Nine FCIAC teams qualified for postseason play in four of the six state tournaments which begin Wednesday night, and four of them are ranked among the top six in the current GametimeCT Top 10 Football Poll.
New Canaan improved to 10-0 with its 39-7 victory at home over Darien on Thanksgiving to maintain the No. 1 ranking which the three-time defending Class L state champion Rams have had since the media pollsters voted them No. 1 in the preseason state poll.
Fellow conference teams St. Joseph, Wilton and Greenwich are ranked 4-through-6, respectively, in the state poll which was released Dec. 1.
New Canaan, St. Joseph, and Greenwich, all defending state champions, along with Wilon are in separate classes among the six state tournaments.
There will be 48 teams in Wednesday night’s opening quarterfinal round – eight of them in each of the six state tournaments – with kickoffs scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
The nine FCIAC teams are involved in the four largest state class tourneys which are classified based on the size of the male enrollment at the high schools.
Greenwich, Staples and Danbury are three FCIAC teams among the eight teams in the 2025 CIAC Class LL Football Tournament.
New Canaan, Fairfield Ludlowe, Ridgefield and Darien combined to make up half of the field in the CIAC Class L Football Tournament.
Wilton is in the Class MM tourney while St. Joseph is the Class M defending state champion.
The rankings in each of the state tournaments are based on several factors, including records, strength of schedule, and opponents’ records.
In the opening quarterfinal round on Dec. 3: the top-ranked teams host the eighth-ranked teams, No. 2 hosts No. 7, No. 3 hosts No. 6, and No. 4 hosts No. 5.
The Dec. 8 semifinal games will be played at the home fields of the remaining higher-ranked teams Monday night at 6:30 p.m.
In an interesting coincidence in this year’s first round in two separate rivalries involving four perennially strong FCIAC teams, when No. 3 Greenwich hosts No. 6 Staples in the Class LL tourney and No. 1 New Canaan hosts No. 8 Darien in the Class L tournament, that will be the fourth time in which each team squares off against their respective rival within a span of 371 days since the Thanksgiving games on Nov. 28, 2024.
Greenwich playing against Staples, and New Canaan versus Darien are annually Thanksgiving Day rivalry games. After last year’s Thanksgiving games there were rematches in the two largest state tournaments.
In last year’s Class LL tournament semifinals, third-ranked Greenwich won at No. 2 Staples by a 14-0 margin.
Five days later coach Anthony Morello’s Greenwich Cardinals followed that up with another 14-0 shutout victory in the championship game over No. 5 West Haven.
The Cardinals improved to 8-2 this year with a 33-19 victory over Staples (5-5) at their own Cardinal Stadium on Thanksgiving
The Danbury Hatters finished 6-4 in the regular season after their 17-7 loss at home to Ridgefield, but Danbury had already qualified for the Class LL state tournament. The seventh-ranked Hatters play at No. 2 Fairfield Prep (8-2) in the first round.
Ridgefield’s big 17-7 victory at Danbury improved the Tigers to 7-3 and secured their berth in the Class L state tourney. The Tigers were ranked No. 8 going into that game and they moved up a ranking to No. 7. They’ll play at No. 2 Newtown (8-2).
Darien’s record dropped to 6-4 and the Blue Wave dropped by one ranking to No. 8 in the Class L tourney.
Darien will take its second short road trip in seven days up to Dunning Field to play the top-ranked New Canaan Rams in a rematch of last year’s Class L final in which coach Lou Marinelli’s New Canaan Rams three-peated with a 35-21 victory. And that was a rematch of the 2023 Class L state championship game which New Canaan won, 35-21, one year after the Rams won their 2022 Class L final with a 16-13 victory over Maloney.
Fairfield Ludlowe traveled across town on Thanksgiving to Fairfield Warde and Ludlowe improved to 7-3 with a 35-2 victory which secured the Falcons the No. 6 ranking in the Class L tourney. They’ll play their Class L quarterfinal game at No. 3 Cheshire (7-3).
Wilton’s Warriors improved to 9-1 when they finished their regular season with a 42-0 nonconference victory over Hillhouse on Nov. 21 at their own Tom Fujitani Field.
The Warriors earned the No. 2 ranking in Class MM and will host No. 7 Torrington (7-3). They finished just behind No. 1 Windsor (9-1) in the rankings as Windsor accumulated 1,645 points for a 164.5 points average, while Wilton had 1,635 points and a 163.5 average.
Coach Joe DellaVecchia’s defending Class M champion St. Joseph Cadets snatched the No. 1 ranking via their 35-0 victory on Thanksgiving at Trumbull which improved them to 8-2. St. Joseph won a 21-20 thriller over Brookfield in last year’s Class M final.
The Cadets are technically the home team, but they’ll play No. 8 Waterbury Career Academy (7-3) in their Class M quarterfinal game at Derby High School.
New Canaan (10-0) received 19 of the 21 first-place votes to earn its No. 1 ranking in the second-to-last GametimeCT Top 10 Football Poll of the season. The final poll will be voted on after the six state championship games which are scheduled for Dec. 13.
Second-ranked Killingly, also 10-0, got the other two first-place votes and Daniel Hand (9-1) is No. 3.
Then came that run of three FCIAC teams. St. Joseph (8-2) repeated at No. 4 as the top four teams remained in the same order from the previous poll, while No. 5 Wilton (9-1) and No. 6 Greenwich (8-2) flip-flopped rankings.
They were followed in the Top 10 by Fairfield Prep (8-2), No. 8 New Britain (8-1), Windsor (9-1), and Southington (7-3) popped into the Top 10 at No. 10.