West Iron County's varsity football season is over four games in.

Superintendent Kevin Schmutzler announced Monday, Sept. 21, that the Wykons will not play the rest of their 2026 schedule. Low participation numbers and injuries left the Iron River program unable to continue, Schmutzler said in a letter posted on the district's website.

The Wykons were scheduled to face Bark River-Harris on Friday, Sept. 25. That game will not be played.

West Iron County is the second Upper Peninsula high school to cancel its football season in the span of a week. Mid Peninsula School District, based in Rock, shut down its program around Sept. 17 after playing just one game. Mid Peninsula Superintendent Eric VanDamme said at the time that the school could no longer safely field a team, according to the Daily Press.

Mid Peninsula had 12 players on its 2026 roster under head coach Chris Reynolds. Five were returning players and seven were freshmen. The school had gone without a football program entirely from 2015 to 2021 and forfeited the 2025 season before attempting a comeback this fall.

Just months before the cancellation, Mid Peninsula received a $10,000 grant from the Detroit Lions' Touchdown in Your Town program for new football equipment. The investment was not enough to keep the program on the field.

Both cancellations point to a common problem for small UP schools: not enough players. Mid Peninsula averages roughly 17 students per grade at the high school level, according to U.S. News & World Report data cited by the Daily Press. West Iron County Public Schools enrolls about 760 students across two buildings, including its middle-high school.

Schmutzler, in his letter, acknowledged the toll on players and coaches. He wrote that the district recognizes how hard its student-athletes and coaches worked and called the early end to the season disappointing.

WLUC/TV6 first reported the West Iron County cancellation on Sept. 21.

West Iron County Public Schools has not said whether its junior varsity program will continue or whether remaining scheduled opponents will need to find replacement games.