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Rensselaer City School District

We are a fRAMily!

Rensselaer Football Update

Posted Date: 08/14/26 (03:12 PM)
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This season our varsity football team will compete in 8-man football. This is not something we planned for.  This week, several other smaller schools that we compete with decided to move to 8-man due to participation and sustainability issues.  The majority of our classification will play 8-man this year and one team will only field a JV team. This is a situation many small schools are facing.  This left us with two choices:  
  1. Find games against competitively stronger 11-man teams from larger schools
  2. Follow suit and play 8-man with the other small schools
Playing an 8-man schedule at this time will allow us the opportunity to be competitive against other small schools and give our student athletes opportunities to succeed. The alternative—playing against stronger teams—has a greater potential to disincentivize our players. 8-man will also allow us flexibility in roster size as teams deal with various factors—such as injuries or attrition—that shrink rosters by the end of the season. 

We will embrace this new challenge and look forward to the opportunity to try something new.  We always work with our student athletes to give them the best possible experience. We know that our community will support and provide positivity toward our student athletes. The Rams varsity football team will compete and represent the Rensselaer community with pride this season.  

Go Rams!