Babcock: What does Menlo School’s forfeit mean for Bay Area football?

These days, forfeits are a part of high school football.

As teams struggle with small rosters, sometimes there aren’t enough players to compete safely. This has happened in the Bay Area multiple times this year alone.

But a forfeit in one of the Central Coast Section’s strongest leagues?

Now that’s unique.

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Menlo School forfeits its football game this week against Wilcox

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On Tuesday, Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division member Menlo School, which started 7-0 this season, announced it did not have enough healthy players to travel to Santa Clara and face Wilcox this Friday after a hard-fought, debilitating 28-0 loss to Los Gatos on Saturday. The Knights would thus forfeit, running their formerly spotless record to 7-2 and 2-2 in league play.

The forfeit loss officially eliminates Menlo from contention in the PAL Bay title race with one week left in the Knights’ season.

After the matchup with Los Gatos, Menlo coach Todd Smith was as raw and honest as I’ve seen a coach after a game in the years I’ve covered high school sports. He was a man without a solution to a problem that has been plaguing his and many other programs for years.

“We need more kids to play football here,” Smith told me. “And we need to help those kids so that our kids can play healthy and so they can walk to their families and hug them afterwards and feel good not just about winning or losing, but about being healthy and not being completely exhausted.”

Ultimately, Smith and those at Menlo decided they weren’t going to be healthy enough to complete a game this week. Having seen the state of Menlo’s roster after last week’s contest, I can’t fault the school’s decision-makers.

This issue goes far beyond Menlo School, but its example encapsulates a number of issues high school sports are dealing with in this era. It’s a concern at schools of all sizes, both public and private. In Menlo’s case, it’s among the small private schools trying to keep football afloat.

Under Smith, the Knights won their way out of the Peninsula Athletic League’s De Anza Division and into the Bay, the top tier. Now, they square off against heavyweights like Los Gatos and Wilcox.

This year, they’re doing so with a roster of 26 players on varsity, 24 of whom were available to play against Los Gatos. That number undoubtedly would have been lower this week.

Meanwhile, Menlo’s girls flag football team is thriving. The Knights are the No. 1 team in the Bay Area News Group’s flag football rankings and a favorite to win the first CCS Open Division flag football championship next week.

The impending collision course between flag football – which has experienced explosive growth since it became an official high school sport in 2023 – and tackle football is rapidly approaching.

While flag football gained 84% more participants year over year in the most recent report released by the California Interscholastic Federation, tackle football reported a 1.9% increase. Significant, but marginal – and underselling how many programs, especially in the Bay Area, have already or are on the verge of dropping their varsity teams.

In August, the Los Angeles Times posed the question: “If tackle football isn’t safe for girls, why do we let boys play?”

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Menlo School forfeits its football game this week against Wilcox

High school football rankings Week 10, 2025: Bay Area News Group Top 25

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It’s foreseeable in the coming years that boys flag football could take off in a similar fashion, especially with the sport coming to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 and likely featuring NFL players.

The reality Bay Area high schools must now tackle is this: How many football players are out there, and can you get enough to sustain a team now and in the future?

For Menlo and others, the answer – and the long-term health of the sport – is quickly becoming uncertain.

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