Football realignment has lacked desired results

By Jacob Marrocco
Posted 10/25/16

This is the first segment of a two-part series on the state of Rhode Island high school football realignment. The second segment will run in Thursday's edition of the Beacon. This week was probably what the Rhode Island Interscholastic League

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Football realignment has lacked desired results

Posted

This is the first segment of a two-part series on the state of Rhode Island high school football realignment. The second segment will run in Thursday’s edition of the Beacon.

This week was probably what the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Principal’s on Athletics Committee had in mind when it realigned its football divisions this offseason.

There were five games decided by fewer than seven points, with just one game decided by more than 42 points. Inclement weather could have had an impact on some of those decisions, but by and large it was a competitive week.

Except that it was an anomaly. 

The new realignment, which jettisoned Division IV and split Divisions I and III into subdivisions with more teams, has struggled to produce close results. There have been 112 league games played this season, and a staggering 45.5 percent of them have been decided by at least 28 points. If that was to include games that were decided by at least 14 points, the number swells to 67.9 percent. 

Divisions I and III each ballooned from nine teams to 14, with one seeing a better balance than the other. Of the 36 games decided by 13 points or fewer this year, 16 of those results (44.4 percent) have come from Division III. The same cannot be said for Divisions I or II, where teams new to the race have had trouble adapting.

Division III: A fight among several

The former Division IV squads are actually dominating the revamped D-III. Juanita Sanchez/PCD/Wheeler and Burrillville are a perfect 5-0. Smithfield (4-1), the last champion of the defunct league, hasn’t missed much of a beat either. Tiverton is giving the Sentinels a run for their money in D-III with a 5-1 posting. 

The fresh faces of D-III have amassed a 24-16 record with a net of ? points scored. Lincoln (4-1) is the only D-III incumbent that has managed to keep up with the D-IV leviathans. 

“We’ve played some of the teams, I scrimmaged NP and played Scituate last year,” Toll Gate head coach Jim Stringfellow said of his team getting situated in the realigned D-III. “We really didn’t have that much of an adjustment. We were just coming in trying to figure out who we are.”

The formula that determined which teams moved up to which division was based on three factors: 60 percent was the school’s eight-year weighted win percentage, 20 percent allotted to enrollment and 10 percent each to playoff success and unweighted win percentage.

Adhering strictly to a formula, though, can lead to some peculiar decisions. 

Pilgrim, which took a few years of punishment in Division II before moving down to D-III, was moved back up to its old confines. East Greenwich, fresh off a D-III Super Bowl and losing a plethora of its best players, got the bump, too. Middletown and Classical also ascended to the new ranks. We will get to them later, but the teams that took their place have hardly had an issue conquering their new territory.

Smithfield was last ranked No. 14 in the Rhode Island State Media Poll, above some Division I and II teams, and Juanita Sanchez/PCD/Wheeler beat them. Burrillville beat East Greenwich, newly minted in D-II, earlier this year in non-league action. The Sentinels and Broncos have each won a Super Bowl in the past two years, with the latter reaching Cranston Stadium both times.

“Should they reevaluate it this year, absolutely,” Stringfellow said. “Burrillville and Smithfield should be up. They dominated D-III and D-IV. The bottom teams in D-II should come down.”

Stringfellow added that the general feel across D-III is that most schools are satisfied with the new realignment, and perhaps they should be. Herein lies the biggest difference between the reconstructed D-III as opposed to the other two: There are six teams that can make a legitimate push towards the title. 

Smithfield and Burrillville may belong in D-II, and if they continue down this path they will probably get there when realignment is examined again in two years. However, they are being challenged by a steadily improving Juanita Co-op, Central Falls, Lincoln and Tiverton. Any of those teams can be hoisting the trophy in December.

In Divisions I and II, realignment’s most significant failures, that sentiment is not shared. 

Division II: Contradiction in the middle

It has won the past two Super Bowls, and with relative ease. It is a team that has not lost since 2014. It is also the only private school existing outside Division I. 

Even if coaches from all three divisions agree that’s where it should be.

“Moses Brown should not be in D-II,” Stringfellow said.

“I do think that they need to be in Division I,” Cranston East head coach Tom Centore said of Moses Brown. “I think they want be and I’m not sure what happened, I think they want to be in Division I.”

“Everyone’s gonna have up and down years, [but] we scrimmaged Moses Brown this year and they’re good enough to compete up there,” Middletown head coach Art Bell said.

The Quakers have been polarizing, but they are not alone in terms of squads that could have moved up to Division I. Shea, Mt. Hope, North Kingstown and West Warwick are flourishing in D-II presently, even though two of them made the cut for D-I initially.

The Wizards and Skippers were the 13th- and 14th-ranked schools in the formula, respectively, according to the recommended realignment document provided to the Warwick Beacon. However, Central requested to move up and incumbent Cranston West elected to remain in D-I. For those reasons, West Warwick and NK remained in D-II. Moses Brown, Shea and Mt. Hope were ranked 19th through 21st, respectively. 

The Quakers are off to a perfect 4-0 start, building on last year’s unblemished record and winning streak, with its sole nail-biter coming in a 9-8 win over the Wizards. The Saints, of whom the Quakers disposed for another title in 2015, have put together a 2-3 record in Division I and have played almost everyone in their subdivision closely. West Warwick and St. Ray’s are D-I caliber crews, so it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility to believe Moses Brown could compete at a higher level. 

Head Coach Willie Edwards could see it as well, saying he would “accept the challenge” if it were presented to him.

“I think we could play at a D-I level,” Edwards, whose work with the program was lauded by coaches around the state, said. “The problem is, we tried to go up as coaches, but the powers-that-be didn't allow it to happen at our school. I accept whatever decision they make and I’ll play whoever’s in front of me.”

Edwards acknowledged that, despite the small enrollment of boys at Moses Brown, his team will probably see D-I in a couple of seasons.

For now, though, Division II is the contradiction in the middle. The idea of realignment was to create better competition, and D-II shrunk from 16 to 14 teams, so it should have worked.

It has not, and those who were elevated to D-II have paid the consequences. Middletown, Pilgrim, East Greenwich and Classical have combined to go 7-14 overall in league play with a net of -208 points. 

The Islanders, despite rolling out just 20 players on some game days, have seen the greatest success. They are 3-2, comfortably situated for the last postseason spot in Division II-B, despite scoring the second-fewest points in their subdivision. 

“Being in D-III the last three years, it was a really good league,” Bell said. “Classical, Narragansett, EG, it was competitive every week. It’s been competitive every week still, we beat Chariho and Mt. Hope, which will be good for us in the end, but we played Shea week 1 and it was a whole different world for our guys.

“Our D-III league was very competitive, smaller-sized schools. Throw a couple more in there and it’d be even better. It’s kind of all over the place [if] you look at some of the scores.”

Head Coach Rob Pacifico has seen his Pilgrim team take a few crushing defeats this year against the brass of D-II, whether against old foe East Greenwich or D-II mainstays Moses Brown and Westerly. 

“I think our divisions need to be smaller so that everyone can be competitive week-to-week,” Pacifico said. “Fourteen-team divisions are way too large. Everyone accepts football as a contact sport and some will call it a collision sport. Smaller, more competitive divisions should translate to fewer serious injuries, and will allow the sport to be more a enjoyable learning experience for the student-athletes.”

There are several good teams in D-II, and a couple of them can make bids for a title, but it will more than likely be No. 3 in a row for Moses Brown. Undefeated Shea still sits in its path, but Moses Brown crushed North Kingstown in a non-league matchup this year and handed Westerly a 31-point defeat. As previously mentioned, the Wizards gave the Quakers problems, but Moses Brown still buckled down for the win.

This is not quite like Division III, where any one of six teams could have a shot, especially after Smithfield was taken down this past week. Moses Brown, despite its smaller numbers, has the inside track to yet another statue in its trophy case. 

“Balance” is the chief reason for switching up and condensing divisions. However, the biggest problem child in high school football was Division I. Realignment was intended to split Hendricken and La Salle into subdivisions so that teams don’t have to face them both in the regular season. Ironically, Division I has been the most glaring example of formulaic failure. Those D-II teams that should be in the state’s top division, are thriving while a majority of those who moved up have languished. 

If the 2016 season has proven anything, it is this: There could be 25 teams in Division I, but when early December rolls around it will come down to the same two.

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  • Coachzilly

    So what is the answer when it comes to realignment? Let's take Toll Gate for example, 20 years ago it competed in D1, 10 years ago it enjoyed some of its greatest success in D2, including a Superbowl appearance and a tough loss to South Kingstown. More recently hard times in D-2 & D-3, no better in a watered down D-3, complete with the former D4 schools? Where do they go next? There are only 2 high schools in Warwick, similar to our neighbors in Cranston, but both of their schools are in D-1. Usually one of the two are playoff contenders. What's the difference, stable coaching staffs, great facilities, strong booster clubs, alumni support. Public schools will always struggle to compete with the 2 elephants in the room, Hendricken and LaSalle, move ALL the private schools to D1. Don't make excuses, compete, both Pilgrim and Toll Gate belong in D-2, put in the year round committment, get in the weight room, go to camp in the summer, do it the hard way, work hard don't whine. It's Football!

    Tuesday, October 25, 2016 Report this