The NJSIAA’s Football Tournament Regulations for the upcoming high school football season include a big change to the finals schedule, as well as the location of state semifinal games.
The regulations, available here on the NJSIAA website, confirm that this year’s Group Semifinals will be held at the higher-seeded schools, rather than at neutral sites, and all finals will be played the week after Thanksgiving.
Last year, the first year high school football in New Jersey played down to Group champions – true state champs – the semifinals were held at Franklin High School in Somerset County for North 1 vs. North 2 games and Cherokee in Burlington County for Central vs. South games.
That, however, led to some long drives for one team or another, or sometimes both. For example, in the Group 1 semifinals between North 1 winner Mountain Lakes and North 2 winner Weequahic, both had to travel down to Franklin, about an hours’ ride on a weekend.
The deciding factor for higher seed would be the overall seed in the supersection. Using the two local teams that won sectional titles last year, that would have placed Central 5 champ Edison at South 5 champion Toms River North, since the Mariners were the overall top-seed in North 5, while the Eagles were No. 11. And in Group 4, North 2 champ North Hunterdon would have hosted North 1 winner Northern Highlands. The Lions were the overall top-seed, while Northern Highlands was seventh.
Under last year’s system – and in the past, before the playoffs were expanded past sectional title games in 2018 – finishing first or second overall in a supersection had no real advantage or detriment. Now, it will give some incentive to the team finishing first.
As for the finals schedule, last season – again, the first with group champions – the NJSIAA had non-public finals on the Saturday after Thanksgiving at Met Life Stadium in the Meadowlands, while all public finals were played the weekend after Thanksgiving, December 3rd and 4th, at Rutgers University’s SHI Stadium in Piscataway.
This year, the NJSIAA has moved all seven finals – five public, two non-public – to the week after Thanksgiving. For teams that do not play on Thanksgiving, finals will be held Sunday through Tuesday (November 26-28) at either MetLife or Rutgers. Those that do have Thanksgiving games will play on Wednesday or Thursday (November 29 or 30).
NJSIAA Executive Director Colleen Maguire says the move was due to the lack of availability for its two championship sites. MetLife is busy with a Jets home game against the Dolphins on Black Friday and a Giants home game against the Patriots on Sunday, while Rutgers hosts Maryland in its regular season finale
It’s a non-traditional schedule in that it will be the first time any football championship game has been intentionally scheduled for a weeknight other than a Friday, although there have been several occasions in the past – particularly before the proliferation of all-weather turf fields – when games were moved due to bad weather.
Notably, Piscataway won back-to-back championships in 2002 and 2003 during the week, all because of snow. In the first, they beat Hunterdon Central at home in Joe Kuronyi’s last game as head coach. Then, Dan Higgins won his first title with a victory over Union at the old Giants Stadium on a Thursday night, as late as December 11th. Ridge also won a title that same night at the Meadowlands. Two days earlier, New Brunswick won its first state title in the playoff era and completed its first undefeated season since 1926 with a title game win over Long Branch, in a game that kicked off on a Tuesday morning at Memorial Stadium.
