Njsiaa To Vote On Expanding Football Playoffs
The NJSIAA will hold a vote on Dec. 5 to decide on expanding the state’s football playoffs to include a Group state championship similar to other sports.
New Jersey high school football is one of the few sports and states that does not currently play to a singular state champion, instead stopping at the sectionals.
For an example of a new format, Cedar Grove is currently heading to the finals of the North 2, Group 1 tournament, but hypothetically if the Panthers were to win the tournament and a new playoff format was adapted they would still have two more games to play against the other group champions.
Cedar Grove head football coach Ed Sadloch said he has mixed emotions about the idea of expanding the playoff system.
The NJ football coaches association is pushing for it,” Sadloch said, “which I was a past president of, but a school my size adding two or three games is tough since we’ve been in and out of injuries all year. I don’t know if that would be a good thing to do at this point in time. If they decided to combine schools and everyone had 1000 kids it would be different. A lot of states don’t have those real small schools like we do. So to stand arm and arm with the association I would be in favor of a change but I would have reservations.”
Verona High School athletic director Gary Farishian said the idea of playing to a singular champion is a great concept but there are several potential problems with the idea.
“One of the problems is impinging on winter sports,” Farishian said. “That means all group finals would probably be the Saturday before Christmas if they keep it in the current format without eliminating Thanksgiving games. Anything that would save a week, if they started a week earlier, eliminate bye weeks or the Thanksgiving game would help so maybe you only go one week longer. Ice hockey starts [early] and football players who play any winter sport won’t be playing anything until maybe the holiday basketball or hockey tournament or track relay. That’s a problem, and general feeling what I’ve got from other athletic directors I’ve spoken to is they think it won’t happen.”
The Thanksgiving game tradition could be in jeopardy if the new playoff format was adopted. The season also could begin a week earlier on Labor Day weekend.
Farishian said the extra games could cause a concern for the safety of the players because of the increased workload.
“It may be different for group 3 and 4 schools who have large numbers,” Farishian said. “They have a deep bench of reserve players they can put in due to injuries, but for a group 1 school like us, we don’t have that many players. We take a lot of injuries during the year and a lot of pounding. This basically adds two more weeks in there, you look at us or any group 1 team that plays hard by the end of the season you’re beat up. How do you play two more games, and in our case play a Thanksgiving game. There aren’t that many Thanksgiving games but that one year we didn’t play one, it was nice having those two weeks off where players could recuperate and heal and be ready for that final game.”
Even if the committee for the NJSIAA were to vote in favor of expanding the football postseason, more discussion would be needed to narrow down specifics. A change in the style still could potentially come for the 2012 season if a plan could be decided quickly enough.