Britton Deerfield Finding Fast Success After Move to 8-Player Football
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 28, 2021
BRITTON – Britton Deerfield’s football team is learning to win again.
The Patriots have transitioned from 11-player to 8-player football this season in a big way. Playing their first season under Michigan’s 8-player format, the Patriots are 5-0 through five weeks and already clinched the program’s first league championship since 2000.
“I think it’s been great for our program,” said senior quarterback Nicolas Johnson. “We’re having a lot of success. I think the team is really focused. All I care about is us winning.”
After struggling mainly due to low numbers at the varsity, junior varsity and middle school levels the last several years, BD is doing a lot of winning this year. In fact, the Patriots have been dominant. After accepting a forfeit in Week 1, BD has won by scores of 64-8, 38-12, 68-0 and 54-16. They are 3-0 in the new Tri-River 8 Conference with one league game remaining. Every other team has at least one loss, meaning they can do no worse than share the league title.
“The league championship is nice,” he said. “I think some of our guys kind of forgot what it felt like to be a contender.”
The last time BD won a league championship was during a run of three straight Tri-County Conference titles from 1998 to 2000.
Technically, this is the first conference championship in school history.
Britton and Deerfield are two small communities in Lenawee County. The Deerfield school building opened in 1874 and the Britton building in 1893. They were two distinct school districts for more than 100 years.
During the early 1990s, both schools were struggling with low participation in some varsity sports. In 1993-94, the varsity football and track teams formed co-ops and played as Britton-Deerfield. The Britton-Deerfield football program had some outstanding teams, winning multiple conference titles and sending several players into the college ranks. Two of those are head coaches at Division III Michigan colleges today – Dustin Breuer at Albion and Dan Musielewicz at Olivet College – and several others are head coaches at the high school level.
As more and more sports became co-op programs, the schools continued to operate separately until 2011 when the school boards of both communities voted to adopt a shared service plan. On July 1, 2011, just before Independence Day, voters in the two communities approved consolidation of the two schools into one – Britton Deerfield.
Erik Johnson took over the BD football program in 2017. The Patriots went 1-8 in back-to-back years but made the playoffs in 2019. Last year BD went 1-6. Soon after the season ended, school officials announced the team would be moving to 8-player football this year.
“I spent most of the winter watching YouTube videos and talking to 8-man coaches,” Johnson said. “I love information. I was curious about how some schools ran practices and what offenses they run and what the difference was on the 40-yard-wide field. I talked to coaches all over the place, asking questions.”
BD had played a couple of seasons of 8-player junior varsity football because of low numbers, but the varsity level was all new this year.
“We hit the ground running,” Johnson said. “It was great to have the summer workouts where we could build some camaraderie. We had some new guys that we needed to get up to speed. We had some six-on-sixes and seven-on-sevens too. That helped.”
BD committed to two years of 8-player football, and then will evaluate the program and where it is headed. Johnson said it all depends on numbers.
“If we get to a point where we are back to a 20-25 player roster, 11-player is what we’ll play,” he said. “But if we only have 12-13 kids in the entire middle school program, we won’t be playing 11-man. That’s not feasible.”
While trying to build a schedule from scratch, Johnson found other schools in the same boat. Five decided to form the Tri-River 8 Conference – Britton Deerfield, Concord, Vandercook Lake, Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian and Vermontville Maple Valley.
Playing nine new opponents added an extra dimension to preparation for the season.
“I watched a lot of film, but it was from previous years,” Johnson said. “I just tried to learn as much about the opponents as I could.”
The season got off to a slow start when BD’s first opponent – an Ohio school – canceled due to lack of available players. Since then, the Patriots have been unstoppable, rolling to four on-the-field wins. They have had several big moments, but last week’s performance by Nicolas Johnson was eye-popping.
The quarterback ran for 251 yards and four touchdowns and passed for 101 yards and another score. Over four games, he has 623 yards rushing and 375 passing. He’s accounted for 17 touchdowns.
Nicolas, known as “Nico,” is the son of Erik – who also serves as athletic director - and BD superintendent Stacy Johnson. Nico’s brother Carson is a sophomore on the Patriots JV team, and his grandfather John is an assistant coach. John and Erik have coached together for nearly 20 years.
Nico is a three-sport star at BD and a member of the MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council.
“It’s always fun to watch him,” Erik Johnson said. “I thought he would have a really good year. Once he gets in the open, he can make guys miss.”
Nico said the biggest difference between 11 and 8-player football is having room on the field to run.
“Once you beat the linebacker, there is usually no one else behind them,” he said. “I feel I have the ability to see the cutback lanes better. It’s a lot different.”
Johnson hopes to play college football.
“My passion is definitely football,” he said. “That one thing I have talked to (college) coaches about is whether or not playing 8-player affects my chances of playing in college, and they say no.”
Coach Johnson said when it comes down to it, football is football – no matter how many players are on the field.
“It’s still blocking and tackling,” he said. “It comes down to execution on offense and defense and being prepared in all three phases of the game.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Britton Deerfield quarterback Nico Johnson launches a pass during a Week 4 win over Vandercook Lake. (Middle) Johnson and BD head coach Erik Johnson (also his father) discuss strategy. (Below) Nico Johnson follows his blockers against the Jayhawks. (Photos by Deloris Clark-Osborne.)
Building Beginning as Okemos Follows 1st-Year Coach Scott-Emuakpor
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 9, 2022
OKEMOS – The football lay on the turf, landing there before the play had really begun, and the most booming voice from the tallest man on the field yelled a reassuring, “It’s OK. Let’s go,” followed the next play by “Go again,” and then “Figure it out.”
An hour earlier, first-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor had been on the phone asking a parent to bring the helmet and practice jersey one of his players had left at home. Nearby, another small group also stood helmetless as they hadn’t yet gotten the pre-participation physical required to join their friends on the field.
Those are typical first-day glitches no matter the school, and fall practices for all sports began Monday at 750 high schools across the state.
But those relatively minor symptoms are what Scott-Emuakpor is focused on treating in the immediate term as he takes on one of the most serious rebuilding efforts in Michigan high school football.
“This is progress,” Scott-Emuakpor said halfway through his team’s first practice, looking out at 39 players on Okemos’ game field – 33 more than showed up for his first offseason workout.
“We’d like to have everything right now. But it’s growing. It’s slowly growing.”
And after Monday, Okemos is one step closer to what would be an incredible turnaround story.
The Wolves have not won since Week 2 of the 2019 season, a stretch of 23 games. After scoring on an 84-yard run during the first quarter of last fall’s opener against Mason, Okemos didn’t score again the rest of the season.
Standing 6-foot-3, and still only a few years from his last college game as a receiver at Ball State University, Scott-Emuakpor looks capable of stepping back into a huddle at a moment’s notice. A little more than a decade ago, in 2011, he was beginning a senior season at East Lansing that would see him cap his varsity career in the MHSAA record book with 134 catches, gaining 1,624 yards, over three seasons. He also was an all-leaguer in basketball and Finals placer in high jump before joining the Cardinals.
After graduating from Ball State with a computer science bachelor’s degree, and on the way to earning his master’s in business from Saginaw Valley State University, Scott-Emuakpor came home and has worked nearly six years as a business systems analyst with Red Cedar Solutions Group on efforts including the MI School Data website.
But that’s just his fulltime job. Scott-Emuakpor also co-founded a clothing line, Live For Today, and over the last five seasons served as a volunteer assistant coach with his hometown Trojans – who have made the MHSAA Playoffs six seasons running.
He'd never applied for a head coaching job. He’d never really considered coaching at that level. In fact, he was pretty happy with how assisting at East Lansing for longtime coach Bill Feraco fit into his schedule and other pursuits.
But Scott-Emuakpor also is a studier. And as a past rival and co-member of the Capital Area Activities Conference Blue, he and East Lansing saw Okemos plenty.
The Wolves had made the playoffs as recently as 2018, and won their first playoff game that season since 2011. Scott-Emuakpor had played against Okemos’ Taylor Moton, now considered one of the NFL’s top offensive tackles. And the school has had loads of success in other sports, annually ranking among the Lansing area’s best in just about all of them and coming off a statewide Division 1 championship in boys soccer from last fall.
“I paid attention to how things have been around here. And I know what they could be capable of,” Scott-Emuakpor said. “This program was once a good program that was very well-respected; I respected them playing against them in high school. They had great athletes. I think my senior year we beat them by one point (20-19 in 2011). So we had good battles.
“I just saw where they’re at. … We have some good kids around here, and I know there’s more in the school not playing. Maybe when they’re sophomores, juniors, they’ll come out. I think I’m capable of getting that interest up, getting them out on the field and just building something.”
Raj Singh is a senior this fall, one of only five or so Scott-Emuakpor is expecting to come out this week. He’s also a near all-A student, will play some quarterback and safety along with his receiver spot, and was the guy bringing carloads of classmates to workouts over the summer as he joined his coach in recruiting prospective players.
Singh is following his older brother Joe Singh, an admittedly “smaller than everyone” offensive lineman who earned all-league honors as a senior in 2017. When Joe Singh told his younger brother that playing under the lights on a Friday night is a feeling unlike any other, the idea stuck – which is why it made sense when Raj Singh fractured his wrist in Week 2 last season but was back by Week 7 despite a cast covering one hand.
Watching Singh catch passes one-handed last season during East Lansing’s 49-0 win over Okemos stuck with Scott-Emuakpor. Joe Singh had told his little bother that all that matters is having more heart than his opponent and a fighting spirit – in other words, being the type of player Scott-Emuakpor will rely on to get Okemos up and succeeding again.
“I’ve been playing football since I was 6 years old. It’s just been a dream of mine to be at this moment,” Raj Singh said.
“Coach Efe is bringing in a lot of new aspects, and that’s been very helpful to make it different than last year – make us feel a little more at home this year. Compared to last year, he’s brought a lot of structure. We’ve been really coming together as a family … and it just shows Coach Efe wants to build a community around here.”
The process is about more than building stronger, faster bodies and learning football skills and technique. The Wolves aren’t talking a lot about last year, but there’s something there to overcome – and Scott-Emuakpor started working on that soon after he was hired at the end of March.
“In the springtime, we were fortunate enough to get in the weight room and I was able to see kids put up good weight and do some things. I’d tell them, ‘You’re actually strong. You’re actually a fast kid,’” Scott-Emuakpor said. “But when you’re not successful for so long, and the way they were losing last year, it was easy for them to not feel confident, not feel they were able to ultimately get the job done. And so I was just there working on minds.”
Last season was going to be uphill for Okemos no matter what. A mid-summer coaching change brought on by a major fulltime job promotion for the former coach led to an interim staff, players leaving the program, and an applaudable effort to just keep teams on the field.
Scott-Emuakpor has surrounded himself with a staff that includes a pair of his past coaches growing up in East Lansing, past players from when he was coaching there and others with winning experience playing at DeWitt and Williamston.
In addition to what he learned playing and coaching under Feraco, Scott-Emuakpor brings a ton of insight from his experiences at Ball State; he had only one catch during his college career while battling injuries, but he spent that time on the sideline observing his coaches and taking mental notes. Just Sunday, he was pulling from the 2012-13 Ball State football handbook a few details to incorporate into his work in progress with the Wolves.
Okemos will have varsity and freshman teams this fall, and the majority of players at Monday’s combined practice were juniors and sophomores – so recruiting remains ongoing. But Singh said the number of classmates who did come out Monday exceeded his expectations – and that just added to the excitement of starting again.
“If you walk through the school, you’ll see some guys, you’ll (say), ‘OK, what does that guy do?’ You find out he plays (only) lacrosse, or only wrestles, where in other areas, other schools, they might do everything because that’s what they do, what they’ve grown up doing” Scott-Emuakpor said. “I’ve been trying to rebuild that connection, that love for football. A lot of them are very intrigued; I feel like some of them are kinda peeking and saying, ‘What’s going on? This new coach seems to be young and interesting.’ And I’ve just been trying to stay focused on the process and not get too far ahead of myself.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in January 2012, and MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) First-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor, middle, huddles up his players during Monday's first day of practice. (2) Scott-Emuakpor confers with senior Raj Singh on blocking from his receiver position. (3) The Wolves work on offense during the first part of their Monday session. (4) Scott-Emuakpor speaks with his team at the start of the workout. (Photos by Geoff Kimmerly.)