1. New England Patriots (2-0, last week: 1): Okay, now they have to win with Jacoby Brissett. Against the 2-0 Texans. You know they’re going to.
Hazel Park’s affiliation with the Oakland Activities Association could soon come to an end.
“We’re looking at other alternatives,” said Hazel Park athletic director Dave Muylaert.
This is a football decision – and the right decision. With only 852 students, coupled with the recent realignment in the OAA, the Vikings just don’t fit any longer.
“It’s the disparity between school’s sizes,” said Muylaert. “It’s a much better fit for us with some other conferences. In football, we can’t go up against a Troy or a Bloomfield and Rochester and expect to have a level playing field when they have three times the amount of students than us.”
To his credit, Muylaert is not claiming it is a safety issue. It is all about wins and losses, a recent struggle for Hazel Park.
Until winning their last two games, The Vikings had been 1-29 in their previous 30 games.
This year Rochester (1,632 students), Troy (2,092) and Bloomfield Hills (1,831) moved down to the OAA Blue. Only Rochester is on Hazel Park’s schedule this fall, but who knows what next season’s schedule would look like.
“I appreciate everything that our football committee does in the OAA,” Muylaert said. “They’re very professional people and they’ve been around awhile, but the decision to bring those three teams down into the Blue Division merely because their programs ‘haven’t been successful’ is not fair.”
Hazel Park is making a resurgence as a school district. Once faced with an $11-million deficit, it is getting its fiscal act together and has tremendous athletic facilities.
The Vikings will have a talented basketball team this season and have scheduled nonconference games against Clarkston, North Farmington and Toledo Scott.
But football is a different deal — and a successful football team can set a positive tone for the school year.
“We’re trying to rebuild the school district, not discourage our programs from being competitive,” Muylaert said. “There are some other conferences that have contacted us and we’ll look to see what’s the best fit for us. That’s not to say we’re not going to stay in OAA, we’re just exploring other options to see what might be a better fit for us.”
Week 6 Michigan high school football schedule
Ferndale plans to stay
The only OAA school smaller than Hazel Park is Ferndale, which has only 674 students and has considered switching leagues as well, but is staying put – for now.
“No, we’re not (switching) this year,” said Ferndale athletic director Shawn Butler. “We were investigating it. Most of my coaches were neutral on it. In terms of the competition, wouldn’t have been much different other than the exception of football. The drive time for too many sports would have increased.”
With 10 schools pulling out of the KLAA after this school year, some schools may be growing weary of the mega conferences.
Butler, for one, would like to form a new league with local schools of similar enrollments.
“We’re always open,” Butler said. “I would still love to get something along our area and our size. We have enough schools, but there’s not enough interest from the other school to leave their league.”
MHSAA releases study of head injuries in Michigan schools
This week’s multisport NFL star
Still believe that the best way to get a college football scholarship is to drop every other sport you play and specialize in football, including 7-on-7 all-star teams? Take a look into the background of Jacoby Brissett, the rookie who quarterbacked New England to a victory over Houston last week in the first start of his career.
Brissett led Palm Beach Gardens (Fla.) Dwyer to a football state championship as a junior – and a basketball state title as a senior. He finished second to Austin Rivers in Florida’s Mr. Basketball voting.
The more sports you play, the better athlete you become and the more attractive you could be to college coaches.
Mick McCabe’s Week 5 high school football rankings
Coach of the Week
Frankfort’s Matt Stapleton is this week’s Detroit Lions/Farm Bureau Insurance Michigan High School Coach of the Week. Last week Frankfort defeated Johannesburg-Lewiston, 58-12, to improve to 5-0 and No. 3 in Division 8. This is Stapleton’s 23th year in coaching and 19th season at Frankfort, where he is 147-60 with 16 state playoff appearances.