463 schools in all 48 states. Consolidation of rural schools and the rise of eight-man football shrank that number, but in the places where six-man survived, it is often the only way a town can field a football team at all.
New to the game? Start with six-man rules explained and the history of six-man.
Sources
- Flatwater Free Press, “Epler’s experiment: 90 years later, six-man football still small-town king” (2024)
- Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, University of Nebraska–Lincoln: “Football, Six-Man”
- Six-man football overview, Wikipedia