#TBT: 600-plus Teams Ready for Kickoff
August 27, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Football teams have represented Michigan high schools for more than a century, beginning long before the MHSAA was formed during the winter of 1924-25.
This weekend, nearly all of the 614 varsity teams scheduled to play this fall will kick off their seasons – and for a fortunate 18, start a journey that will last more than three months through the MHSAA Finals.
This will be the 40th season of the MHSAA football playoffs, which were first played with a much smaller field of teams in 1975. The field expanded to its current 256 11-player teams in 1999, and an 8-player tournament was added in 2011.
The above photo was taking during a 23-0 Muskegon victory over Escanaba during the 1989 Class A playoffs (senior Marcus Longmire celebrates scoring his team's second touchdown). The Big Reds advanced from this Pre-Regional game to face Midland, then Lansing Sexton, and finally Detroit Martin Luther King in the Class A Final – which Muskegon won 16-13.
The Big Reds have won five MHSAA titles total, and also made Finals the last three seasons, finishing runner-up in Division 2 in 2012 and 2013 and last season in Division 3 after falling 7-0 to Orchard Lake St. Mary's.
Moment: Comets Make Last Minute Count
October 8, 2020
By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties
A hop and a wave.
That’s what it took for Grand Ledge to pull off the most unlikely of comebacks in the 2000 Division 1 MHSAA Football title game at the Pontiac Silverdome, doing what no team has ever done – scoring two touchdowns during the final minute to claim a 19-14 victory over Utica Eisenhower.
The game was your typical large-school, heavyweight fight, tied at 7-7 with less than five minutes to play when Eisenhower’s Chris Hoover broke loose for a 36-yard scoring run. But Grand Ledge bounced right back, mounting an 80-yard drive following the ensuing kickoff, capped by quarterback Matt Bohnet’s five-yard scramble to the end zone.
With just 53 seconds left on the clock, Comets coach Pat O’Keefe, already known as one of the state’s most successful baseball coaches, decided he had to gamble. Go for two.
“We were tired,” O’Keefe told the Lansing State Journal after the game. “I thought the momentum was there for us and I didn’t want to play overtime.
“We thought about it a little bit, and I saw it in the kid’s faces. I asked Matt (Bohnet) what he wanted to do and he said, ‘Let’s go for the win.’”
But the conversion play broke down. Bohnet couldn’t find an open receiver and was tackled short of the goal line.
Everyone in the Silverdome knew what was coming next. No one could have seen, however, what was going to happen.
The onside kick by Nick Sandy took a textbook hop, and Colin O’Keefe flew through the air to grab it and give the Comets new life.
Two plays later, Bohnet was scrambling again – and a wide-open Tim George was downfield waving at him. Bohnet connected with George at the 15-yard line, and after shaking off one would-be tackler, George headed for the end zone, finishing with a pylon dive that gave the Comets the lead. It was the second TD catch of the game for George.
“I caught the ball and got bumped,” George told The Detroit News. “I saw the goal line and I knew I had to get there. I didn’t even think about going out of bounds.”
You can watch the final moments of the FOX Sports Detroit coverage of the 2000 Grand Ledge-Utica Eisenhower game below.
PHOTO: Grand Ledge's Tim George dives for the winning touchdown during the final seconds of the 2000 Division 1 Final at the Pontiac Silverdome. (Photo by Gary Shook.)