Big-school football in Colorado’s hills remains necessary despite the distance traveled for games and the low number of entrants.
Since an increase of classifications in the 1990s, there has been spotty mountain big-school membership, anywhere from one to three programs in a season, as well as a general crapshoot by officials about where to put them.
Western Slope squads have been in more big-school leagues than you can name, gone back and forth over the enrollment cutoff like an expectant parent and maintained a very different existence by being forced to scramble for appropriate foes. They have also been made to meet surrounding lower-level, regular rivals in the multiclass Southwestern League.
This season, Fruita Monument (Brett Nankervis) will be in the newly created 5A Southwest with Central (G.J.), featuring Clay Kame, and Grand Junction (Tyler Palmer), which has enjoyed longtime success in the era in the next-to-highest class.
As usual, each of the three will have considerable nonleague schedules. Current plans include representatives from the other five 5A leagues, many of which were instructed to leave open selected dates to accommodate big-school mountain teams.
