By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Hoxie High School had just 64 students when Kansas redistricted earlier this season for football. That enrollment number easily qualified Hoxie for Eight-Man, Division I and put the Indians just two students above the Eight-Man, Division II line, the smallest classification in football.

Yet Hoxie, which has a smaller enrollment than 47 of the state's 97 eight-man programs, didn't move down. Three other area schools with larger enrollments, Stockton, Hill City (96 students) and Quinter did make the switch.

Hoxie stayed in the 11-man ranks, the smallest 11-man school in Kansas by a a significant margin.

"We have to evaluate each time the cycle comes around that we feel like we can be competitive and it is best for our program and best for our kids that to stay 11-man," Hoxie head coach Rich Stephens said. "If it is not, we will make the move. We are not opposed to going eight-man, but we would like to stay, and I think our community would like us to stay, 11-man for as long as we can."

The Indians are part of a small class of schools that could easily qualify for eight-man football, yet will play 11-man for the next two seasons ¬­-- and for the foreseeable future. In the area, Hoxie (64), St. Francis (79) and La Crosse (83) are three of the state's four smallest 11-man teams.

Not only will all three stay 11-man, but all three have solid numbers out for football and have yielded strong teams, including deep playoff runs for St. Francis and La Crosse in recent years.

Hoxie, which has two of the area's top players in senior linemen Cody Pope and Matt Weis, went 7-3 in 2007 and is 10-9 in Stephens' two seasons as head coach.

This fall, the Indians projected 30 players out for football and started camp with 24 players. To Stephens, that figure is more important than student enrollment.

If the football numbers stay around 30, Hoxie will stay in 11-man.

"We just felt like the numbers at that time, that we were going to stay right around 30 and we felt that 30 was a manageable number that we could play 11-man football," Stephens said. "Some things have changed since that time -- we are at 24 kids -- but our kids, they want that opportunity."

Tonight, Hoxie will face a team of similar size in the season opener of the 2008 season. The Indians will play at WaKeeney-Trego. The Golden Eagles have 24 players.

"We feel like we can compete at that level for a long time," Stephens said. "If we have to play people such as Goodland and Colby all the time, that have 70 kids out, that might not be the best option for us."

Stephens, a former eight-man coach at Moscow, sees several benefits to playing 11-man football, especially the number of players that can be on the field at a given time.

"I get three more kids on the field," Stephens said. "If I had 30 kids, why in the world would I only want to put eight on the field, if I could possibly put 11?"

La Crosse, which was the smallest 11-man school in the state before this season, won't move anytime soon, either.

"We feel like here, the benefits of staying 11-man outweigh the benefits of ever going eight-man as long as we can field a quality team with 11 players," Leopard head coach Ryan Cornelsen said. "If we ever get to a point where we couldn't, then we would have to look for other options, but we, by no means, do we ever want to drop if we don't have to."

The players don't want to move, either.

"I am an 11-man guy," senior quarterback/defensive back Jeremy Garcia said. "I like that a lot. That would kind of ruin the tradition at La Crosse. We have always been 11-man and we have got to stay 11-man. I don't want to see us go to eight-man."

The Leopards are 21-2 in the past two seasons and haven't lost a regular season game since 2005. They are 42-12 in Cornelsen's five years and considered one of the top Class 2-1A programs in the state. Like Hoxie, a move to eight-man would limit athletes playing football.

"You get to more different types of kids," Cornelsen said of 11-man football. "You get to use more linemen, more less-athletic type kids. I think that drives more types of kids to want to play. If you are going to watch TV, you are going to see 11-man. If you are going to watch a game, it is 11-man. You can watch your position and how it is done."