Friday Night Lights Out: South Eugene struggles to field football

From KLCC Studios, this is

Oregon on the Record.

I'm Michael Dunn. 55 to 60,000 die-hard football fans routinely pack Autzen Stadium to watch Oregon football play as they did this past weekend. But even though Autzen Stadium is less than two miles away from the football field at South Eugene High, it might as well be a thousand miles distance given what's happening, or rather not happening, with South's 2026 football team. Today on the show, you'll hear from a sports reporter at the Register Guard about the difficulty that South is having just to get enough students to come out for the team and what that situation might say about the future of football in our state. Then, at the end of the show, we'll check in with one of our reporters about a new study which suggests the spotted owl is now functionally extinct in the Pacific Northwest. That's next on Oregon on the Record. Football is so popular that the NFL season starts tonight on a Wednesday, and then tomorrow, two teams will play in Australia. Indeed, the NFL wants to create a global game that eclipses soccer as the world's game. But locally, one high school, despite its size and economic backing, is struggling just to field a team. We talk now to a sports reporter at the Register Guard about why South Eugene High is going against the trend of football fandom. Jared Denny, high school sports reporter for the Registered Guard. Jared, great to meet you. Thanks for coming in and talking to us.

Likewise. Likewise, Michael. Thank you so much for having

me on. I've read your articles about South Eugene, the Axe, and the football program. Just get our listeners up to speed. What's been happening in this run-up to the football season for 2026? Yeah, it's

been a bit of a bummer for South Eugene. Folks who have spent a lot of time around here know that South Eugene is one of the more respective academic schools in the state, and they have a ton of fantastic athletic departments. But Their football team has kind of struggled over the last half decade, and they actually didn't field a team in 21 or 22 just due to participation issues and not getting enough kids out. And, you know, a lot of actually football teams around the state struggled after the pandemic just to kind of keep their numbers up. So they were one of many schools facing that battle. But they're going through something similar this year. They kind of made the tough decision at the start of August that they're going to cancel their – or I should say alter their varsity football season and kind of take a step back and drop out of the Midwestern League where they were slated to play. And they've since adopted a schedule that's kind of cobbled together. They played a varsity game last Friday, and they've got a few junior varsity games on the slate. It's something that a lot of folks have been trying to kind of solve over at that school. And they've got a good staff in there right now led by head coach Eric Scott that really cares about those kids and is doing everything he can to kind of try to get some more out. It's tough. It's tough over there.

And I would imagine, like you mentioned, especially after the pandemic, a lot of Oregon schools