A new look?
It’s time to rearrange the Thanksgiving football table
The short answer to our in-house poll is Wilton and Ridgefield. They should play football on Thanksgiving.
“I’m for that 100 percent,” Wilton football coach E.J. DiNunzio said.
Yet before anyone decides who a particular school should play on the fourth Thursday in November — or one of the two previous nights — the question that really needs to be answered is who shouldn’t be playing.
Thankfully, mercifully, Shelton and Derby has indefinitely canceled a Thanksgiving series that dates to 1905. What once was a great rivalry, became a string of one-sided routs. Seventeen successive L’s for Derby with no indication 17 more in a row weren’t on the horizon.
This is no slam at Derby, its athletes, its football history, nor town pride.
Times change. Communities change. Derby has become the smallest standalone football school in Connecticut. Shelton is a Class LL playoff program. After COVID cancelled Thanksgiving 2020, Derby forfeited its final five 2021 games because of decimated numbers.
It is time for Derby to rebuild, even if it means going co-op or stepping back to junior varsity, to play similar programs, to get its youth league percolating, and if all goes right, maybe play Shelton some day in the future. For those who argue the series should not be stopped, may we suggest spiking your holiday cranberry sauce with a shot of Wild Turkey reality.
This piece began a few weeks ago as a poll among our GameTimeCT staff on what game they most want to see put on the Thanksgiving schedule and what game they want to see stopped. Wilton-Ridgefield won. At the other end, our poll became reality this week.
Here’s the thing. The cancellation of SheltonDerby points to an opportunity. With the implementation of six CIAC divisions in 2022, the expansion of the playoffs to 48 teams and the growing strength of the Scheduling Alliance, this is an excellent time for schools across the state to reassess their Thanksgiving week game.
After considerable debate in recent years about how other states operate, it has become evident that Thanksgiving games are going nowhere in the foreseeable future. About 90 percent of CIAC athletic directors and coaches sup
ported the six-division formula that retains the three-round post-Thanksgiving playoff system. Thanksgiving games stay. So who should play? And who shouldn’t? What can never be changed? What’s fine now, but could be as good or better in the future while helping other schools get matched?
SCC commissioner Al Carbone said he has watched such a tight focus over the last decade on scheduling competitive football games from the 50-point rule to the conference tier system, yet the Thanksgiving matchups always seemed to be out of the realm. Couldn’t talk about it. Is this a competitive game? Is it a game you can play another week in the season?
Derby-Shelton could be the catalyst to passing around the gravy on Thanksgiving.
It took Carbone less than an hour Monday after the Shelton-Derby announcement to tweet Shelton will play Xavier Thanksgiving week 2022. Fellow SCC Tier I teams both needed a game that week? Voila. Yet Carbone doesn’t want people to read it as something set in forever stone. In fact, it’s the opposite.
“In recent years, we’ve started having conversations with people around the league, ADs and coaches, saying we need to look
at our Thanksgiving matchups,” Carbone said. “Are we helping our teams qualify for the playoffs and playing competitive games? It has been a discussion and a difficult one.
“Thanksgiving is the single hardest thing about football scheduling because it is always locked in. Is it uncomfortable for each AD in each community? Yes. I understand politics is always local. But we’ve started the conversation that we’re trying to help them and simultaneously help our league. It’s a conversation that will keep evolving.”
Thanksgiving football is personal for those who love it and even more personal for those who played and coached in it. I swear they’ll have to carry Ansonia coach Tom Brockett out on his shield before he’d give up Thanksgiving games.
Yet even the staunchest supporters are divided into two camps.
Some love Thanksgiving football for its tradition.
Some love Thanksgiving football for the tradition and rivalry.
That is an important distinction in deciding what games can be changed.
College kids coming home, families going to the games, hot drinks on a cold morning, some good football and a feast to follow. For some that is more than enough. Opponents are negotiable.
For Darien, however, it has to be New Canaan. For New Canaan, it has to be
Darien. For history’s sake, it has to be StoningtonWesterly and New LondonNFA.
A few places like Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. In fact, Carbone said, there has been some talk about it for SheltonXavier. Certainly it would be a highlight game that night.
A growing number prefer Wednesday night. Some want to avoid the holiday overtime costs. Inevitably all this is weighed against the year’s biggest gate that can help fuel an athletic department.
An important thing also to consider is with more teams qualifying for the playoffs it means Thanksgiving will have more “playin” type results than ever.
Still, it starts with schools who shouldn’t be playing on Thanksgiving or are flexible. That presents a pool of possibilities. Hand, a perennial L power, is 42-5-1 against Guilford. Time to change.
Wilton and Ridgefield, which began playing in 1959, played on Thanksgiving 1999-2004. In 2005, Wilton started playing Trinity Catholic and Ridgefield started playing Danbury. With the FCIAC schedule, there were years Wilton and Ridgefield didn’t play. Trinity Catholic went out of business. All Wilton has on Thanksgiving now is a choice between pumpkin and apple pie.
“I talked to (former coaches) Tim Eagen and Bruce Cunningham and Ridgefield’s one of the oldest, best rivalries going back, but they lost it,” DiNunzio said. “If we weren’t going to have Thanksgiving football, that’s one thing. If it’s staying why not have the real good rivalries out there? It’s a natural for us.”
There is even a contentious backstory or two. As part of a 2016 scavenger hunt, a Ridgefield student accepted a dare to urinate on Wilton’s football field.
Some Wilton students were there. There was a huge fight. Not good, but it could pave the way to the No. 1 Bowl awarded to the winner.
In his first year, DiNunzio said near the end of a hard-fought game a Ridgefield player intercepted a pass.
“There was kind of a blindside block my kid never saw it,” DiNunzio said. “Ridgefield was excited with the pick and with the game basically over they’re celebrating. Meantime my kid is face down in the dirt. It got a little heated. I told Kevin (Callahan). Let’s not have the teams shake hands. My guys are too riled up. He understood.” Rivalries.
“Some of these kids are really good friends,” DiNunzio said. “Day of game, battle’s on for bragging rights. Adjacent towns. It’s a lot of fun. Some really good games in recent years. Crowds are great. We’d love them on Thanksgiving.”
That would mean Danbury has to find a game. Thus, the need for good, open discussion within and between conferences. Five CTC teams have committed to one or two Alliance games in 2022, Carbone said. A couple Pequot schools were interested but voted as a league to hold off for now. Ditto the NVL, with the uncertainty of Derby and expected addition of Gilbert. We see the momentum. We also see the need for diplomacy.
“The other day there was
a reaction (on social media) that Shelton should play all these other teams on Thanksgiving,” Carbone said. “As a commissioner, I have to look at the whole league and talk to everyone. (Shelton) already is going to play Fairfield Prep and Cheshire and I wanted to have the discussion that Shelton is going to come (for Thanksgiving). I want everyone to be willing — maybe not for next year — but maybe the year after to look at maybe changing up our Thanksgiving matchups. You don’t want to rip off the Band-Aid sometimes. You want to have a willingness to have a conversation. I’m looking forward to it.”
Hand vs. Xavier? Juicy. Fairfield Prep vs. Xavier? Juicy.
I’ve long been a fan of in-town games. So Middletown-Xavier? Notre DameWH vs. West Haven? Having said that, separate St. Joe’s vs. Trumbull and have St. Joe’s vs. Prep? Whoa.
Shelton vs. Prep? Shelton vs. West Haven? Shelton vs. Trumbull?
Hand vs. North Haven or West Haven?
Cheshire vs. North Haven or Shelton?
Except the loser, who wouldn’t get a kick out of Bloomfield-Windsor?
We could debate all night.
And now is the time to do it.