Attracting players should guide football changes
Before anyone decides how many high school football divisions there will be or how many schools should qualify for the CIAC playoffs …
If traditional Thanksgiving games involving the same opponents are forever and ever, amen. Or if three football games jammed into 11 days (Thanksgiving plus two playoff rounds) might not be in the best interest of our kids’ welfare …
If playing football into mid-December is too risky with the ice and snow and cuts a little too deep into the winter sports. Or any future proposal of shortening the regular season, moving up the playoffs and using Thanksgiving for games involving schools that didn’t qualify for the postseason …
Or even before deciding on the most recent proposal by the Connecticut High School Coaches Association to add two more divisions (to six), 16 more playoff teams (to 48) and still have the postseason start the week after Thanksgiving …
Before any of that, there must be a recognition and a core commitment. (Yes, that includes coaches, athletic directors, principals, superintendents, league commissioners, medical professionals, the CIAC committees and Board of Control. Everyone.)
The recognition: Numbers are down in football. The commitment: Participation must be at the core
of decision-making.
Settle down. This doesn’t mean everyone gets a trophy. It means participation must be the guiding force for the best competition.
With COVID-19 (we hope) lifting enough to allow the return of high school football for the first time since 2019, there is a sense of excitement.
Yet there are concerning figures that have nothing to do with COVID positivity rate. In 2009, there was a high watermark of 10,815 state high school football players. As part of an overall trend nationally, those numbers dropped to 9,059 in 2018 and 8,863 in 2019. Concerns about injuries, year-long involvement in other sports, prep schools, declining enrollment, etc., the result has been an erosion of nearly 20 percent.
And now, 20 months since the last championship game, more than a few people have voiced concern of further erosion.
“Across the board throughout the state, small, medium, large, the numbers have dropped,” said Ledyard athletic director and assistant principal Jim Buonocore. “If we could keep it where we were in 2019 — which, by the way, was an all-time low — we’ll be fortunate.
“Bodies aren’t going to miraculously appear. I think we need to promote the game, make the game better, enhance participation.”
This is not a time for coaches to guard their winning kingdoms at any cost. Not a time for wealthy programs to make their coffers No. 1 on their checklist. Not a time for petty squabbles between groups about who has too much say. Nor is it the time to believe the safest answer is, “That’s the way we always have done it.”
Yes, too much change too quickly can be bad. Yet you get the feeling there are some folks who want a sport with one division and a playoff of two teams. Only full-contact practices. Leather helmets. No forward passing. And no COVID vaccinations!
You know what you call those Real Men? Pathfinders to the game’s extinction.
So first things first.
The Connecticut High School Football Alliance, formed in 2017 by three league commissioners to produce more competitive crossover games, has been a good thing. Up to five leagues and more than 90 of the 138 teams, the Alliance has found its momentum and fostered more understanding among schools. One of the collective beliefs is strong games throughout the regular season will help build interest and produce a more comprehensive playoff system.
It is past time for the remaining leagues to join. Yes, you, the steeped-in-tradition NVL. And you, the football-only Pequot, buoyed by co-op teams.
This year, according to the CIAC, 19 of the 138 teams are co-ops. They include 49 schools. Growing numbers aren’t the reason. Declining participation and financial concerns are.
The CIAC oversees the sport and operates the playoffs. The leagues produce the schedules. Progressive leagues, that stick to their own wherewithal in other sports, see a greater positive in a football collective. Row together.
Check out some of the juicy alliance games: St. Joe’s at Windsor, Newtown at Darien, Greenwich at Shelton, New Canaan at Hand, Weston at Sheehan, Fairfield Prep at Greenwich.
“Playing competitive games that matter week in and week out appeals to kids,” said Buonocore, who recently stepped down from the CIAC football committee. “But it’s not only the top teams. Struggling programs should be playing struggling programs.
“We shouldn’t be feeding those teams to the wolves every week. They’ll never get better that way. You don’t want kids, after two opening losses, feel like quitting.”
Buonocore said, “The Alliance saved the ECC.” Chad Neal, the highly successful coach at Killingly, didn’t disagree. Big schools like NFA and Fitch had a tough time finding games. Smaller ECC schools, save Killingly, wanted no part of NFA. This season NFA has Darien, Cheshire, Xavier and a delicious rematch with Shelton.
If participation is the guiding force, you can look at expanded playoffs in a different light. There’s a scattering of 7-3 teams, but generally it takes 8-2 to get into the playoffs. Baseball, softball, basketball, winning 40 percent is enough. In some sports, it can be less to fill in a bracket.
I’m certainly not pushing for 4-6 teams, nor do I pretend to have the magic bullet solution. Maybe it’s 32 teams with a terrific qualifying formula. Maybe it’s 42 with byes. Yet if 48 of 138 teams did qualify for the playoffs, it would be 35 percent. This year 44 percent make the NFL playoffs. Far more than half the FBS teams play in college bowls.
There is a half-dozen stories within the 2019 situation that left Shelton, 7-3, out of the eighth spot in Class LL playoffs, put NFA, also 7-3, in and led to the CIAC football committee to revise the playoff point system. Five points will be awarded for every victory an opponent has regardless of the outcome of the head-to-head matchup. Giving merit to strength of schedule is a step in the right direction. It’s not a cure.
Shelton beat NFA by three touchdowns in 2019. Shelton beat West Haven and Fairfield Prep. NFA lost to both. Shelton’s three losses were by a total of 29 points to Class LL champion Newtown, Class L quarterfinalist Cheshire and Class L finalist Hand, No. 1 team in the state poll until the last week. NFA’s opponents won a total of 55 games while Shelton’s won 59.
So how the heck did NFA get in with 120 more points than Shelton?
Teams get minimum 100 points for every Alliance and league win, including against smaller divisions. They get 10 bonus points for every win by a school they beat. Shelton was hurt by beating two-win Class LL teams East Hartford and West Haven. And especially hurt by a onesided victory in its 109-year Thanksgiving rivalry with Derby, the state’s smallest stand-alone football school with 186 total boys.
A non-league win over a team three divisions smaller nets the fewest possible points (70). Derby had two wins, so Shelton got 90. Shelton has beaten Derby 17 times in a row. The average margin of victory the past seven is 43. At this point, if this Thanksgiving “rivalry” is so darned important, why don’t the 40- and 50-years from each town play and let the kids feed them cranberry sauce through a straw while they recover in a tub of ice.
NFA got 170 points for beating Class S Bacon Academy, 100 points because it’s in the ECC and had seven wins. Among those seven were W’s over 0-10 Stonington, 2-8 Ledyard, 3-7 Windham and Montville — all Class S — and 1-9 Class M RHAM. NFA also got 190 points by beating Class M power Killingly, 27-21. Killingly had wins over Stonington, Ledyard and Capital Prep.
That’s a ton points while Shelton got nothing for playing Newtown, Cheshire and Hand, a combined 28-2 in the regular season. Even the new system where Shelton would have received 140 additional points (5 x 28) wouldn’t been enough to overcome NFA’s 80 additional points.
Ned Griffen of the New London Day found four instances over the past decade where the new bonus would have changed the final qualifier. There would have been a number of changes in the seedings.
This isn’t meant to be overly harsh of the playoff system. Short of employing a collegiate computer formula, there are going to be holes. The mission is to close the biggest holes.
Tech schools don’t play regular season games outside its conference, so there is the annual ritual getting blasted in the first round. Not hyperbole. A tech school has never won a playoff game.
Even a traditional power like Ansonia is tough to judge with its NVL schedule. It seems like every year Ansonia is 9-1 or 10-0. Yet you never know if it’s a very good or great Ansonia team until the playoff final.
Even something as nuanced as the CIAC releasing their divisions in June — some schools up, some down, out of football scheduling control — will alter total points.
Now, look at the scores of the first round of the Class M playoffs in 2018 and 2019: 49-7, 62-0, 43-20, 16-6, 33-0, 49-6, 10-6 and 28-0. And the first round of Class S: 42-0, 49-10, 52-0, 41-6, 30-12, 51-0, 22-12 and 56-0. Routs abound.
Increasing participation for the playoffs could be fine. But it must be done carefully with divisions to avoid even more blowouts. Basketball’s move to an elite Division I is working out well. Maybe more teams in such a football division could qualify for the playoffs?
So where does this all leave us? At the altar of Thanksgiving football.
Stonington-Westerly, New Canaan-Darien, Ansonia-Naugatuck, it feels wrong to mess with their Thanksgiving rivalries. Yet even the NFA-New London rivalry that dates to 1875 has often not been played on Thanksgiving. Eventually, everyone is going to have to decide if it’s the day or the rival that matters, and if they are willing to die on Turkey Hill to keep.
In 2019, 35 games were played on Thanksgiving, 27 on either Tuesday or Wednesday. Some schools didn’t play. Thanksgiving doesn’t have the universal hold it once did, but it does have a considerable hold and, thus, a hold on how the scheduling goes and the sport itself progresses from here.
My answer? Work together through the Alliance. Everybody make the commitment.