(Copied from Times Union)

Section 2 football coordinator Sean Colfer announced Friday that five programs are transitioning from 11-man football to eight-man football “due to low participation numbers or health and safety concerns for student athletes at the varsity level.”

That, coupled with the recent announcement that Cambridge/Salem will not field a varsity team this fall, has left just two 11-man teams in Class D for this season and resulted in significant schedule changes for classes B, C and D.

The teams transitioning to eight-man football this season are Class B’s Hudson Falls/Fort Edward, Class C’s Broadalbin-Perth and Class D’s Lake George/Warrensburg/Bolton, Stillwater/Saratoga Central Catholic and Rensselaer/Loudonville Christian. None of them will be eligible for the eight-man postseason.

Those changes leave Greenwich and Canajoharie/Fort Plain as the lone 11-man teams in Class D this season. In a news release announcing the changes, Colfer said that those two Class D teams were placed for the regular season into Class C divisions “based on geographic location,” resulting in the changes to several Week 1 matchups.

In an email to the Times Union, Colfer confirmed that Greenwich and Canajoharie/Fort Plain will play each other for the Class D championship in the postseason.