Opinion: Connecticut High School Football Needs a Complete Scheduling Overhaul

So, the Pequot League has finally joined the Connecticut High School Football Alliance, bringing the last remaining holdout conference into the fold.

The Alliance has done its job. It has united our constituent leagues into a cooperative framework that genuinely produces competitive matchups. Nice work, everyone.

But even the Alliance acknowledges that this is just a first step toward something larger. Right now, you don’t have to dig very deep to see that our state’s scheduling system is a complete mess. The Alliance scratched the surface by getting everyone to agree on engaging crossover games, but the current structure makes little practical sense.

Now that we’ve opened Pandora’s box, what’s next? That’s exactly the question the Alliance leadership is asking. A few years ago, they proposed statewide scheduling. We welcomed the idea, even though their version, which broadly expanded playoff participants, started the season earlier, and ended before Thanksgiving, was soundly rejected, especially by some of us at GametimeCT (guilty as charged).

Still, I believe we’re onto something with statewide scheduling. We’ve advocated for it in the past, but it’s been a while. So let’s lay our cards on the table and try to figure this out again.

Fair warning: This proposal is radically different and will require an open mind and a willingness to take a significant leap (which we don’t realistically expect from many of you). But we don’t think it’s unreasonable.

Here we go:

Your schedule should be based on your playoff class

This seems intuitively obvious. Your path to a championship should be measured against opponents competing for that same title, not against teams from two or three classes above or below you playing for entirely different championships.

Sheehan, the perennial example of this disparity, is a Class S school competing in a large conference, the SCC. Sheehan’s “road” to the Class S championship is filled with obstacles: Fairfield Prep (LL), Shelton (L), West Haven (LL), Amity (L), Cheshire (L).

Credit to Sheehan for holding its own and qualifying, thanks to the extra playoff points earned simply by playing those games. But as criteria for earning a Class S playoff spot? It’s absolute insanity.

Sheehan competes for one of eight Class S playoff spots against a host of other Class S schools who don’t face anything close to that handicap. Seymour and North Branford, meanwhile, face seven Class S schools on their schedules.

To reach the Class LL playoffs, Norwich Free Academy (enrollment 1,000) has a schedule with zero Class LL schools. They did get Darien from the Alliance, which is good, but that’s an L school. The rest of the teams on NFA’s schedule are Class M or lower.

Meanwhile, New Britain (1,200 enrollment) plays six LL schools just to reach the LL playoffs. The Alliance gave them Greenwich, the defending LL champion, plus defending state champ New Canaan (L), while their CCC schedule included Maloney and defending state champion Windsor (MM). Brutal.

Harding, which moved to the SWC this year, now plays only one LL school. Danbury plays four. Norwalk plays seven. Fairfield Prep? Just one.

And this pattern continues across every playoff class. The leagues still run the show and maintain different scheduling philosophies, creating a chaotic system where almost everyone’s schedule varies wildly with little to no common ground except tradition.

You can verify this yourself on the CIAC website, which conveniently lists the class of each opponent on every school’s schedule. Pick any school and compare.

A majority of the leagues handicap their members’ schedules based not just on size but heavily factor in relative strengths based on past performances. Good programs tend to get matched up with similarly strong programs, while struggling programs play other struggling programs.

It’s a sensible philosophy on the surface. But while that approach has helped create more competitive matchups, it doesn’t quite align with a CIAC playoff system that groups its classes strictly by size, and then uses a complex formula to weight everyone’s schedules. It works in theory, but it’s inconsistent. Good teams with heavily weighted schedules tend to get passed over by mediocre teams with significantly easier paths.

Let’s simplify this. Play a schedule against schools in your playoff class. Use the actual standings, meaning your win-loss record rather than playoff points, to determine who advances.

Playoff divisions should form the new ‘leagues’

We agree with Windsor football coach Rob Fleeting, whose strong Class MM program was essentially given a Class LL schedule by the CCC due to their success as a Class MM school. Sure, the Warriors are capable, but why? Because they’re good, so make it harder for them? That logic doesn’t hold. They should be playing other MM schools on their path to the MM championship.

What we should do is create our playoff classes, then establish divisions within those classes to set the schedules, which is how it’s done in virtually every other state in the country.

You take each playoff class and divide it into four divisions, similar to the NFL. In a 10-game schedule, you play everyone in your division once, then add 2-3 crossover games with the other three divisions. The best record crowns a division champion, and then we take four wild cards based on the best remaining overall records across all four divisions.

Your actual record determines your playoff worthiness? What a novel concept. No more playoff points. Eliminate that noise entirely. Your regular-season record is what it says you are, as the football gods intended.

Reduce the number of playoff classes, please

FCIAC commissioner Dave Schulz made a valid point when he criticized a class scheduling proposal, noting that it could prevent St. Joseph and Wilton, the FCIAC’s two smallest schools, from playing some of their much larger but traditional FCIAC rivals. We don’t want that either.

The problem, however, lies in the current six-class playoff system. That’s far too many divisions for this to work effectively.

Six classes dilute the field to roughly 22 teams each (Class S has 24), which limits your available opponents. You’ll get a much more robust field and increase the available neighboring schools in your playoff division if we tighten this up. Four classes would be ideal, but we think it can be done with five.

We’ve done mockups of this proposal and successfully placed Wilton into a class alongside New Canaan, Ridgefield, and Darien. St. Joseph, as a Catholic “school of choice,” is a bit trickier, but we’ll address that shortly.

In any case, we propose four ‘public school’ playoff divisions, with approximately 26-28 teams each, with one exception.

Co-ops and Tech schools should form their own playoff class

I believe we’ve finally reached a critical mass. It’s time for change. Co-ops have grown substantially over the past decade as overall football participation has declined and smaller school districts find themselves unable to field viable football programs independently, while still wanting to provide their student-athletes the opportunity to play.

So let’s call co-ops what they are: a different category of football program. If a small school, such as Derby, wants to go it alone with the rest of the general population, that’s their prerogative. But a single-school program shouldn’t have to compete against teams drawing from multiple school districts.

Meanwhile, some of the state’s co-ops are large enough that they get placed into larger playoff classes, creating gross mismatches in the postseason. Windsor beat Plainfield co-op 62-0 in last year’s Class MM quarterfinals. That wasn’t much fun, and not surprising: Plainfield’s schedule consisted of some fairly weak small programs from both the ECC and Alliance. Would the Valley Panthers have gone 7-3 with Windsor’s schedule? Certainly not.

We’re not picking on Plainfield; we’re simply saying there’s a significant enough difference to warrant change. If you’re allowed to co-op, you should be playing other co-ops for a co-op championship.

We’ll take another leap and include all the Tech programs as well. A majority of Tech schools have already found co-op partners. The only ones still operating independently are Bullard-Havens, Prince Tech, O’Brien Tech, and Platt Tech.

I’d argue they belong in this grouping since, realistically speaking, Tech schools primarily attract a different type of student-athlete: those who aren’t pursuing college athletic scholarships but still want to play ball. Tech schools continue to have an extraordinarily difficult time against their public-school counterparts come playoff time. These schools need to fit somewhere, and it’s not a stretch to suggest they’d fare well in a co-op/tech division.

There are currently 30 co-ops operating programs in Connecticut, which is more than enough to form its own playoff class: four divisions, 7-8 teams per division, a few crossovers, and you’re done. A competitive high school football playoff division. The CIAC can continue to refine the co-op criteria and adjust where necessary.

Wait, shouldn’t this also apply to Catholic schools?

I know, I know. That’s the age-old question. New York State recently had a revolt and attempted to ban Catholic, private, and parochial schools from competing in state playoffs. But that’s New York. While we have plenty of co-op and tech schools to create their own playoff division, we barely have enough Catholic schools to fill a single schedule.

We have what, eight Catholic schools with teams? Fairfield Prep, Notre Dame-West Haven, St. Joseph, Holy Cross, Xavier, East Catholic, Northwest Catholic, and Notre Dame Prep. Heck, Immaculate, St. Paul, and St. Bernard are now part of co-ops.

We’d be in favor of maintaining the current setup, using these teams’ playoff success to move them up in class, or something similar. But removing them entirely? It’s hard to justify right now. With prep schools absorbing CIAC talent these days, the Catholic schools simply aren’t as powerful as they once were to make a massive difference.

Organize playoff divisions geographically

As good a job as the Alliance has done creating competitive matchups, one of its biggest shortcomings is the distances teams must travel just to play those games.

Yes, we’re not exactly Texas or California. But, relatively speaking, why should Barlow endure over two hours of I-84 traffic through Hartford to play, say, Tolland, when Foran or Law are just a few towns away in Milford?

Why is Killingly, tucked away in the Quiet Corner, compelled to play Sheehan in Wallingford? Great matchup, certainly, but punch that drive into your GPS. Greenwich goes to New Britain, another excellent matchup, but again, do you think either team wants to make that trip on a Friday night?

Fundamentally, high school football is a community event. It’s about playing neighboring towns whose residents likely shop at the same supermarkets or competed against each other in the same youth leagues growing up. Bragging rights and all of that.

So, while we’re advocating a breakup of the local leagues, we’d still want to keep things local geographically.

But what if some of our biggest traditional rivals aren’t in our playoff class?

A fair point, but if implemented correctly, our system would give schools an 8-game “class” division schedule, leaving at least a couple of open dates for playing rivals or whoever the coach or school prefers. These games wouldn’t even have to count toward your playoff record.

But we think you could get enough of your rivals into a playoff division, so perhaps it’s not as significant an issue as it might sound.

Grouping geographically would certainly be a challenge. A majority of Connecticut’s schools are concentrated along the I-95 and I-91 corridors in cities and their immediate suburbs, while others are scattered across more rural areas. So yes, some compromises will be necessary.

In Class LL, NFA sits alone out in Norwich while the closest LL schools are Glastonbury, East Hartford, Manchester, and South Windsor. Not ideal, but traveling Route 2 for a Friday night game isn’t nearly as harrowing as braving I-95 down to Fairfield County, is it?

But in most cases, you’ll find there are more than enough similarly-sized schools to create geographical divisions. Ansonia, Seymour, Woodland, Oxford, Derby, and Wolcott in one Class S division doesn’t sound that different from the current setup. How about a Class M division of Brookfield, Masuk, Bunnell, Foran, and Law?

There will undoubtedly be some divisions that are tougher to win than others. (Imagine being stuck in a Class L division with New Canaan, Darien, and Wilton. Ouch.) But add a few crossovers with other divisions based on your performance, and there are plenty of opportunities to win enough games.

Extend class realignment to 3 or 4 years

The CIAC adjusts its playoff divisions annually based on enrollment. That’s far too much volatility if we want to create stable divisions.

The Alliance uses historical performance and school size based on a much broader time frame; a 4-year cycle seems reasonable. It is, after all, one varsity generation. Take the average enrollment over four years and readjust after four years.

That way, the schedules won’t need dramatic reconfiguration from year to year. We’re also not penalizing schools for having one spectacular year, graduating everyone the next, only to be stuck with a weighted schedule based on the performance of a team that no longer exists.

We can still keep Thanksgiving week

So what does this look like in practice?

Four regular CIAC playoff classes of 26 teams each, divided into four groups of six or seven teams. Then a similar, but 30-team co-op and tech school division of seven or eight teams each.

Everybody plays their division rivals once. The six-team divisions play five regional league games and crossover with the other three divisions to total eight league games. The seven-team divisions play six regional games and then crossover twice for eight total games.

The final two slots of the 10-game schedule we’ll leave up to the schools. Perhaps it’s a couple of games against a rival not in your playoff class, or just someone else your school wants to play. We can place the open date at the start of the season or at the end. We’re flexible.

(The co-op/tech class would have seven- and eight-team divisions, with one less crossover each, and one open date).

Finally, the best record in each of the four divisions earns a playoff spot as division champion, and then we take the next four best records (with built-in tiebreakers) as wild cards, seeding according to records. Done. Your eight state playoff qualifiers, all earned on the field.

The best part is we could still wrap these 10-game schedules up by Thanksgiving week, with playoffs continuing as they currently are.

If Connecticut Thanksgiving football somehow becomes passé, just shift everything back three weeks and end before December.

And wouldn’t the basketball, hockey, and wrestling coaches appreciate that?

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