2018 CIAC Football Playoffs

[JMick]

My top ten....

1) Greenwich
2) St Joe's
3) Hand
4) New Canaan
5) Shelton
6) Bloomfield
7) Newtown
8) Ansonia
9) Prep
10) Tie Southington and Darien

My reason for putting New Canaan so high is they were 3-0 outside the FCIAC, beat Shelton, a New York team, and beat Prep easily.

Bloomfield was wholly unimpressive. They'll get in the top 10 but they don't deserve to.

 

[huskymedic]

Like the kid’s attitude (he’s a competitor):

>>Hand came into the game ranked second in the GameTimeCT Top 10 poll to Greenwich, which dominated the LL division, hammering New Canaan 34-0 in the final on Saturday. The final poll will be released on GametimeCT on Monday and appear in Tuesday’s Register.

“I wish we would get to play them, it would be an amazing game,” Hand quarterback Phoenix Billings said. “Like I said before, we’ve done everything we can this year. You can’t deny watching any of our games, say what you want about our schedule, that we haven’t dominated every facet of the game in every game so that’s all we can do. At the end of the day, it’s up to you guys (the media). We will go home and be happy with our two state championships.”<<

 

[kris1]

Bloomfield was wholly unimpressive. They'll get in the top 10 but they don't deserve to.

Newtown, Berlin (obviously), New Britain, Southington, etc....are all better then both Bloomfield and Ansonia. I personally don’t think either were a top 10 team this year. But, I think because they won the Class S, Bloomfield will get voted into the Top 10.

 

[JMick]

Newtown, Berlin (obviously), New Britain, Southington, etc....are all better then both Bloomfield and Ansonia. I personally don’t think either were a top 10 team this year. But, I think because they won the Class S, Bloomfield will get voted into the Top 10.

yeah the reality is that there are 4-6 teams that are above the rest and then a huge drop off.

 

[uconnbill]

May be but like someone said Bloomfield will be 9th or 10th when the coaches vote.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

My top ten....

My reason for putting New Canaan so high is they were 3-0 outside the FCIAC, beat Shelton, a New York team, and beat Prep easily.

Just as a FYI, it was a Jersey team, Pascack Valley, that New Cannan beat at home by a score of 42-7. PV is usually a solid Group IV (football, large) public high school; but, they had a down year finishing 3-6 and got manhandled by the public playoff teams they faces in Paramus, Old Tappan, River Dell and Ramapo.

If New Jersey played Connecticut teams post championship, this would be the pairings using the New Jersey 'North' Champions as 1) Jersey still does not have a true state championship game and 2) because of such, I know very little of the South teams.

1) Class LL Champion Greenwich v. Group 5 North Bowl winner Piscataway: The Card's more technical game would be against the pure size and brawn of the smash-mouth Chiefs. I think this Greenwich has just enough flair to score just enough points to win, maybe 17-14.

2) Class L Champion Hand v. Group III North Bowl winner Ramapo: Both teams finished 13-0 ; but, from what I saw attending Ramapo games and from what a HS friend told me about Hand, Ramapo is more explosive and played a tougher schedule. Call it 31 to 24 the Green Raiders over the Tigers.

3) Class M Champion St. Joseph's (Trumbull) v. Non-Public Group 4 St. Joseph's (Montvale) (both schools have about have about 500 boys attending): The Cadets finished 12-1 losing to Darien 22-7 while the Green Knights had two loses at American Heritage (FL Section 5A semi-finalist) and Bergen Catholic, who St. Joe's beat in the championship game. While I have a lot of respect for St. Joe's from CT, I think St. Joe's NJ wins 21 to 10 as the Green Knights's line, which includes 4 guys with major D1 scholarship offers, wears down the CT team, and the Green Knight's schedule against the Jersey Catholics and teams from PA and FL gives them an edge.

4) Class S Champion Bloomfield v. Group 1 North bowl winner Hasbrouck Heights: This would be a fun game with the Warhawks' Ky’Juon Butler going-up against the Pilots' Jasiah Purdie. I believe the last team with the ball wins this in a high scoring affair. To be consistent as I have used schedule strenght to call most games, Bloomfield's experience dealing with bigger CCC teams give them the edge, 42 to 35.

 

[huskyrob1]

Just as a FYI, it was a Jersey team, Pascack Valley, that New Cannan beat at home by a score of 42-7. PV is usually a solid Group IV (football, large) public high school; but, they had a down year finishing 3-6 and got manhandled by the public playoff teams they faces in Paramus, Old Tappan, River Dell and Ramapo.

If New Jersey played Connecticut teams post championship, this would be the pairings using the New Jersey 'North' Champions as 1) Jersey still does not have a true state championship game and 2) because of such, I know very little of the South teams.

1) Class LL Champion Greenwich v. Group 5 North Bowl winner Piscataway: The Card's more technical game would be against the pure size and brawn of the smash-mouth Chiefs. I think this Greenwich has just enough flair to score just enough points to win, maybe 17-14.

2) Class L Champion Hand v. Group III North Bowl winner Ramapo: Both teams finished 13-0 ; but, from what I saw attending Ramapo games and from what a HS friend told me about Hand, Ramapo is more explosive and played a tougher schedule. Call it 31 to 24 the Green Raiders over the Tigers.

3) Class M Champion St. Joseph's (Trumbull) v. Non-Public Group 4 St. Joseph's (Montvale) (both schools have about have about 500 boys attending): The Cadets finished 12-1 losing to Darien 22-7 while the Green Knights had two loses at American Heritage (FL Section 5A semi-finalist) and Bergen Catholic, who St. Joe's beat in the championship game. While I have a lot of respect for St. Joe's from CT, I think St. Joe's NJ wins 21 to 10 as the Green Knights's line, which includes 4 guys with major D1 scholarship offers, wears down the CT team, and the Green Knight's schedule against the Jersey Catholics and teams from PA and FL gives them an edge.

4) Class S Champion Bloomfield v. Group 1 North bowl winner Hasbrouck Heights: This would be a fun game with the Warhawks' Ky’Juon Butler going-up against the Pilots' Jasiah Purdie. I believe the last team with the ball wins this in a high scoring affair. To be consistent as I have used schedule strenght to call most games, Bloomfield's experience dealing with bigger CCC teams give them the edge, 42 to 35.

The final state poll is out.......

1) Greenwich
2) Hand of Madison
3) St Joe's
4) New Canaan
5) Bloomfield
6) Newtown
7) Shelton
8) Darien
9) Fairfield Prep
10) Berlin


The FINAL 2018 GameTimeCT / Register Top 10 Football poll: For the first time, GREENWICH is No. 1

 

[JMick]

Next year is going to be crazy. Here comes the weirdest regular season schedules of all time

ECC football to expand in 2019 with addition of Woodstock, CREC co-op

The SCC and SWC schedules will consist of:

6 league games
2 SCC/SWC games
1 CCC game
1 FCIAC game

 

[Bootsthemonkey]

Immaculate and Trinity have not had a good team in a while, raising them to L or LL would be detrimental to the school. I think the CIAC test is to raise a team up only if they have consecutive trips to the playoffs, that I can see doing and it's fair as long as they also raise not just St Joe's, but NDWH, keep Xavier and Prep at LL, etc. St Joe's has such a strong program that moving them to LL would not stop that freight train one bit.

Immaculate had such bad numbers they were looking at folding football. They entered into a co-op program with Abbott Tech to keep football available. Moving them to Class L makes no sense.

 

[JMick]

Immaculate had such bad numbers they were looking at folding football. They entered into a co-op program with Abbott Tech to keep football available. Moving them to Class L makes no sense.

They shouldn't even be allowed in the playoffs. It doesn't matter what class they are.

 

[the Q]

They shouldn't even be allowed in the playoffs. It doesn't matter what class they are.

I have more of a perspective from the basketball side but it’s the same concept. I’m surprised how much sympathy there is for these “small schools” with recruiting bases bigger than the LLs getting to stay down and play the podunk towns in the playoffs. It’s asinine to let them be a class S or M.