We've all heard of professional teams tanking for draft picks or draft positioning, but this story out of the Mississippi high school ranks is one of the most bizarre high school sports stories ever.
Before we get to the details, we must first understand some recent changes to the playoff format in Mississippi high school football, where there are separate playoffs for public and private schools.
In a move that defies all kinds of logic, the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools recently decided to reformat their playoff into a two-tier system. With private and public school playoffs separate, the top four teams would compete in the Division I bracket, while it was decided that the next eight teams would make up the Division II portion of the bracket.
While it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, instead of one state champion, each tier would crown their own respective state champion.
Coaching veterans might already see where that format may be asking for some issues...and that's exactly what happened.
Well Marshall Academy head coach Chris Brunio had his squad sitting at 8-1 heading into a late October matchup with an 8-1 Washington School squad, for a district championship. The winner would find themselves in the much harder Division I portion of the private school playoff, while the loser end up a top seed of the second-tier of the playoff bracket. In that second-tier bracket, there was an almost certain easier path to be crowned a state champion because of that newly established playoff system, so Brunio decided to work that system to his team's advantage.
He decided to have his Marshall team tank the game to set them up for a potential top seed in the second-tier playoff.
Not only did Marshall sit at least 13 players, according to one local report, but to open the second half, already 43-8, Brunio had his team take multiple delay of game penalties while refusing to snap the ball.
After Washington scored easily on their opening possession, and Brunio burned all three of their timeouts during a running clock, Marshall fair caught a kickoff at the 5-yard line. They then refused to take an offensive snap, instead deciding to take multiple delay of games.
In a rule many of us may not have known even existed, Rule 9-9 of the NFHS Football Rules Book defines "Unfair Acts" as actions that hinder play and are not covered by a specific rule, often to gain an advantage or make a mockery of the game.
When those delay of games piled up and resulted in multiple half-the-distance to the goal penalties inside of the 1-yard line, the referees decided to utilize that little-known rule and awarded Washington a safety.
Then, Marshall refused to attempt the free kick, taking two additional delay of game penalties.
When the game eventually came to it's very awkward end with a 53-6 win for Washington, after officials called the game with two minutes on the clock and awarded a forfeit win to Washington, word of the bizarre game made its way to state authorities.
A statement from the MAIS read, in part:
“The Affairs Committee received multiple reports concerning Marshall Academy’s refusal to honor the MAIS Sportsmanship Creed by refusing to play. It is noted that they refused to run a play the entire second half. They also refused multiple times to kick off after a safety had been awarded by the officials.”
The MAIS levied a $7,500 fine at Marshall and banned them from hosting a playoff game for the remainder of the postseason.
In an unprecedented move, Brunio was personally issued a fine of $1,000, prohibited from all contact with the team during the playoffs as well, and has been issued an indefinite ban from coaching any MAIS sport.