Minnesota is the eighth state to switch its high school football season from the fall to 2021 due to the coronavirus epidemic. The Minnesota State High School League approved a plan Tuesday morning that will move football and girls volleyball to the spring, according to multiple reports, but leaving all other fall sports — tennis, cross country and swimming/diving — to play as scheduled.
The announcement comes a day after Maryland moved all its fall and winter sports to start in 2021.
Minnesota, which had planned to kick off its football season Aug. 28, joins California, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Washington along with the District of Columbia to move football back.
Fall conditioning and practice in Minnesota was to begin Aug. 17, but a motion to keep the football season intact as planned was voted down Tuesday by the MSHSL board, which then approved the spring plan with no scrimmages, a shorter season and fewer games.
Practices for football and volleyball will be allowed in the fall, but its season will take place from mid-March to mid-May. Traditional spring sports will move to a summer schedule that takes place from May to early July. The other fall sports in Minnesota along with its winter schedule remains the same, though likely shortened.
The postseason for football has yet to be determined.
Of the remaining 42 states, 37 plan to play the fall season as scheduled, though 10 of those will push back those seasons by weeks.
The Bemidji Lumberjacks take the field in a Minnesota 2019 Class AAAAA third-round playoff game.
Photo by Lainie Hiller
