Big Central football divisions named

On the verge of its third season of play, its second full season, the Big Central Conference has announced names for the 12 divisions that make up the league.

Formerly called “5D” or “2A” and largely named that way because of the group size of the teams that comprised them, the numbers wouldn’t really have made sense this year because of a shuffling of teams that also took into account success on the field.

For example, this year’s “5A” Division would have had three Group 5 schools (Westfield, Union and Elizabeth), but also a Group 3 (Somerville) and a Non-Public (St. Joseph-Metuchen).

Here are the division names and the teams in each division, as announced today by the Big Central Conference:

• American Gold: Elizabeth, Somerville, St. Joseph-Metuchen, Somerville, Westfield
• American Silver: Bridgewater-Raritan, Hillsborough, Hunterdon Central, Phillipsburg, Ridge
• National Gold: East Brunswick, Monroe, Old Bridge, Piscataway, South Brunswick
• National Silver: Edison, Franklin, New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Sayreville
• Liberty Gold: Colonia, JFK, Linden, Perth Amboy, Woodbridge
• Liberty Silver: Montgomery, North Hunterdon, Plainfield, Watchung Hills
• United Gold: Cranford, Rahway, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summit
• United Silver: Carteret, Governor Livingston, JP Stevens, North Plainfield, South Plainfield
• Patriot Gold: Bernards, Bound Brook, Delaware Valley, South River, Voorhees
• Patriot Silver: Johnson, Hillside, Metuchen, New Providence, Roselle
• Freedom Gold: Brearley, Dayton, Highland Park, Roselle Park, Spotswood
• Freedom Silver: Belvidere, Dunellen, Manville, Middlesex, South Hunterdon

The league officially began play in 2020 with 60 teams and the number-letter division name combos, but did not crown division champs that year since many teams had to cancel games due to the COVID-19 pandemic that hit six months prior to the start of the season.

The Big Central was a merger of the Mid-State Conference and the Greater Middlesex Conference in keeping with the trend of “supercofnerences” intended to aid scheduling, like the massive North Jersey Super Football Conference – which includes almost all of North Jersey except the tiny NJIC – and the West Jersey Football League, which has everyone south of the Big Central and Shore Conferences.