The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Dividing them up
CIAC releases playoff classifications
Football — and all of high school sports, for that matter — feels like eons ago, what with the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on everyday life.
Here in Connecticut, we haven’t held a single high school athletic competition for three months and, though things are slowly starting to reopen, the virus is still very much out there and remains a danger.
There’s really no telling what this upcoming 2020 fall season will ultimately look like. There’s still a whole summer ahead before we know, precisely, what we’ll be up against.
Yet the show must and will go on.
At least that’s the plan. Last week, the CIAC released its extensive packet of guidelines for the restoration of high school sports in
Connecticut.
This week, it released its 2020 fall schedules, including the 2020 CIAC football state playoff divisions.
Setting aside the real possibility of coronavirus cases spiking again this fall, let’s put that aside for the moment and begin to get excited for a return to the playing fields.
Here’s a look at the 2020 CIAC football playoff divisions, as determined by the enrollments of the previous school year (2019-20). The CIAC has not released those enrollment figures online
yet.
Among some of the more intriguing moves:
St. Joseph, winners of three consecutive state championships in three separate classes, including last year’s Class L title, has dropped back to Class M for the second time in three seasons.
While enrollment figures have yet to be published, we can assume the Hogs dropped back to a Class S enrollment. Their status as a state champion school of choice bumps them up to M with the CIAC’s recent success modifier.
The success modifier, now in its third season, states that CIAC-designated schools of choice — schools that can draw from beyond their district borders either because they have an academic program that allows it or they’re a private school — are moved up one playoff class from their designated class enrollment if they’ve reached the semifinals the previous two years. Elsewhere …
Class LL saw the fewest overall changes. Newington, a Class L playoff qualifier last year, is the only new team in Class LL. Crosby and Naugatuck have once again dropped back to Class L.
Class L saw significant movement. In addition to gaining Crosby and Naugatuck, the division also saw the return of Platt and Avon.
One significant absence is Masuk. A longtime Class L participant, the school dropped to Class M for the first time since 2004. Same goes for Berlin, which played in Class L with a school-ofchoice success modifier last season but had it removed since it didn’t advance to last year’s semifinals.
New London has also dropped to Class M.
SMSA Co-Op, a Class M playoff qualifier last year, has also joined Class L, since it has absorbed players from Bulkeley from the nowdisbanded Bulkeley/Weaver Co-Op.
The CIAC has not released its annual sports information packet, so the tentative 2020 playoff dates have not been released.