Shore Conference football to embark on historic season with NJSIAA playoff expansion
This season will be like no other in the history of New Jersey scholastic football.
For the first time, the NJSIAA will crown overall public school state group champions.
The five public school group championship games will take place Dec. 3-4 at Rutgers University's SHI Stadium.
"I can not wait for that weekend,'' said Dave Ryden, the Marlboro High School athletic director who was one of the individuals behind the plan to expand the playoffs on the public school level.
Prior to 1974, state sectional championships were declared by the NJSIAA without any postseason games. Brick defeated Camden 21-20 in the 1974 NJSIAA South Group 4 championship game at Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City.
From 1975-2017, the NJSIAA playoffs ended at the sectional level. In 2018, 2019 and 2021, two regional championship games in each group were added. There were no playoffs in 2020 due to the pandemic.
In the spring of 2021, the NJSIAA membership finally approved a plan to expand the public school playoffs to overall group champions.
The Non-Public playoffs had consisted of state-wide groups since 1993.
Expansion was years in the making
"It's long overdue,'' Middletown South coach Steve Antonucci said Tuesday at the first Shore Conference Football Media Day at Monmouth University. "For many years, you would talk to other coaches from other states and you would try and explain our playoff system to them, and they would look at you, like you had three heads.
"Now, we can finally say, here's our opportunity to show our football is as good as anybody's, and it has been for years. It has never been a judgement as to how good the football is in New Jersey. But, when people looked at the New Jersey playoff system, it was not what it needed to be.''
The plan the New Jersey Football Coaches Association, Ryden, Middletown District Athletic Director Rich Carroll and other administrators around the state came up with was one that has the bulk of the regular season ending on the third weekend in October while keeping the traditional Thanksgiving Day games for those schools who still wanted to have them.
The public school playoffs will begin the last weekend in October. The public school sectional championship games will be the weekend of November 11. The public school state semifinals are Nov. 18 and 19 at Cherokee and Franklin high schools.
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The Non-Public playoffs will begin the first weekend in November. The Non-Public semifinals will be the weekend of Nov. 18-19 and the Non-Public championship games will be Nov. 26 at MetLife Stadium.
The season will conclude with the public school championship games the first weekend in December - the same weekend first the sectional title games and then the regional championship games were.
The most games a team can play, if they start their season in Week 0, which is the last weekend in August, is 14.
"The scrimmage season has gotten less and less, which is good. You don't need it. They've been going all summer pretty much.'' Ryden said. "It's the right thing to do. We were the only state in the country that did not play to a group champion. Are we ever going to go further than that? No.''
The Shore Conference has many teams that were overall state championship-worthy
There have been plenty of teams in the history of Shore Conference that would have had legitimate chances to win overall group state champions had such a system been in place.
Brick had unbeaten teams of 1974 and 1981, which won South Group 4 championships under the late, legendary coach Warren Wolf.
Manasquan had several unbeaten teams the late, legendary coach Vic Kubu win sectional championships, including the powerhouse team of 2006 in Kubu's final season.
"Halftime of our West Deptford (Manasquan defeated West Deptford in the 2006 South Group 2 championship game), I walked out and the officials were standing there waiting for the bands to clear,'' said Jay Price, who was an assistant coach to Kubu in 2006 and is now in his 12th season as Manasquan's head coach.
"The night before they had the big game (Non-Public Group 4 championship game between the two top teams in the state. I fought every fiber in my body and should have just walked away, but I had to ask. I said, 'I know we're a small school, but if we ever play one of those teams how would we have done?' The referee turned around and looked at me and just shook his head and said, 'You guys can play with anybody'.
"So, you do wonder. We had a team that was blessed with everything you needed.''
Jackson Memorial had powerhouse teams in 2000, 2001 and 2005 go unbeaten and win sectional championships, Shore Regional's unbeaten South Group 1 championship team in 2015 could have played with a lot of bigger schools.
"We've had teams that I felt were the No. 1 school in our group,'' said Shore Regional coach Mark Costantino, who has coached four sectional championship teams and begins the season two wins away from 200 for his career. "It would be great to play some of those guys in North Jersey. I like it (the new format).''
Five of Antonucci's six sectional championship teams were unbeaten, including the legendary teams from 2003-2005 that featured standout and future Denver Broncos' running back Knowshon Moreno.
"It would have been great to see those teams play in that type of environment,'' said Antonucci, who has 206 wins and is in his 25th season. "There have been years and years of arguments, but now you have a legitimate chance to get there.''
No system is perfect
There are potential drawbacks to the playoffs being extended one week though even though it would be for just 10 teams.
"I like the idea of playing to one champion, but the only problem is you've got to make sure everyone is healthy at the end,'' said Ed Gurrieri, who is in his first season as the head coach at Wall and coached a Central Group 5 championship team at Manalapan in 2014.
"It's a long haul. But, it's the same everywhere you look, pro, college. Sometimes, it's not about who's the best, but it's about who's the healthiest at the end. You've got to make sure you manage your practices the right way and don't run your guys into the ground.''
For smaller schools, the number of players are an issue. Many key players play both offense and defense for those teams.
"Last year, we had 28 guys on the varsity and we went far (to the sectional semifinal), but man, we were a sprained ankle away from dropping off the face of the earth,'' said Costantino, who indicated Shore has close to 40 players on varsity this year.
Some were reluctant to expand for years
For many years, there were many who were reluctant to support an expansion of the playoffs. Price said Kubu was one who may not have been enthusiastic about overall state group champions.
"We would talk in the office about it and he (Kubu) would say: 'What if we just didn't go to states and we just had a Shore Conference playoff and a Shore Conference champion?' '' Price said. "I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the pomp and circumstance never meant a whole lot to him.''
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Playoff expansion is here to stay
But, the day of overall public school group champions is here and likely here to stay,. As the Shore Conference's 42 teams begin the official start of practice on Wednesday, they can all dream about the big pot of gold that is sitting at the end of the rainbow.
"These kids may not even realize it. Some of them are just learning about, but this is a huge moment for them,'' Antonucci said. "If you're fortunate enough to win something like that. That's a whole different type of legacy, as far as I'm concerned. If a team wins one for the Shore Conference this year, what a great moment that will be for the Shore Conference and New Jersey football.''
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Shore Conference Football 2022: Playoff expansion leads to excitement
