High school football has taken over in downtown Minneapolis, where seven state champions will be decided this weekend.
It was a week ago when Lincoln Broten of Minneota found out that school was called off for the prep bowl.
"I thought it was pretty nice," says Broten. "I love not having school so and I love coming out here and watching some football."
The student bus rolled out at 7:00 this morning. Abraham Ferber says no one was thinking about books and teachers Friday.
"Of course not. We're all here to go join the student section," Ferber told WCCO's Al Schoch. "We're about to go cheer on our boys and hope for a good victory."
This is becoming a regular recurrence for Lincoln and Abraham. Their Minneota Vikings are in the Prep Bowl for the third straight year.
Minneota and Springfield kicked off the football state championships in Class A on Friday morning at 10:00. Other games include Totino-Grace and Becker in Class 4A, Staples-Motley and Jackson County Central in 2A, followed by a 6A clash between Maple Grove and Minnetonka scheduled to get underway at 7:00 Friday night.
The 9-player, 3A, and 5A teams play on Saturday.
In that 3A game, the Stewartville Tigers haven't lost a football game in two seasons and are playing for their second-straight state championship. Tigers head coach Dan Muller says his team knew they needed to respond this year.
"This year, we lost a significant number of impact players from our 2023 team," explained Muller. "And so it was finding ways to put our guys in the best position with the group that we had back this year."
Muller says the community is rallying around the team in a big way.
"It was awesome this last week, you know, felt like a full stadium for us on Saturday in the state semifinal game," Muller explains. "And we know we'll have the same support coming up this week in the state championship game. It's a privilege to coach in this program, just knowing how much support we have and knowing who's going to be up there rooting us on."
Friday, November 22nd
Class 1A Final – Minneota 70, Springfield 20
Class 4A Final – Becker 24, Totino-Grace 8
Class 2A Final – Jackson County Central 42, Staples-Motely 26
Class 6A Final – Maple Grove 28, Minnetonka 21
Saturday, November 23rd
10:00 AM Class 9 Final – Hills-Beaver Creek vs. Fertile-Beltrami
1:00 PM Class 3A Final – Dassel-Cokato vs. Stewartville
4:00 PM Class 5A Final – Elk River vs. Alexandria Area