Summer workouts had drawn anywhere from 2-16 players, fueling uncertainty about whether St. Joseph would play football or not.

Six players came to the tryout. Others were out of town or not yet enrolled in the school.

“I’m not gonna lie, I really thought we weren’t going to play this season,” freshman lineman Monroe Torre said.

On Monday, July 31, 12 players came to practice. For the first time all summer, SJC head coach Jeramy Hunt-Loveless went home and felt good about things.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

“I just kept having that feeling it was all going to come together,” Hunt-Loveless said. “Talking with the other eight-man coaches, the other rural schools, knowing that some of them don’t even start practice until after school starts because they need the buses to pick everybody up and bring everybody in — so I think we’re very similar to the league.”

As school has started and practice has become mandatory, six players has turned consistently into 12-14.

Whatever the number ultimately is, St. Joseph will play its inaugural eight-player football game against preseason No. 1 team Monticello at 3:30 p.m. Friday at home on its grass soccer field.

It will mark a major milestone in a plan that was hatched more than one year ago to bring football to a school that’s been in Ogden for more than a century.

***

Goalposts were installed a couple weeks ago. School has started. Football lines were painted Monday. The coaching staff is mostly put together.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

The game plan is finished and the football team had a good practice on Monday, followed by a bad one Tuesday. Football is a very real thing on Ogden’s east bench, and the Jayhawks will get a very real introduction Friday against last year’s eight-player state runner-up.

Around one-third of St. Joseph’s players have played organized football before, and the team is mainly made up of ninth-graders with the odd senior, junior and sophomore mixed in.

Torre and freshman quarterback Jake Scehnet (pronounced like “senate”) both went to St. Joseph Elementary and said they have never played organized football until this year. Scehnet says he’s swam, and played soccer and basketball.

“I’ve always been, like, an athletic person and I thought it was an awesome chance to make history, I guess, for the school,” Scehnet said. “I’ve been on a lot of teams and sports I’ve played, and I’ve always had like a bond with those people, so I wanted to kind of do that at this school.”

Scehnet said he and his dad have watched a lot of football on the weekends, and that they’re Chicago Bears fans.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

Torre thinks football is boring to watch but started enjoying the sport quickly, especially as the team slowly moved from non-contact conditioning to full-contact practices.

“Once we started to put on our helmets and pads and stuff, it started to be more fun because that’s when we started to get more physical, so it started to be more fun,” Torre said.

The Jayhawks have spent a lot of time on things other programs do in their sleep, such as snapping the ball, and have had trouble with basics in a week where they’re playing a game. Yet Hunt-Loveless has been unflappably confident all spring and summer in the team’s ability to play well this season.

Some players also appear to be fairly confident.

“I think rather than winning games because we’re technically skilled or gifted, I think it’s gonna be more of how much we’re willing to put into it and how well we bond over other bigger teams, because there’s going to be bigger teams,” Scehnet said.

St. Joseph tried to add football more than a decade ago but the school had money issues and was about to change principals. The Salt Lake City Diocese vetoed football at the time.

This time, the school has added about a dozen out-of-boundary students who specifically wanted to play football, and school principal Clay Jones said in April 2022 that he’d 100% support adding football if it led to an enrollment bump.

For this iteration of football, the school bought 25 sets of uniforms, two goalposts, footballs, practice equipment and more for the team at a huge five- or six-figure startup cost.

Fundraising played a large role in outfitting the team and will likely continue to be important. Hunt-Loveless said it’s been difficult to fundraise.

“I’m hoping now that we can show a team and we’re doing this, that I won’t get the questions of, ‘How many boys are playing, are you guys really gonna play, what are you gonna use the money for?’ I think a lot of those questions will go away and it’ll be easier for me as I network for donors or we find business sponsors,” he said.

Hunt-Loveless wanted St. Joseph to play football last year because some of the school’s seniors were interested in football. School officials ran into supply-chain issues with getting equipment, didn’t have a coach yet and decided in June 2022 to start football in 2023.

Hunt-Loveless is also happy the school waited until 2023 because he’s been able to network, find coaches, market the program and fundraise more money than he might have if the school went for the shorter timeline.

***

After all of the prep and work done in the 14 months since the school greenlit football, there’s still a laundry list of things left.

The list came to a head on Monday, the first day of school.

Hunt-Loveless had been busy preparing his teaching curriculum, finishing the game plan for Monticello and outfitting two new players in helmets and pads for Monday’s practice. Practice jerseys, helmet decals and girdles hadn’t arrived yet.

Hunt-Loveless got a migraine Monday morning.

“Seeing the boys’ practice going well, the guys in the pads, they’re competing, like, that lifted me up. Made me feel good even though I feel like I’m taking a bit of a hammer,” Hunt-Loveless said afterward.

Later Monday evening, two robotic field-painter drones rolled along the grass field and painted football and soccer lines.

Right at 7:30 p.m., the sprinklers turned on, which was an issue because the paint still needed to dry. The lines were dry by Tuesday, even if they looked a little messy in spots.

In some ways, the St. Joseph football program is like a fresh coat of paint: it still needs some time to dry before anyone really knows what it will look like.

8-PLAYER FOOTBALL EXPLAINED

Utah schools, specifically, are playing eight-player football on 11-player-sized fields.

Eight-player offenses are typically run-heavy. Teams often use 3-4 offensive linemen, 2-3 skill players and one quarterback, who’s often a running QB.

Hunt-Loveless hired Ben Lomond alumnus Deontay Nish to be the offensive coordinator in May, then Nish left the team in late July. He’s since brought in Terrance Pohl and Roderick Richards II as assistant coaches.

Originally, Hunt-Loveless thought the Jayhawks would be more of a spread team on offense. They figure to be more of a power-running team instead.

Defenses typically use 3-4 linemen, 2-3 linebackers and 1-2 defensive backs. Good tackling is emphasized because defenses cover an 11-player-sized field with only eight players.

High-scoring games are the norm in eight-player football. Idaho’s two eight-player state champions scored an average of 51.6 and 50.4 points per game last year. One Idaho team, Logos, scored 39.6 points per game and gave up 49.8 on defense. Some of its scores: 74-66 win, 68-58 loss, 66-56 win, 46-40 loss, 46-38 loss.

Another difference is in participation. Many 6A and 5A football teams in the area have about 80-100 players, and dropping, in their programs. Eight-player teams typically only play varsity games, so they don’t even need 30-40 kids. Hunt-Loveless set a goal of 16-18 players on the team so they could scrimmage 8-on-8 in practice.

The Jayhawks have had around 12-14 at practice this week, including those going through heat acclimatization. Monticello has 29 listed on its online roster, Water Canyon has 26, Altamont has 18 and Monument Valley has 15. Eight-player teams didn’t play last week when 11-player teams opened, and some won’t play until Aug. 25.

SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN

St. Joseph jumps straight into the inferno.

First is Monticello, which went 8-4 last year and was Utah’s state runner-up. Then, SJC goes to Oakley (Idaho), which is 81-19 since 2014 with three straight Idaho 1A Division I state titles.

In Week 4, the Jayhawks host Watersprings, a private school from Idaho Falls in its fourth year of eight-player football, before heading to Grace, which was Idaho’s 1A Division I runner-up, in Week 5.

After a bye week, the Jayhawks play in-state teams the rest of the way, though they’ll travel 413 miles to Monument Valley and 347 to Water Canyon in Hildale.

St. Joseph was originally scheduled to play Diamond Ranch Academy in Week 6. State regulators shut down DRA, a former residential treatment center for “troubled” teenagers, in July after a 17-year-old girl died there in December.

The Jayhawks might still play a Week 6 game if they can find one.

The first round of the state playoffs is scheduled for Oct. 27. State semifinals are Nov. 2 at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, and the championship game is Nov. 11 at Southern Utah University.

SCHEDULE

Aug. 18: Monticello, 3:30 p.m.

Aug. 25: at Oakley (ID), 7 p.m.

Sept. 1: Watersprings (Idaho Falls, ID), 4 p.m.

Sept. 8: at Grace (ID), 7 p.m.

Sept. 15: TBD

Sept: 22: Utah School for the Deaf and Blind, 4 p.m.

Sept: 29: at Monument Valley, 7 p.m.

Oct. 6: at Water Canyon, 7 p.m.

Oct. 13: Altamont, 4 p.m.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.