Two news items...

...that may have escaped your notice this week were both in the Sun-Times: on Tuesday, "Young drops football," and on Wednesday, "CPS starts flag football league."

In the former, Michael O'Brien elaborated:

Chicago Public Schools mandate that teams need at least 22 players to play, but the Dolphins have only 19 active players.

The football program started the season with 26 players, but seven became ineligible to play.

26 players? Loyola Academy, just to pick a competitive team at random, has over 60 players on its roster. (Or am I reading this wrong?) Glenbrook South, to pick another, has over 50. I think it's fair to say you need at least 40 players to field a competitive football team, right? So 26, or 30, or even 35, is just not going to cut it.

But Whitney Young principal Dr. Joyce Kenner is not deterred:

"We’re definitely going to bring football back next school year."

Really? With 26 players? Call me skeptical.

The second article, "CPS starts flag football league," quoted this email:

"Due to 11 schools dropping varsity football Sports Administration contacted the Principals and listened to their concerns. A 6 week pilot flag football program was introduced and 8 schools will participate starting this Saturday 9/30/17 at 9:00 AM @ Stagg Stadium."

So is "flag" football going to ultimately replace "regular" football? I don't know. But it does seem that football is evolving -- and fewer kids are participating at the primary and high school levels. (What does that mean going forward? Well, for starters, the talent pool for college and the NFL can be expected to shrink.)

It's worth noting that as recently as 2015 Whitney Young went 9-1 with a trip to the playoffs. And two years later they don't have enough kids to field a team? Wow.

Now, it may be my imagination but I'd swear the quality of high school football in Illinois has fallen off in recent years. But maybe it's not my imagination. (Others I've talked to in the stands seem to agree with me.) I went to the Mount Carmel - Loyola game a few weeks ago and was struck by how "different" this year's Caravan team was. Michael O'Brien had a good explanation as to why:

Don’t read too much into Mount Carmel’s rough game against Loyola on Saturday in Wilmette. The Caravan is without quarterback Alek Thomas, their best player. 

Thomas has a great reason for missing football games. He’s the best baseball player in the state and one of the best high school players in the country. Thomas is in Ontario playing with Team USA in the World Baseball Softball Confederation U18 World Cup. 

Thomas is expected to return to football for the Caravan’s Week 5 game at St. Rita.

Now, when I was in high school, which was admittedly a lo-o-ong time ago, this sort of thing would have been unheard of. First of all, I don't recall a "Team USA" that played games in foreign countries. No, the biggest event each week in the fall was the football game, and kids who started on the basketball, baseball or track teams participated if they could. (Also, there was no such thing as CTE as far as we knew, and if anybody complained about a sports injury they'd be told to just "offer it up.")

Tomorrow, if I'm up to it I plan on driving out west to see Naperville Central host a team from Ohio. And, despite Mr. O'Brien's disapproval, I'm afraid this sort of thing is only going to become more commonplace. (By the way, if it sounds like I'm picking on Mr. O'Brien I'm really not; he's just one of the last reporters still writing about high school football.) But hasn't interstate play been the norm in high school basketball for a while? The best teams in Illinois have to play comparable teams in other states in tournaments in places like Las Vegas and New York. There's just not enough competition around here for perennial powers like Simeon and Morgan Park.

Maybe the future of high school football in Illinois will mean fewer, but better, teams (co-ops, even?) that play more and more games against similar teams from out of state, with a parallel league of flag football or seven-on-seven or something. And maybe those strongest teams, like Loyola, Maine South, Naperville Central, etc. will participate in some sort of national postseason like Division III schools do. I don't know. But the ground does seem to be moving beneath us, doesn't it?