Leading off today: The New York-New Jersey All-Star Classic has gone the way of leather helmets.
The New Jersey Football Coaches Association sent out a release this week saying that its all-stars will instead launch a new spring game, the New Jersey–Northeast All-Star Classic, The Journal News' Kevin Devaney Jr. reported on his blog this week.
A couple of phone calls to knowledgable New York insiders revealed that there were several unresolved issues between the sponsoring N.Y. and N.J. organizations, not the least of which was New Jersey's desire to keep the game at Rutgers University rather than alternating with West Point.
The New York sources said there are very preliminary plans to launch an intrastate all-star game with either an upstate/downstate or East/West format. One plan would have a well-known former professional football player become the name sponsor of the game in cooperation with a charity.
The N.Y.-N.J. game, which started out as the Governors Bowl, lasted 11 years and never came close to reaching critical mass. The New York State High School Football Coaches Association deserves credit for trying to make the event meaningful for New York players and fans, but the hurdles were immense.
With so many colleges now expecting incoming recruits to be on campus by early summer, the game was played in early June the last two years, going up against New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships in baseball, track and lacrosse in competition for athletes, spectators and media coverage. With multiple professional sports also competing for attention at that time of year and New York able to field only a handful of Division I signees, only the tragically clueless insisted the game had any meaning or merit.
Again, that's not a knock on the coaches association. They made a good run at trying to make the game work, but in the end this turkey deserved to be dropped from a helicopter and put out of its misery. As Devaney noted, "I don’t know who, outside of the die-hard fan, will really miss it. It was never promoted well and seemed like a New Jersey affair that New York simply participated in."
Sayville shot down: Sayville's protest over the final play of regulation in a 41-35 overtime loss at Kings Park was rejected by Section 11 yesterday, with the issue not even presented to a committee.
"I did receive a protest letter from Sayville, but it cannot take place because there was not a misapplication of the rules," Ed Cinelli, executive director of Section 11, told Newsday. "The protest involved a judgment call, and according to our policy and the rules in our Section 11 handbook, you cannot protest a judgment call. And that really makes it a done deal."
Sayville coach Rob Hoss remained decidely unhappy.
"It's absurd that the Section doesn't even take it to committee," he told the paper. "This official missed the play badly, didn't follow protocol, and my players are getting penalized. This whole thing is ridiculous."
Bob Hallick, president of the Suffolk County Football Officials Association, said, "It was a judgment call and that's it. We don't have protests over judgment calls."
Loaded schedule: This weekend's football schedule is the best so far this season, with 13 ranked Class AA teams taking on opponents that are also ranked. Tops among them is probably No. 15 at No. 2 gates Chili as the Cadets bring a strong passing game in against an opponent that's been dominating with a solid ground game.
In addition, the best Section 9 teams will have their hands full. No. 24 Newburgf is at No. 9 Minisink Valley and No. 5 Monroe-Woodbury hosts Section 2's Saratoga.
In the smaller classes, three other games are top-10 affairs as Bryam Hills plays at Rye, Canandaigua travels to Geneva and Caledonia-Mumford vists LeRoy.
You can check out the full schedule of games for ranked teams here.
League alignments: It's only a matter of time before the Monroe County Public School Athletic Conference adds its 22nd school, with No. 23 quite possibly not very far behind.
The Honeoye Falls-Lima school board gave approval Tuesday for school officials to apply for a spot in the MCPSAC, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. HF-L could move over from the Livingston County Athletic Association by next fall if it submits its application by Dec. 1.
Meanwhile, Canandaigua school officials are surveying residents about a possible move from the Finger Lakes High School Athletic Association to the Monroe County league.
