Connecticut is home to some longest-standing high school football Thanksgiving Day rivalries. That includes Norwich Free Academy vs. New London, which is widely considered the oldest in the country.
“There’s not too much tradition in our life nowadays. I think it’s something we should keep,” Wolcott’s Joe Mucciacciaro said.
This past October, the Connecticut High School Football Alliance submitted a new scheduling proposal to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC). One of their aims is to prioritize the scheduling of competitive matchups, regardless of league or size, through a centralized committee statewide.
“We created a model so that while you’re playing everybody within your particular division, we’ve also set it up by schedule strength, so the schedules will match the strength of your particular program,” said Jim Buonocore, chair of the Eastern Connecticut Conference and member of the Connecticut High School Football Alliance Member.
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The other part of the proposal is a call for the CIAC’s football committee to explore expanded playoff formats, such as increasing the playoff field to 12 teams.
The CT High School Football Alliance, however, acknowledged that expanded playoffs could impact future Thanksgiving Day rivalry matchups.
“That’s just a piece of the proposal. That doesn’t mean that has to be part of what gets passed through and how we move forward,” Buonocore said.
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“Part of this proposal is to move that game off of Thanksgiving which would expand the number of weeks that you could play football playoff games and would potentially increase the number are teams that were able to qualify,” CIAC Executive Director Glenn Lungarini said.
Put simply, the high school football regular season would end earlier in November, thus eliminating the traditional Thanksgiving rivalry finale.
“One of the suggestions is that that Thanksgiving Day rivalry game, if again, people thought it was something to look at, would be moved to another holiday weekend. The weekend of Columbus day/Indigenous Day weekend,” Buonocore said.
Buonocore also emphasized that it’s not an all-or-nothing proposal. The CIAC can accept only some parts, while leaving other aspects on the table.
The CIAC will begin its review on Nov. 9, but Lungarini said no decisions will be made until after the end of this season.
