FAIRBURY - A school that competed in the third-largest classification of high school football this fall will very likely be playing 8-man football in the 2026 season.

Low participation numbers forced Fairbury to forgo playing junior varsity football this fall, and those low numbers will likely be what prompts the Jeffs to move from 11-man to 8-man football starting next year.

Fairbury held an informational meeting in the school's auditorium Saturday evening to gauge the public's perception of a potential move down in classification - but at this stage, Fairbury feels like that move is mostly a foregone conclusion.

"We’re concerned that we may be in a situation like Oakland-Craig, with the number of upperclassmen that we’re going to have that can play, and I would hate it if my child had played all these years and was a senior, and we ended up not being able to have a season because we didn’t have enough players," Jerry Smith, Fairbury's first-year activities director, said during Saturday's meeting. 

Fairbury's boys enrollment numbers places them squarely in Nebraska's C1 classification, but consistently low participation in football specifically over the last few years has made building a team - much less winning games - a challenge.

"I’d say I asked six or seven kids why they aren’t going out for football, and I’d say 60 percent of their answers were ‘I’m not going to go out because we suck.’ And that’s their only answer," said Jacob Johnson, who just completed his first season as Fairbury's head coach after a couple of seasons on staff previously.

The Jeffs have won a total of two games over the last three seasons playing at the C1 level. But Fairbury's athletic conference, the Southern Nebraska Conference, is almost evenly split between schools that sponsor 11-man and 8-man football. Smith said he's talked with Chad Denker, superintendent at fellow SNC school David City, who said the Scouts' move to 8-man football was "the best thing we could have done."

And schools moving down from 11-man to 8-man football is far from uncommon - just in Southeast Nebraska, Tri County and Johnson County Central have made the move down within the last few years. In fact, in some ways, it's becoming even more common, especially with the NSAA expanding to three Class D classifications starting next school year.

Ultimately, this potential move has been predicated upon the pervasive low participation numbers for Fairbury football, which has in turn led to fewer wins which has in turn made people less excited about going out for football in the first place. Johnson stressed that he very much wanted to have a JV season this fall but it was simply not possible due to a lack of roster - and that there would very likely not be a JV season again if Fairbury remains in Class C. 

"If it’s 11-man there is no way we can play JV, because I have no backup offensive linemen – unless my starting quarterback wants to play right tackle," he said. "We need to ensure it’s not hurting the varsity, because at the end of the day, that’s what I’m here for is the varsity. But at the same time, these freshmen and sophomores need to get reps at the JV level so they’re not getting thrown in in a varsity game and have little to no experience."

The general sentiment in the room Saturday was a begrudged acceptance that a move to 8-man is probably the best decision for the future of Fairbury football - though the plan wasn't universally supported. If the school does move to 8-man, that will require a complete reworking of the field, and how the game is taught and played. It would only be a two-year commitment at minimum, and there were talks of reevaluating this move two years from now and potentially moving back up to 11-man should the situation improve. 

The move won't be official until the NSAA receives and approves Fairbury's decision, but Smith said afterwards it's extremely likely that Fairbury will be playing 8-man football next fall.

"We’re going to decide this [based on] what’s best for the kids going forward," Smith said. 

"This is not a conversation I ever wanted to have when I became a coach here, nor do I ever want to do it again," Johnson said. "I’m hoping that if by chance we do go 8-man that by year two we’re starting to get some success and some numbers – or even by year one we’re getting success and numbers – that it changes so we never have to have that talk ever again."

Fairbury must make a final decision by November 30.