Millis High School has called off its football game against Bellingham, with school officials saying the team simply doesn't have enough healthy bodies left to safely take the field. The Massachusetts program entered the week with a 1-3 record in its first season as a cooperative team with Norfolk County Agricultural School, and the cancellation lands at a moment when injuries have piled up fast.
According to NBC Boston, Millis Schools Superintendent Bob Mullaney said the team had about 15 available players heading into Thursday, and that seven players were injured during the team's most recent game alone. Mullaney said bluntly that the team could not safely take the field, pointing also to a broader decline in the number of students playing football at Millis. As masslive.com reported, the school confirmed the upcoming football game against Bellingham on Thursday is cancelled, citing player-safety concerns.
Among the injured is Jayden Montaro, a Millis junior now recovering from torn ACL and MCL injuries he suffered during the preseason; he has been getting around on crutches as his teammates play on without him. Matty Noonan, who was honored as one of the Boston Globe's players of the week, said injuries seem to get worse every year. His mother, Jen Noonan, said six players were injured in the team's last game and that games are now being canceled at the last minute, upending plans for players and families alike.
A Co-Op Built to Save the Program
This is Millis's first season fielding a combined team with Norfolk County Agricultural School, a partnership that didn't exist a year ago. Norfolk Aggie previously did not offer football at all, according to the Milford Daily News, and the two-year co-op began this fall with Millis serving as the host school. Mullaney has said he believes the arrangement can help preserve Millis's football tradition even as rosters shrink.
That tradition runs deep. Millis won its first Division 4 Eastern Massachusetts title in 1980, followed by Division 6B state titles in 1994 and 1999, and the program has five Super Bowl championships overall, with consecutive state titles in 2016 and 2017, per masslive.com. But the roster math has gotten harder: Millis finished the 2025 season at 2-7 with just 24 total players, according to MaxPreps figures cited by sports.yahoo.com, and the Mohawks haven't posted a winning record since going 6-5 in 2022. Matty Noonan has said the co-op also meant getting to know a new set of Norfolk Aggie teammates on the fly.
Millis Joins a Growing List of Thin Rosters
Through its first four games this season, Millis sits at 1-3, with its lone win coming against Worcester Tech and losses to Blackstone-Millville, Medfield and Minuteman Regional, masslive.com reported. The team's next scheduled game is Oct. 16 against Murdock on the road. Whether the Bellingham game gets rescheduled, or what it might mean for the rest of the season, remains unclear.
Millis isn't alone in grappling with a shrinking player pool. Statewide, football signups in Massachusetts have dropped 17 percent over the last 15 years, more than double the 7 percent national decline, according to the Boston Globe. Weston coach Jim Wilcon told the paper he tried to form co-ops with three different schools — Dedham, Dover and Millis — the previous winter, underscoring how widespread the search for roster solutions has become.
From Cape Cod to Upstate New York, the Same Squeeze
The Globe's reporting on Cape Cod found similar strain: Dennis-Yarmouth's numbers have hovered in the 30s, Sandwich has been dressing 28 or 29 players, and Monomoy/St. John Paul II counts roughly 29 even when fully healthy. Martha's Vineyard shut down its entire 2025 season last October after injuries and off-field issues pared its roster down to about 20 active players. Cape coaches have responded by shifting to smaller-sided practice drills — three-on-three, five-on-five and seven-on-seven formats — rather than full-contact scrimmages that require bigger numbers.
Massachusetts isn't the only place watching rosters shrink. In western New York's Section V, less than 40 percent of member schools now field their own varsity football team, per sports.yahoo.com, and two- or three-school cooperative teams have become routine while eight-man football sits dormant. Red Jacket plans to merge its program with Midlakes in 2027 based on projected numbers, Mynderse already shifted into a Class B co-op with Waterloo after weak preseason turnout, and Wilson/Early College skipped a varsity season entirely this fall.
In Massachusetts, Ipswich High and Triton Regional offer another template: their cooperative team, approved by the Cape Ann League and the MIAA District 5 Committee, now plays its home games at Triton's field in Byfield, according to thelocalnews.news. Ipswich officials pointed to safety concerns, warning that an independent roster would have been too small to allow for in-game substitutions — the same core worry Millis cited this week.
