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Big changes in store for Nevada Youth Football
Some major changes are on the horizon for Nevada Youth Football in 2017, including the switch to a new league.
Nevada Youth Football had been a member of the Southeast Kansas (SEK) League the past two seasons, and is now making the switch to the Southwest Conference.
“The Southwest Conference is a league we have been trying to get into for a few years,” said Nevada Youth Football Vice President, Miles Miller.
“We finally received our opportunity this year when Carl Junction made the decision to drop from two teams per-grade, down to one, creating an opening.”
Miller continued: “They wanted to keep the number of teams even per-league and preferred to keep it at eight per-division in order to get all of the Superbowl games played in one location on (the same) weekend.
Miller said that while he welcomes the change, he still feels somewhat saddened about leaving the SEK, which included teams such as the Pittsburg (Kan.) Dragons.
“It was difficult to leave behind some friends and relationships we had established with individuals in the SEK,” noted Miller, “but in the end, the board felt this was the best place for our kids. The Board voted unanimously to make the change for several reasons.”
Miller said one of those reasons was that –– all Nevada teams (third through sixth-grade) will now play at the same location every Saturday in order of grade.
“We will no longer have third-graders matching up against fourth-graders, and fifth-graders playing against sixth-graders,” he said. “We feel it will be much better for kids to be competing every week against kids (the same age). It also will help kids learn to work as a team all the way up.”
In December, the Nevada R-5 board announced a conference affiliation change from the West Central Conference to the Big 8 Conference, beginning at the start of the 2018-19 school year.
“With our upcoming conference change at the high school and middle school levels it made perfect sense to get in a league and compete against many of these same teams (they will be seeing in the Big 8 Conference), starting from a young age,” said Miller.
“We have noticed in the past that our football athletes at Nevada Middle School have been overwhelmed by teams (affiliated with the Big 8 and WCC) due to the speed these kids have learned to play at when they were younger,” said Miller.
“These teams have been developing their roles and skills at positions from third-grade on up. In our past situation, we would have some grades coming through that had never had a kid play quarterback or center.”
Miller also said the conference change has bumped preseason practices up from mid-August to early-August. “They basically have aligned their schedule with the high school schedules, said Miller. “The goal is to make sure the youth season is complete before the high school playoffs begin.”
See a future edition for part two of the conference affiliation story