Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

11/16/2009 - NJAC Should Look At Football

As the time ticked off the clock during the final moments of Jefferson’s 34-13 consolation game victory over Wallkill Valley, the members of the Falcons football team reflected on what could’ve been this year.

Jefferson was coming off a championship season in 2008 in which it shared the final Sussex County Interscholastic League title with Pope John and Sparta and made a thrilling run to the North 1, Group 2 state sectional title.

But the Falcons finished this season 5-5 and missed out on the playoffs for the first time in three years. Jefferson finished strong and won its last three games, but it was the Wallkill win that had them thinking.

And, as always, senior quarterback Gavin McCarney summed up the Falcons’ feelings perfectly.

“It’s a bittersweet feeling,” he said after the game. “It is great we finished strong. We were playing an old SCIL team from the Freedom Division where we should be and we wanted to show that we’d be a good team in that division.”

Ah, the Freedom Division. The division Jefferson will compete in all school year in the newly formed Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference except for football. A division that some from the larger schools in Sussex County derisively refer to as “SCIL-light”

So how come the Falcons are not members of the Freedom Division for football, you maybe asking? It is a good question and here is the answer to the best of my knowledge.

When the schools that comprise the NJAC convened to divide up the 35 football-playing schools, it got pretty contentious and it was finally decided to go to four divisions based on size.

But after filling out the American Division with all Group 3 and 4 schools, the National Division was short a couple of schools, and in order to fill out eight teams, the number the schools decided would be most equitable in the National, both Jefferson and Morris Hills, Group 2 schools in football, were added to the mix.

Jefferson and Hills are the only Group 2 schools in the division and despite both schools having very solid football backgrounds, neither team made the state tournament and struggled against bigger schools like Sparta and Pope John this season.

When it was first decided to add Jefferson to the National, John DiColo, Jefferson’s AD and the president of the NJAC, balked. But once Hackettstown, a smaller Group 2, was added to the mix, Jefferson had no other choice.

So the Falcons accepted their fate and the spin from J-Town was that being one of just two Group 2 schools in the National would help the Falcons gain enough power points to qualify for the states with a 4-4 mark.

And then the Falcons would play against schools their size and the hope was they would be able to make another deep run in the state tournament.

Didn’t happen.

First, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association executive committee decided to change the power points formula, putting more emphasis on wins than the size of the school you defeated.

The change was put into effect after Jefferson accepted its fate. If the new system was in place beforehand, I’m positive Jefferson and Morris Hills would have gone ballistic and fought for a different divisional format.

Then there was the problem of Jefferson not reaching .500 by the Week 8 cutoff. The Falcons were 3-5 and suffered their fifth loss to Sparta, a powerful Group 3 school, in Week 8.

All right, the pity party for Jefferson is over. But the Falcons do have a point. How come the conference figured out a way to place Jefferson in the Freedom for everything but football?

The answer is the NJAC wanted just four divisions in football for easier scheduling, and you can’t blame it. The realignment was thrust upon everyone, and as I have said before, the ADs in the NJAC did a great job of being proactive getting the conference organized.

But now with a full football season under its belt, the NJAC should revisit the idea of going to five divisions of seven teams each. Sure, it would add to the already tough job of scheduling, but it can be done.

This is how I would break it down with the Liberty Division being brand new.

AMERICAN

Randolph, Roxbury, Vernon, Morris Knolls, Morristown, West Morris and Delbarton.

NATIONAL

Mt. Olive, Pope John, Sparta, Mendham, High Point, Montville and Parsippany Hills.

FREEDOM

Jefferson, Morris Hills, Parsippany, Hackettstown, Hanover Park, Lenape Valley and Chatham.

INDEPENDENCE

Newton, Kittatinny, Madison, Wallkill Valley, Pequannock, Dover and Morris Catholic.

LIBERTY

Mountain Lakes, Butler, Hopatcong, Kinnelon, Whippany Park, Boonton and Morristown-Beard.

The only changes would be as follows: Mount Olive would drop from the American to the National; Jefferson and Morris Hills would go from the National to the Freedom; the Independence would gain Newton, Kittatinny, Wallkill Valley and Madison and the new Liberty Division would house only Group 1 schools.

Under this format each team would have six division games, so schools would have to come up with three independents.

There a couple of options here. One, you can go with one independent and two crossover games or the second choice of two independents and one crossover.

Now I know teams in the American, National and Freedom are already locked in with their independents for next year if they signed a two-year contract, so the most logical way would be the two crossovers and the one independent game.

The NJAC should do what it did with the American and National this season and have Week 1 open and next year add a crossover in Week 4 in addition to Week 9. This way you only have one crossover count toward state tournament qualification.

I know there has already been talk about shifting the teams for next season and hope it just isn't talk. The whole idea (supposedly) behind realignment was competitive balance and that isn’t the case in football in the NJAC.

But there is even a better solution, in my mind, and that is divisions in all sports should be sports-specific, just like the schools in Essex County have done. But that is another blog for another time.

TOURNEY UPDATE---The first Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex Athletic Association tournaments are in the books, and for the most part, the tourneys were a success.

The exception? Field Hockey. Due to state tourney play and bad weather, a tourney final between the top seeds, Warren Hills and Newton, was never played and the schools were declared co-champs.

Kind of a letdown because I feel it would have been a great game, but once the states kicked in it was almost impossible to set a date that would have been acceptable for both teams.

Hopefully, next year the powers that be will take into account the early start for the field hockey state tourney and kick off field hockey a couple of weeks earlier.

That’s it for now, see you on the sidelines.

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Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

11/16/2009 - NJAC Should Look At Football