Quite a bit has changed since the Wayne Valley football team came up with the “Rise Again” slogan for its 2020 season. The team was setting two ambitious goals of repeating as both State Sectional and North Group Champions. To accomplish that, the Indians would have to take on what they thought was a very challenging nine-game regular season schedule and potentially a four round post season.
The high school football landscape, however, has been drastically altered since then. The 112-team Super Football Conference revised the 2020 schedule to a six-game regular season and two-week postseason. Those changes were mandated by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association due to the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Unfortunately, we aren’t going to have an opportunity to defend those two titles this year,” Wayne Valley head coach Roger Kotlarz said. “It’s disappointing, but certainly understandable when you consider what we’re all going through right now. We still can play for a (conference) championship. In some ways, I think winning our conference may be more challenging than winning our section or group year.”
That’s because Wayne Valley was placed into the Freedom Red, a six-team divisional alignment that’s been put into effect due to COVID-19 for this season only. All six teams qualified for the playoffs teams last year. It includes Northern Highlands and Ridgewood (2019 State Sectional Champions); Old Tappan (2019 State Sectional Runner-ups); and Wayne Hills and Hackensack (2019 playoff qualifiers).
“I don’t think there’s another conference in the state that compares to this conference,” Kotlarz said. “It’s exciting for us and for the fans because every team on our schedule is very good. These are going to be epic games. There will almost be an NFL-like mentality because anybody can beat anybody else in any given game. “
“At the same time, you have to be a little bit concerned. These are six teams who typically finish well-above .500. Some are going to have finish below .500 this year. It’s not inconceivable that someone will finish 1-5.”
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Wayne Valley will also play its biggest rival Passaic Valley in a crossover game and at West Milford the night before Thanksgiving.
Of course, there’s still a real chance that these game will not be played in the fall. Many states have postponed fall sports to the spring due to COVID-19. New Jersey High School sports are still scheduled for the fall with a late Oct. 2 start. A postponement to the spring could still be in the cards. If that happens, it’s unclear if the schedule will remain the same.
Nothing official has been stated about the possibility of a spring football season. The speculation is that all sports could adopt a 6/2 format. That means a six-week regular season followed by a two-week post season. A possibility would be winter sports being played in January and February, “fall” sports being played in March and April and spring sports being played in May and June.
“Something like that would not be ideal, but it would be far-better than an outright cancelation,” Kotlarz said. “If that was to occur, our players would not have to choose between football and a sport they play in the winter or spring.”
One of the 2020 cancellations was Wayne Valley opening the season at St. Francis in Buffalo.
“I’ve spoke to the (St. Francis) coach,” Kotarz said. “The possibility of playing them in 2021 is on the table for discussion. That’s a long way off, though, so there’s no sense in speculating about it now.”
One challenge with that, however, is that a football season in March and April of 2021 would almost assuredly push back the start of the fall 2021 season.
Kotlarz is also not speculating on what will happen this fall.
“It’s impossible to predict what is going to happen,” he said. “Most college football conferences (Division I Football Championship Subdivision, Division II and Division III) have already canceled or at least postponed fall seasons. That’s obviously not a good sign for us. However, high school sports don’t face many of the challenges that college sports face. Travel is the big difference. Aside from that one game we were going to play in Buffalo, we wouldn’t have had any lengthy bus trips or overnight stays.”
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August 03, 2020 at 09:09AM
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Wayne Valley football planning to rise again in 2020 - NorthJersey.com
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