WEST ORANGE – In an effort to create a more competitive balance for high school football, athletic directors representing four conferences gathered to officially approve the creation of the North Jersey Super Football Conference, during a meeting at Mayfair Farms in West Orange on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
Believed to be the largest high school football conference in the nation, the NJSFC consists of 113 schools merged from the Big North Conference, Super Essex Conference, Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference and Hudson County Interscholastic Athletic League.
The conference, which will begin play in 2016, is broken down into several divisions, based on Group size, geography and caliber of program, to create better matchups for football teams, said Nutley High School athletic director Joe Piro, the president of the NJSFC, who moderated the meeting.
The non-public and public teams also are separated into their own divisions. Essentially, the non-publics will play each other, though there are a few non-divisional games involving non-public versus public teams.
The athletic directors voted to approve the creation of the conference and other by-laws, including scheduling.
Teams also are given the option of forfeiting games for various reasons. That must be done through a mutual agreement between the two opposing teams. “Paper” wins and losses will be awarded, for the purpose of divisional standings. However, if a forfeit happens, teams could still find another team to play in an effort to fill their schedule.
Denis Nelson, athletic director at River Dell Regional High School, said input was sought from football coaches in helping to devise the team schedules, which consist of divisional games and non-divisional games. The non-divisional, or so-called “crossover,” games, were based on the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference model for preferred requests and the SEC strength of program power rankings.
“We did the best we could in creating as many competitive games as possible,” Nelson said in his speech.
The divisions and crossovers will be recalculated every two years, as most conferences currently do for other sports.
Piro thanked members of the executive committee for their tireless hard work since the summer in helping to put the conference together. Piro mentioned the endless possibilities for the conference, such as t.v. broadcasting.
Here are the divisional alignments (teams in bold are from the Worrall Community Newspapers publishing area:
UNITED DIVISION A
Bergen Catholic
Don Bosco
Paramus Catholic
St. Peter’s Prep
St. Joseph
UNITED DIVISION B
Delbarton
DePaul
Pope John
Seton Hall Prep
UNITED DIVISION C
Hudson Catholic
St. Anthony
Newark Collegiate
Marist
Morris Catholic
Montclair Immaculate
LIBERTY DIVISION A
Passaic Tech
Ridgewood
Hackensack
Paterson Kennedy
Paterson Eastside
Bergen Tech
Clifton
Passaic
LIBERTY DIVISION B
Union City
North Bergen
Bayonne
Memorial
Dickinson
Kearny
Newark East Side
LIBERTY DIVISION C
Montclair
West Orange
Livingston
East Orange Campus
Morristown
Columbia
Bloomfield
FREEDOM DIVISION A
Roxbury
West Morris
Randolph
Mendham
Morris Knolls
Mount Olive
FREEDOM DIVISION B
Irvington
Wayne Hills
Passaic Valley
Wayne Valley
Millburn
Belleville
FREEDOM DIVISION C
Old Tappan
Northern Highlands
Indian Hills
Teaneck
Fair Lawn
PATRIOT DIVISION A
Sparta
Jefferson
West Milford
Morris Hills
Vernon
High Point
Montville
PATRIOT DIVISION B
West Essex
Parsippany Hills
Nutley
Orange
Barringer
Chatham
Ferris
PATRIOT DIVISION C
Paramus
Ramapo
Demarest
Dwight Morrow
Tenafly
Snyder
PATRIOT DIVISION D
Pascack Valley
River Dell
Ridgefield Park
Bergenfield
Fort Lee
Cliffside Park
AMERICAN DIVISION A
Lenape Valley
Lakeland
Kittatinny
Hacketstown
Newton
Wallkill Valley
AMERICAN DIVISION B
Madison
Hanover Park
Pequannock
Dover
Newark Central
Kinnelon
AMERICAN DIVISION C
Mountain Lakes
Lincoln
Caldwell
Newark West Side
Whippany Park
Parsippany
AMERICAN DIVISION D
Westwood
Mahwah
Ramsey
Pascack Hills
Dumont
NATIONAL DIVISION A
Hoboken
Shabazz
Cedar Grove
Glen Ridge
Weequahic
NATIONAL DIVISION B
Verona
North Warren
Boonton
Hopatcong
Butler
INDEPENDENT CROSSOVER
Sussex Tech
Manville
Montclair Kimberley
Dwight-Englewood
Belvidere
Warren Hills
Middletown South