With culture “fully implanted,” Elizabeth looking for breakthrough season in 3rd under Fiore

Montclair already had a championship pedigree before John Fiore arrived, but he certainly put his stamp on the program.

Elizabeth also has been a championship program, but the task for Fiore when he arrived was probably a bit deeper than it was further up north. The Minutemen had gone 7-19 in the three seasons before his arrival in Union County.

Now in his third season, however, he knows this is the year the transition needs to take its next step. “This is probably the best offseason we’ve had since the 2017 Mounties,” Fiore said at Big Central Conference Media Day last week. That year, coming off a 7-4 campaign, they ran the table en route to 12-0 and a state championship.

Elizabeth hasn’t won a state title since it won the very first North 2, Group 5 title over Piscataway in 2012 – a killer for the Chiefs as PJ Walker of the Minutemen led a game-winning drive in the final minute, virtually the length of the field.

This year, Elizabeth has a sophomore quarterback who is pretty talented, too, in Arique Fleming, who ran for 1,663 yards last season and 15 touchdowns. But he was also a freshman, and threw ten picks, so he and Fiore are looking forward to the game slowing down for him in 2024, making way for a successful year.

Click below to hear from Elizabeth head coach John Fiore and sophomore quarterback Arique Fleming: