Football leagues are based on weight. The only way a 6th grader is going up against 7th and 8th graders is because he’s totally muscle or a porker - I’m going to bet it’s the latter - been there, done that …
Agreed… a 6th grade skinny kid wouldn’t be playing against an 8th grader no matter how good right?
The height/weight difference a big deal here
Maybe in the big cities they are weight based, but not in the rural areas...there we are lucky to field a full team of 11 in some places...so it is age/grade related independent of weight.
I was a CC runner so didn’t play, but my youngest brother did. They couldn’t field 22, so many players had to play both offense and defense the whole game.
Football is aged based in Southwest Ohio.
My son first started on a 5/6 year old team. But he was so enthusiastic, the 7 year old team coach asked if he wanted to play “Up”. He would play his 5/6 game and then get extra play time as a second stringer on 7.
He loved it and would brag about his exploits making tackles on 7 year olds. He played up through all his Pee Wee years until he made it to the 7th 8th grade school team. He was ready.
Then lettered four years in high school. He also played club hockey in winter. He was too small to play college football so he did club hockey in college, where they made it to the National Championships his senior year.
It’s not the boy in the fight but the fight in the boy.
I was on at team as a 7th grader that played 9th grade teams. Needless to say we never won.