OT - More discussion regarding reorganizing CT HS football

[History Geek]

Here is another article from gametime.com about Matt Glasz's idea to blow up how CT HS is organized.

http://www.gametimect.com/north-havens-matt-glasz-wants-consider-district-model-ct-football/

I am a member of a community that has a LL school. Typically we hover around .500 -- we beat most of the schools from lower classes (although our Thanksgiving rival, who is an L school, has been kicking our butts lately) and lose to most of the schools in LL. In good years we hit 7-3, in lean years we hit 3-7. Primarily that's because historically our community isn't as focused on football as others, although I admit being on the LL/L line does not help. I bet if the CIAC adopted this system we would struggle. However, I like it. While resources are not necessarily equitable even among schools of similar size, overall it would still be fairer than the system we have now in this state. If you get your butt kicked, it would not be because you don't have enough males to draw from. Success on the field would be driven more by program strength (which includes community backing and coaching).

Thoughts?

 

[huskymedic]

This has been posted previously in a few threads... A good read.

I think the positives tremendously outweigh the perceived negatives. It makes sense - which means it will be an steep climb to enact in parochial CT (and I don't mean religious parochial). Bedrock runs deep in CT.

4 division - 4 champs.

 

[History Geek]

Yes, I had seen it before, but since it was recycled by gametimect.com, I thought I would recycle it here too. This article had some info/analysis I hadn't seen before, or did not remember seeing. Anyway, my sense is while we are definitely "the land of steady habits", this may get legs.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

This has been posted previously in a few threads... A good read.

I think the positives tremendously outweigh the perceived negatives. It makes sense - which means it will be an steep climb to enact in parochial CT (and I don't mean religious parochial). Bedrock runs deep in CT.

4 division - 4 champs.

Bedrock runs even deeper in NJ. Granted, NJ is 3x larger than CT population wise; but, NJ can't even agree on a statewide football championship for the public's (privates/Catholics do). Instead, NJ has 20 public HS sectional champions - 5 classes based on headcount by 4 geographic sections.

 

[coachcap]

Ironically, the re-divisioning of the CCC is along Class lines. Formerly, CCC members were divisioned along "neighborhood" lines. The Meriden & Bristol schools (primarily Maloney & Bristol Eastern) grew tired of lack of success against Southington & New Britain. This led to redistricting the divisions along school size criteria. Thus Southington & New Britain were put in the same division with Manchester, Glastonbury, the West Hartford Schools, Simsbury & Newington. Maybe it IS time for the CIAC to redistrict the State along Class size criteria.
Some towns, such as Southington & New Britain won't care & will take on all comers. Others will cry bloody murder & cite travel time & a host of other excuses. You can't please everyone.

 

[Bootsthemonkey]

About ten years ago I pitched a similar setup on the (now defunct) message board at birdseyesports.com. I still agree with the idea. Pair up teams that draw upon similar resources (enrollment numbers). I would tweak Matt's idea a little by allowing more open scheduling (2-3 games per year to allow for traditional rivalry games, etc). Play more games on Saturday nights to east travel/traffic nightmares. Make out of state matches free from playoff points so coaches can risk playing power teams from outside Connecticut without fear of it affecting their playoff race (which goes by averages, not total points).

 

[freescooter]

I like his basic concept. Split the state into divisions or whatever you want to call them based on size and geography. I'll use the term league for Matt's Districts. I think it works better. There are odd balls and outliers and I might quibble with the specifics of his leagues, but conceptually it works. I also like the idea of 5 year rolling averages for classification, too. I like playing beginning the 1st Friday of September. What I don't like: 11 games. Its high school football for heaven sakes. Most D3 college teams play 8-10 games. D1AA and D-2 play 10 or 11. No need for high school teams to play 11 regular season games. Play 8-9 in the regular season. In most of Matt's divisions that would include all your league opponents plus 2-3 non-league games since his leagues are mostly 7 teams with a few 8 team leagues. So schools could elect to play up or play down if they chose or for historic rivalry purposes...While I don't favor out of state games except in limited instances, border schools like Westerley RI and Stonington for example, you could play an out of state game too if you wanted. Since I give priority to winning your league, it wouldn't matter for playoff purposes how you did. It might for bragging rights. I wouldn't allow Greenwich to travel to Florida for a game though. they want to bus across the line to play some school in Westchester, have at it.

Now the playoffs: Automatic bids to league champs. So in this scenario there would be 5 autobids. Plus since everyone plays everyone in the league, breaking ties is really simple. If Southington and Cheshire both finish 5-1 in the league, the bid goes to the winner of their head to head game. I suppose you could have multiple 4-2 teams some year, but if the NFL can have a tiebreaker down to 12 levels or some such, this ought to be pretty easy. There would then be 3 at large bids in each class. Gives you the same 32 teams you have now but rewards winning your league over all and makes that important.
Week 1: Quarterfinals. Top 4 league champs would play at home. 5th ranked League champ would play the 4th ranked and the at-larges would play at the other Champs based on ranking. Again, I want to reward regular season champs for their on-field performance over the full season. One champ gets kind of screwed, but that's a function of Matt's 5 leagues in each class.
Week 2: Semi-finals. Semi-final winners play. Since in my system there is limited seeding, league champs get a home game in most cases even if a rpi type system would mean they were "worse" than some at large team, I have given some thought to re-seeding at this point. The 4 seed plays at #1 and the 3 goes to #2. But you could also keep the seedings you had and use a bracket system. Again in my system league champs get a home game if possible, but you could also play this round at lesser neutral sites like Middletown High, Ridgefield High if you chose.

Week 3 Finals: Play them at 10, 2, 6 and 8 at Central or some other neutral site, ideally a college facility. everyone would be done the Saturday before Thanksgiving and we could move on to the winter sports season with 4 football champions. No (or minimal) worries about snow. Reasonable number of games. Everyone plays 9, 32 teams play 10, 16 play 11 and 8 play 12.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

"I also like the idea of 5 year rolling averages for classification, too. OK. I like playing beginning the 1st Friday of September. OK to that one too. Connecticut might be the last state in the nation to start high school football. What I don't like: 11 games. No problem with that one either. Its high school football for heaven sakes. Most D3 college teams play 8-10 games. D1AA and D-2 play 10 or 11. No need for high school teams to play 11 regular season games. Play 8-9 in the regular season. This is where I begin to disagree . . . 10 games is fine, plus playoffs. Lets not go all Trinity and Amherst. While I don't favor out of state games except in limited instances, border schools like Westerley RI and Stonington for example, you could play an out of state game too if you wanted. Since I give priority to winning your league, it wouldn't matter for playoff purposes how you did. It might for bragging rights. I wouldn't allow Greenwich to travel to Florida for a game though. they want to bus across the line to play some school in Westchester, have at it. Out of state games are exactly the direction Connecticut should be moving . . . watch how its done in other states (particularly those who have high level football). No problem with traveling to Mass (New Britain v Xaviarian) or Long Island or New Jersey (Southington and Greenwich did so a couple years ago) or even a trip to Florida or some other southern or western state. Connecticut needs to stop thinking small. Watch the states more respected in high school football and emulate.

 

[freescooter]

The problem is that Connecticut can and won't be like Texas or even New Jersey for one simple reason. We have small local high schools. My town just built a school for 1400. it is considered large by Connecticut standards. My nephew in Florida has 1400 in his class. In rare instances, Xavier is a good example, when you get large schools with large classes, you get enough top level kids to play at that level and it shows. Same with some of the other really large schools like New Britain, Greeenwich and such. But most schools in this state even if you have a potential D1A player, that's what you have. 1 D1A player. There might be another one two towns over, but you don't play with him every day. There's high schools in Miami that had 4 defensive linemen and a linebacker sign LOIs with SEC schools this year. If you had to run against that every day you'd probably be pretty good. If you're a good high school quarterback in Connecticut, maybe you have a reciever who might get a low D1AA slot, or maybe a D3 slot.

As for playing out of state, that's limited to wealthier schools which is just wrong. The city of new Britain can barely afford to keep the lights on in its schools. They have closed schools soley to save money. To be spending money busing the football team to New jersey is just wrong for that reason alone.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

The problem is that Connecticut can and won't be like Texas or even New Jersey for one simple reason. We have small local high schools. My town just built a school for 1400. it is considered large by Connecticut standards. My nephew in Florida has 1400 in his class. In rare instances, Xavier is a good example, when you get large schools with large classes, you get enough top level kids to play at that level and it shows. Same with some of the other really large schools like New Britain, Greeenwich and such. But most schools in this state even if you have a potential D1A player, that's what you have. 1 D1A player. There might be another one two towns over, but you don't play with him every day. There's high schools in Miami that had 4 defensive linemen and a linebacker sign LOIs with SEC schools this year. If you had to run against that every day you'd probably be pretty good. If you're a good high school quarterback in Connecticut, maybe you have a reciever who might get a low D1AA slot, or maybe a D3 slot.

As for playing out of state, that's limited to wealthier schools which is just wrong. The city of new Britain can barely afford to keep the lights on in its schools. They have closed schools soley to save money. To be spending money busing the football team to New jersey is just wrong for that reason alone.

True! Towns like Greenwich, Darien, Westport and New Canaan can make trips without a dime of Taxpayer money. Greenwich flew (charter) and boarded over 100 people (team, coaches, cheerleaders, etc.) when they played in Naples, Florida. I've heard numbers as low as $60K, as high as $100K; all donated. You don't do that with cake sales and car washes. You do that with Joe Burton types.