Six-Man Football Is the Pride of a Texas Town

Nov. 25, 2010 — -- In parts of West Texas, there are more pump jacks than people. There are towns where the train no longer stops and where downtowns are all but dried up.

Petersburg, Texas, with a population of roughly 1,200, is one of those towns. Over the last few decades, Petersburg has lost most of its industry and many of its people.

But there is one thing it won't let go of: its beloved Buffaloes, the high school football team. At the afternoon pep rally, nearly the whole town showed up.

This is Texas, after all, and in Petersburg, as elsewhere in the Lone Star State, the local team has a proud tradition.

But pride will only get you so far, especially when you have just 78 students in your high school.

The team has found a way to compete by literally "shrinking" the football game: It plays a shorter game with four 10-minute quarters, on a shorter field where the 40-yard line is midfield.

The most noticeable difference? Each team fields only six players. Traditional football has 11. Most of the kids play offense and defense and are on the field the entire game.

Running back Kearby Garza likes the having more field time.

"If you love the game, you are going to want to be in it and able to play," he said.

Six-man football moves a lot faster than a regular game and there's much more scoring. On a recent night, Buffaloes star player Blake Smith scored five touchdowns.

Smith, basically the team's quarterback and running back, touted the advantages of the six-man game.

"There is more room to make plays and everything is not cluttered up, so when you get more room ... there are bigger hits, people with better moves," he said. "It's just more exciting."

Petersburg's rival for its homecoming game was a team from Meadow, Texas -- an even smaller town with a population of just 600.