Maybe.
Did you have centennial even near the mix two years ago?
2025 Minnesota High School Football Thread
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Did you have centennial even near the mix two years ago?
Ranger692
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We arent ok with it. And honestly its goes against the 6 quarter rules the MSHSL had as well so they arent ok with it either. Many ways around it also.
Could start earlier, GA is on week 3 already...
We could also play championship a week after thanks giving. Like we did in 24, the world didn't end
Could have to qualify for playoffs.
disco
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What is GA?
You push the playoffs back, and you piss off hockey, basketball and wrestling. The result of that is going to be more kids dropping football - a short season sport - for fear they won't be able to play as much, or in some cases, not make the team - in a sport they've maybe trained year-round in (and that their parents have paid tens of thousands of dollars for over the years.)
For most kids who might play multiple sports, football is by far the least important and first to drop.
State of Football
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And, you’d be playing a week later outside. You’re risking weather issues with 28 games outside. The teams that played after Thanksgiving had a week of no games.
You’re right with schools that have multi sport athletes having issues with this model. That being said, other states, especially in the south, have these multi-sport conflicts in alll sports.
disco
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But hockey is very much king in this state. Football is a bigger deal down south.
Moorhead High's sports programs quickly learn the pros and cons of being a growing one-high-school city
MOORHEAD, MINN. – The Moorhead Spuds have an ultramodern high school with black-and-orange-painted facilities galore, but the place is getting crowded with trophies.
Remember the boys hockey state championship trophy that captains Brooks Cullen and Mason Kraft hoisted in March? Or the net Moorhead’s boys basketball team scissored down after advancing to state? Or the first section championship trophy for baseball in 35 years?
This summer, about 15 of those keepsakes were pressed together like plates in a dishwasher, sitting atop four filing cabinets in the activities office. So much winning, it was hard to keep track.
“It felt like this was one of those years that we won’t forget,” said Moorhead High School historian Brian Cole.
Now, Moorhead’s star-studded football team has made the jump into Minnesota’s top tier — from Class 5A to 6A.
The Spuds didn’t lobby to join the state’s 32 biggest schools in 6A. The school’s growth put them there, as Moorhead’s enrollment numbers rank 23rd in the Minnesota State High School League.
Going to 6A is an expensive move for Moorhead, forcing other cuts in the activities travel budget. Spuds activities director Dean Haugo said football travel costs are up 30%.
The increase comes in a year Moorhead’s school district has trimmed $4.2 million from its budget. Last fall, a school levy fell by about 600 votes, and there will be two more levy votes this fall, with the district hoping to secure a combined $58.7 million over the next 10 years.
“We’re certainly in a challenging budget time in Moorhead,” Haugo said. “And so we have to be more mindful than we ever have been of our travel.”
But after going 9-1 in football last season, the players have been eager to measure themselves against the state’s biggest and best.
Which opponent do they look forward to playing most?
“Honestly, all of them,” said running back Taye Reich, one of Moorhead’s four Division I prospects. “But I’d probably say Edina and Maple Grove. Maybe Minnetonka. Geez. There’s so many. I don’t know.”
“In a town of 45,000,” she said, “you don’t often find a four-year public university [Minnesota State University, Moorhead], a four-year private college [Concordia College], a two-year technical college [M State] and a [high school] career academy.”
Just across the Red River sits Fargo, and together the metropolitan area has grown to about 250,000 people.
If there was one key step that led to Moorhead eventually playing 6A football, it came in 2018, when the city was deciding whether to add a second high school.
“We border Fargo and West Fargo, and both have three or four high schools and have kept them a smaller size than we are,” Haugo said. “We just looked at the Minnesota landscape, and we felt comfortable that we could really serve our community properly with one high school.”
Carlson said there were second-, third- and fourth-generation Moorhead families determined to keep it as a one-high-school city.
“When that was put to a vote,” Carlson said, “the community decided, no, we want to be the one Spud Nation.”
Moorhead knew it was getting close to joining 6A in football during the previous two-year cycle. Rochester Mayo got the 32nd and final spot, and Moorhead was 33rd, based on the MSHSL’s enrollment formula. Two years later, Moorhead jumped past Mayo and nine other schools to land at No. 23.
Moorhead’s home games this season are against Rogers, Wayzata, Maple Grove and St. Michael-Albertville. The Spuds will travel to Woodbury, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie and Edina.
“Traditionally, we’re going to St. Cloud, Sartell, Sauk Rapids and Brainerd,” Haugo said. “So our usual trip went from about 2 hours and 15 minutes to about three hours.”
The football team sends 80-90 players, so it takes two buses and it’s double the cost.
But the Spuds are used to it. They travel to the Twin Cities repeatedly for several events. It’s a way of life, starting in youth sports.
“If you’re a kid that plays basketball and plays lacrosse, you stay at the Marriott West every time you go to the Twin Cities on a Spud bus,” Haugo said. “And they’re going to take care of us, right down to the breakfast. Each team does a smidge different, but for the most part, we travel in a very, very consistent manner.”
Haugo said, depending on section and state tournament outcomes, Moorhead will use 400-500 hotel rooms this school year. That counts each room used, regardless of how many share the room. Sometimes two athletes will room together. Sometimes four.
The Moorhead boys hockey team will make six overnight trips to the Twin Cities, for example, playing Friday night and a different opponent Saturday. They’ll use 14 rooms on each of those six trips, so that’s 84 hotel rooms used.
Moorhead’s prolific speech team — nine consecutive state championships and counting — also stays in a hotel for Twin Cities competitions.
“The speech and theater program at Moorhead is not just one of the top of the state but also one of the top in the country,” Cole said.
Moorhead boys hockey coach Jon Ammerman said that in exit interviews, players “almost always write down their favorite part of the season was the bus trips or the overnights.”
“You talk to some of our metro counterparts, and some don’t even bus to games together because it’s a 10-minute drive both ways,” he said. “So they basically get done with the game and say, ‘See you later.’ And unless somebody organizes something, the kids aren’t together.
“In our situation, the kids are forced to interact, or at least hang out for three hours each way.”
But everything comes with a cost.
“We’re cutting as much out of our travel budget as possible while still maintaining high-level competition,” Haugo said.
Haugo said the Spuds found some cost savings at the junior varsity level. Instead of mirroring the varsity football schedule, Moorhead’s JV team will play 50% of its schedule against teams from the Fargo-Moorhead area (with virtually no travel) and 50% against schools the varsity team faces in 6A.
“You know the old movie ‘Hoosiers,’ where it was like, guess what?” Feeney said. “The football field’s the same. There’s 11 guys on the other side of the football, and it’s blocking and tackling.”
The Spuds have the skill-position talent to compete in 6A, including Feeney’s son, junior quarterback Jett Feeney, who led Minnesota with 48 passing touchdowns last year. But they’ll be tested along the offensive and defensive lines against programs with more depth.
Moorhead’s longest road trip will be the first one, to Woodbury. That morning, players will wear their jerseys to school, in the old tradition. For that trip, they’ll leave school around 10 a.m., knowing they need time to stop for food and must battle traffic to the east side of the metro.
They’ll get to the field at least two hours before kickoff. The game starts at 6 p.m., and by the time they get home, it’ll be close to midnight.
The Spuds will do this three more times during the regular season, while opponents make the trek to Moorhead once each.
“We’re going to make the best of it,” Maple Grove coach Adam Spurrell said. “We’re going to make it feel like a college experience.”
When players complained about a few hours on the bus, Spurrell told them, “We’re one of the shorter drives. Some of those schools [Edina and Wayzata] will have to drive even further.”
Next season, the schedule flips, with Moorhead traveling to face the four schools it will host this year. Kevin Feeney said Woodbury coach Andrew Hill has already asked him questions about that 2026 trip to Moorhead.
“Just the fact that they’re thinking about that,” Feeney said, smiling. “We’re going to try and put as much of that into their heads as possible.”
Haugo jokingly said some opponents get to Moorhead for a game “thinking they drove somewhere south of the Arctic Circle.”
The Spuds, meanwhile, look right at home in Moorhead or on the road. Besides boys hockey, boys basketball and baseball, they also reached state last school year in girls hockey and boys lacrosse. They sent Nordic skiers to state, and Moorhead’s Billy Ward won a wrestling state championship.
“We do believe in a weird way our travel is an advantage,” Haugo said. “I mean, it really is. Because when teams come to Moorhead, they’re not used to it. For us, it’s what our kids do.”
MOORHEAD, MINN. – The Moorhead Spuds have an ultramodern high school with black-and-orange-painted facilities galore, but the place is getting crowded with trophies.
Remember the boys hockey state championship trophy that captains Brooks Cullen and Mason Kraft hoisted in March? Or the net Moorhead’s boys basketball team scissored down after advancing to state? Or the first section championship trophy for baseball in 35 years?
This summer, about 15 of those keepsakes were pressed together like plates in a dishwasher, sitting atop four filing cabinets in the activities office. So much winning, it was hard to keep track.
“It felt like this was one of those years that we won’t forget,” said Moorhead High School historian Brian Cole.
Now, Moorhead’s star-studded football team has made the jump into Minnesota’s top tier — from Class 5A to 6A.
The Spuds didn’t lobby to join the state’s 32 biggest schools in 6A. The school’s growth put them there, as Moorhead’s enrollment numbers rank 23rd in the Minnesota State High School League.
Going to 6A is an expensive move for Moorhead, forcing other cuts in the activities travel budget. Spuds activities director Dean Haugo said football travel costs are up 30%.
The increase comes in a year Moorhead’s school district has trimmed $4.2 million from its budget. Last fall, a school levy fell by about 600 votes, and there will be two more levy votes this fall, with the district hoping to secure a combined $58.7 million over the next 10 years.
“We’re certainly in a challenging budget time in Moorhead,” Haugo said. “And so we have to be more mindful than we ever have been of our travel.”
But after going 9-1 in football last season, the players have been eager to measure themselves against the state’s biggest and best.
Which opponent do they look forward to playing most?
“Honestly, all of them,” said running back Taye Reich, one of Moorhead’s four Division I prospects. “But I’d probably say Edina and Maple Grove. Maybe Minnetonka. Geez. There’s so many. I don’t know.”
One-high-school town
Mayor Shelly Carlson noted that Moorhead is the fourth-fastest-growing city in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities.“In a town of 45,000,” she said, “you don’t often find a four-year public university [Minnesota State University, Moorhead], a four-year private college [Concordia College], a two-year technical college [M State] and a [high school] career academy.”
Just across the Red River sits Fargo, and together the metropolitan area has grown to about 250,000 people.
If there was one key step that led to Moorhead eventually playing 6A football, it came in 2018, when the city was deciding whether to add a second high school.
“We border Fargo and West Fargo, and both have three or four high schools and have kept them a smaller size than we are,” Haugo said. “We just looked at the Minnesota landscape, and we felt comfortable that we could really serve our community properly with one high school.”
Carlson said there were second-, third- and fourth-generation Moorhead families determined to keep it as a one-high-school city.
“When that was put to a vote,” Carlson said, “the community decided, no, we want to be the one Spud Nation.”
Moorhead knew it was getting close to joining 6A in football during the previous two-year cycle. Rochester Mayo got the 32nd and final spot, and Moorhead was 33rd, based on the MSHSL’s enrollment formula. Two years later, Moorhead jumped past Mayo and nine other schools to land at No. 23.
Moorhead’s home games this season are against Rogers, Wayzata, Maple Grove and St. Michael-Albertville. The Spuds will travel to Woodbury, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie and Edina.
“Traditionally, we’re going to St. Cloud, Sartell, Sauk Rapids and Brainerd,” Haugo said. “So our usual trip went from about 2 hours and 15 minutes to about three hours.”
Travel advantage?
Whenever the Spuds send a bus to the Twin Cities, it costs $2,200 to $2,500, depending on what part of the metro they’re heading to, Haugo said.The football team sends 80-90 players, so it takes two buses and it’s double the cost.
But the Spuds are used to it. They travel to the Twin Cities repeatedly for several events. It’s a way of life, starting in youth sports.
“If you’re a kid that plays basketball and plays lacrosse, you stay at the Marriott West every time you go to the Twin Cities on a Spud bus,” Haugo said. “And they’re going to take care of us, right down to the breakfast. Each team does a smidge different, but for the most part, we travel in a very, very consistent manner.”
Haugo said, depending on section and state tournament outcomes, Moorhead will use 400-500 hotel rooms this school year. That counts each room used, regardless of how many share the room. Sometimes two athletes will room together. Sometimes four.
The Moorhead boys hockey team will make six overnight trips to the Twin Cities, for example, playing Friday night and a different opponent Saturday. They’ll use 14 rooms on each of those six trips, so that’s 84 hotel rooms used.
Moorhead’s prolific speech team — nine consecutive state championships and counting — also stays in a hotel for Twin Cities competitions.
“The speech and theater program at Moorhead is not just one of the top of the state but also one of the top in the country,” Cole said.
Moorhead boys hockey coach Jon Ammerman said that in exit interviews, players “almost always write down their favorite part of the season was the bus trips or the overnights.”
“You talk to some of our metro counterparts, and some don’t even bus to games together because it’s a 10-minute drive both ways,” he said. “So they basically get done with the game and say, ‘See you later.’ And unless somebody organizes something, the kids aren’t together.
“In our situation, the kids are forced to interact, or at least hang out for three hours each way.”
But everything comes with a cost.
“We’re cutting as much out of our travel budget as possible while still maintaining high-level competition,” Haugo said.
Haugo said the Spuds found some cost savings at the junior varsity level. Instead of mirroring the varsity football schedule, Moorhead’s JV team will play 50% of its schedule against teams from the Fargo-Moorhead area (with virtually no travel) and 50% against schools the varsity team faces in 6A.
Right off the bus
Knowing the move to 6A was inevitable, Moorhead football coach Kevin Feeney scheduled a scrimmage with St. Michael-Albertville last summer and Anoka this summer, just to see how the Spuds stacked up against 6A competition.“You know the old movie ‘Hoosiers,’ where it was like, guess what?” Feeney said. “The football field’s the same. There’s 11 guys on the other side of the football, and it’s blocking and tackling.”
The Spuds have the skill-position talent to compete in 6A, including Feeney’s son, junior quarterback Jett Feeney, who led Minnesota with 48 passing touchdowns last year. But they’ll be tested along the offensive and defensive lines against programs with more depth.
Moorhead’s longest road trip will be the first one, to Woodbury. That morning, players will wear their jerseys to school, in the old tradition. For that trip, they’ll leave school around 10 a.m., knowing they need time to stop for food and must battle traffic to the east side of the metro.
They’ll get to the field at least two hours before kickoff. The game starts at 6 p.m., and by the time they get home, it’ll be close to midnight.
The Spuds will do this three more times during the regular season, while opponents make the trek to Moorhead once each.
“We’re going to make the best of it,” Maple Grove coach Adam Spurrell said. “We’re going to make it feel like a college experience.”
When players complained about a few hours on the bus, Spurrell told them, “We’re one of the shorter drives. Some of those schools [Edina and Wayzata] will have to drive even further.”
Next season, the schedule flips, with Moorhead traveling to face the four schools it will host this year. Kevin Feeney said Woodbury coach Andrew Hill has already asked him questions about that 2026 trip to Moorhead.
“Just the fact that they’re thinking about that,” Feeney said, smiling. “We’re going to try and put as much of that into their heads as possible.”
Haugo jokingly said some opponents get to Moorhead for a game “thinking they drove somewhere south of the Arctic Circle.”
The Spuds, meanwhile, look right at home in Moorhead or on the road. Besides boys hockey, boys basketball and baseball, they also reached state last school year in girls hockey and boys lacrosse. They sent Nordic skiers to state, and Moorhead’s Billy Ward won a wrestling state championship.
“We do believe in a weird way our travel is an advantage,” Haugo said. “I mean, it really is. Because when teams come to Moorhead, they’re not used to it. For us, it’s what our kids do.”
GopherGrit
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Thanks for sharing that!
It mentions also about the Moorhead theater program being one of the best in the country. There is an outdoor theater called "Trollwood" that the high school kids (all of F-M I believe) run, and is quite amazing what they can do. Worth it if you ever find yourself in the area for some reason during the outdoor season.
It mentions also about the Moorhead theater program being one of the best in the country. There is an outdoor theater called "Trollwood" that the high school kids (all of F-M I believe) run, and is quite amazing what they can do. Worth it if you ever find yourself in the area for some reason during the outdoor season.
Ranger692
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GA is the abbreviation for the state of Georgia... and we played the championship games 1 week later last season than normal and there was 0 uproar about it. ZERO.
Ranger692
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Again we did it last year. It's MN in November, not January. Sure it will be cold. But the average temps on Thanksgiving which is 2 weeks after the last out door game is 34 degrees in st Cloud.
disco
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Got it. When do they start school there though? A lot of schools in southern and western states end much earlier and start much earlier than we do. With the majority of MN schools starting after Labor Day, that's a huge cut into the summer and wouldn't be popular.
And moving the championship later one year because of circumstances is different than doing it permanently. I still say there would be push back from hockey, basketball and wrestling.
MaxyJR1
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This is the point of contention. MN schools aren't starting earlier and they aren't going to all sports to start earlier.
Ranger692
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Maybe,
It's amazing to me that everyone is beating to death we can't start earlier, or go later, but didn't look at my other suggestion to eliminate the MEA ridiculousness.
The hypocrisy in the rules of the MSHSL has in place for football are astounding. Its ok to send teams to a week of full contact camp in the summer, then force the same team to "acclimate" to pads and contact to start fall practice, then if its 84+ degrees north of I94 cant practice because its too hot. But then at the same time force teams into playing 3 games in 10 days, while just 9 weeks earlier we couldn't even have a thud period in the first 5 days. You just cant make it up
Maybe, maybe not. All sports could be pushed back 1 or 2 weeks, in the central part of MN the spring sports are already moving most of the 1st 2 weeks of games already, and then craming 4 and 5 games in per week. The MSHSL should also not think for 1 second how legion and babe Ruth schedules would be affected. Iowa baseball I think starts in June. The Iowa state baseball tournament was July 21-25
It's amazing to me that everyone is beating to death we can't start earlier, or go later, but didn't look at my other suggestion to eliminate the MEA ridiculousness.
The hypocrisy in the rules of the MSHSL has in place for football are astounding. Its ok to send teams to a week of full contact camp in the summer, then force the same team to "acclimate" to pads and contact to start fall practice, then if its 84+ degrees north of I94 cant practice because its too hot. But then at the same time force teams into playing 3 games in 10 days, while just 9 weeks earlier we couldn't even have a thud period in the first 5 days. You just cant make it up
Ope3
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There may not have been an "uproar" but attendance drops significantly in years when they do not play on Thanksgiving. 11,000 less than 2023.
MSHL really depends on that revenue to break even.
It was down even further in 2022, when it was moved due the Vikings hosting the Pats on Turkey Day.
disco
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How do you mean school districts are moving boundaries? They can move attendance areas within districts, but no district is losing or gaining area. School districts are units of government with the ability to collect taxes. No district is going to agree to lose tax revenue.
Forest Lake only has one high school, so while district population may be changing, any internal boundary changes have no affect on this. It's not like part of the district is being annexed by Stillwater or Chisago Lakes.
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disco
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Allegedly, the reason for MN starting after Labor Day is because of lobbying from the State Fair, and resort owners. But honestly, I think it's fairly popular and a move to start earlier would not be well-received in general when July and August are the most consistently warm and sunny months.
And MEA has become a popular vacation weekend for families as well.
Ranger692
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Ok, so its a vacation weekend for families. Why does that constitute a need to play 3 games in 10 days?
State of Football
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There absolutely would be resistance from other sports
disco
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Was at the Wayzata - Andover game last night. Wayzata keeps getting ranked based on being the biggest school in the state. They are not a good team, and they weren't last season either. And this is coming from a fan since my kid plays in the youth program.
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State of Football
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Was at the Mounds View vs Lakeville South game. LS has a couple of huge linemen. 77 is a Junior and was dominant. Game was closer than the score. LS wore them down and MV couldn’t finish. LS will struggle to defend the pass like last year. #3 Godsen and #29 Madison are good looking offensive kids for MV. Godsen going to NDSU.
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Such as life, once some thing/routine has become entrenched and "the way things are done around here", making a big change is almost impossible
GopherGrit
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One down for Moorhead, I see. No idea if Rogers is supposed to be anything this year, and it was at Moorhead.
I’m most curious when Moorhead plays teams that have been 6a
Rogers also up this year.
I will pick Moorhead to go 6-2
They can beat anybody but they probably won’t beat everybody