CVC teams plan to finalize new schedules next week
Assuming it happens at all, the way a potential New Jersey high school football season would unfold is beginning to come into focus.
One of the biggest questions that has yet to be answered concerns the schedules. Obviously, the original schedules had to be scrapped when the state mandated teams will only be allowed six regular season games starting in October.
On Friday the Colonial Valley Conference athletic directors will meet to decide which of two options they prefer.
One option is for teams to play games against its fellow division members in the West Jersey Football League to go along with crossover games.
The other is to more or less scrap the WJFL for one year and put together a schedule consisting of games against teams from your immediate area. This would cut down on traveling and in the case of Colonial Valley Conference teams, renew some of the old Mercer County rivalries.
“There are two ways to go that will be discussed on Friday,’’ said Steve Gazdek, who is representing the CVC teams at WJFL meetings. “We hope to have everything finalized sometime next week.’’
In addition to the regular-season games, the state also plans to have sectional playoffs with four teams in each section. Should a team win its playoff opener, this would result in an eight-game season.
Qualifying for the playoffs would be more difficult because of the reduced number of berths, but the plan is to also decrease the number of teams in each section. In other words, instead of a playoff with the South and Central teams combined, each section would have its own bracket.
Another change for this year is the playoffs berths will no longer be determined by power points. Instead, a committee will decide which four teams will play in each section.
Obviously, this will open the door to all kinds of politics and seeding meetings that will be wild to say the least.
For teams that do not make the playoffs, the idea is also being floated around to have two-game county playoffs. In Mercer County’s case, you could divide the teams into large and small school divisions.
As it stands right now, Notre Dame and Allentown are the only CVC teams taking advantage of the state’s Phase 1, which got underway Monday. During Phase 1, teams are limited to conditioning drills only.
Towards the end of July, Phase 2 will get underway whereby teams can start putting in their offenses and using a ball during the practice. This will be followed by a Phase 3 later in August, although what exactly will be allowed during this twoweek period has not yet been fully explained.
For the first two weeks of September there will be no football activities of any kind in what’s being dubbed the “dead period.’’ Teams will then have two weeks of full practices and are allowed one scrimmage in their final preparation for regular-season play in October.
Keep in mind that in addition to whatever additional mandates may come from the governor and the NJSIAA, another huge variable is how each school district will opt to handle its own athletic programs.