There is something missing from high school football these days.

Sure. The bands still play. The cheerleaders still cheer. There’s still homecoming and senior night.

But on the field, something is just not right. That something is the field.

There’s no mud.

In its place is artificial blades of grass and rubber pellets that pretend to be dirt.

It’s as phony as a Kardashian.

The evolution was a slow one. It started with a few select schools installing artificial turf, then the trend exploded as the technology evolved and it became less and less expensive to get the stuff.

I understand why. In the long run, it is cheaper. Schools can use their stadiums for football practice and soccer games and lacrosse games and not worry about the field becoming one big pig pen by the end of the season.

It doesn’t need mowed and maintained and re-planted every season.

Something, though, was lost in the transition, something inherently fun about high school football.

The mud game.

It’s becoming obsolete, like the CD player and camera film.

And it’s sad.

High school football is soft now.

Want proof? Look at the WPIAL.

Of the 32 football teams in the district that are hosting first-round games Friday, 12 of them play on grass.

All 12 moved their games to drier (and artificial) ground thanks to Frankenstorm or Superstorm Sandy or whatever name you want to call the hard rain we received earlier in the week.

These schools lost their home field advantage, punished for having grass fields.

The WPIAL didn’t “make” these teams switch sites, it just “strongly suggested” they should. And they all complied.

Even Freeport, which changed its venue from Swartz Field — which admittedly is usually more mud than grass at this time of the season — to Highlands for its game against Beaver Falls.

The move certainly favors the speedy Cougars.

It also deprives us of a good mud bath.

This guarantees that all playoff games in the WPIAL, District 9 and District 10 will be played on turf fields.

Pretty soon, all grass fields will go the way of the pay phone and the TV antennae.

When Karns City put in turf in 2000, it was the first school in the county with an artificial playing surface.

Now, Butler, Mars and Seneca Valley have followed suit.

More than half of the schools that play football in the WPIAL have synthetic fields.

A decade ago, you could count the turf fields in the district on two hands.

I guess I and everyone who misses good old fashioned grass will have to adapt, just as long as Karns City doesn’t put in a purple field, or Seneca Valley a columbia blue one. Then, we’ll have a problem.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.