Good kids, can't get along

Why are they fighting? Do they think there can only be one leader on the team?

Over a girl, over what one heard the other one said, over what the other one heard that the first one said, over a comment about a hat, over a comment about UGA (one's favorite team). Neither one can whip the other and they are constantly on the verge. If we were in pads, I'd let them go at it on the field till their tongues fell out, but that's not an option now.

I knew a coach who would make them hold hands and skip around the field. Not saying Id do that but coach swore it worked for him.

Id cover my rear though and tell the principal to go ahead and suspend them rather than making it your problem that they are fighting. You do not need to own that. Seems like he means well but in reality its a set up for you.

Does anyone know a cooperative exercise that would force them to work together?

I'd offer to drive them out to the country and let them settle it once and for all. ;D

I would love to do that. They've already met away from school several times to "settle it." It was an even draw each time from what I heard. They've fought 15 or 20 times in the last month or so. It's getting ridiculous.

From basic training; so, you'll probably have to modify this stuff if you ever decide to use it.
Both fighters would be made to do something together.
examples: Private Smith and Private Jones get into a fight.
One fight resulted in both participants having to carry a heavy log side-by-side, running around the quad ( a quad takes up more area than a HS track), while shouting what they think of each other. Of course, they shouted insults. After they were good and tired and didn't have enough energy to shout anything, the senior DI brought them back over to where we were training. Gave them- and, us- a short speech on togetherness, teamwork, etc... And, then made them run with the log again until they could think of some good qualities to say about each other.
Of course, they weren't inclined to think of good things to say about the s.o.b. that they just finished cussing out until they had no breath left. But, the log was persuasive.
They were stopped in front of us and made to say the positive things that they had thought about each other. After that, they were made to run with the log and shout the positive things out for all to hear.
example# 2:
Pvt. Smith and Pvt. Jones were made to do push-ups, face-to-face, mere inches from each other while shouting, "I love you, Pvt. ____! You are my brother! Your life is in my hands! My life is in your hands! Divided, the enemy shall destroy us! Together, no enemy can defeat us!"
Repeat as necessary.

example#3 is how I handled a couple of fights for my youth team. We're direct snap SW.
TB and LB get into it. I pull them to the side. I call the next play. Have my AC call the LB's blitz. Ball snaps. There's no TB to receive it. But, there's also no LB blitzing through to easily scoop & score with the loose ball. FB has to jump on the ball and cover up for a loss.
I jumped on my offense for not scoring while the defense only had 10 players. I did the same to my defense for not scooping & scoring. You can imagine how those conversations went on both sides. They devolved to 'we couldn't accomplish the mission because the guy we counted on to do his job wasn't in the game due to his own stupidity.'
I made the fighters understand what happened. Then I made them do bear-crawls until they understood their responsibility to their teammates and to themselves. And, then they had to do more bear-crawls until they were able to tell me a positive quality about the other player. After that, I made them apologize to their team and ask the team to be allowed to practice again.