The strength, balance and parity of the top five FCIAC high school football teams coincides with the fact that those five teams happen to be among the best teams in the state as well.
Evidence of this has been shown by how at least three of those conference teams have been ranked among the top five teams in the weekly state polls all season.
And with three head-to-head matchups involving New Canaan in the three previous weekends, there has been a good bit of movement among FCIAC teams up and down the upper half of the polls.
There have been three different FCIAC teams ranked No. 1 in each of the last three state polls.
This week it was St. Joseph which became the new No. 1 team in the Week 10 GametimeCT Top 10 High School Football Poll which was released Nov. 9.
Coach Joe DellaVecchia’s top-ranked St. Joseph Cadets and Fairfield Ludlowe are ranked 1-2 and New Canaan is No. 4 as the FCIAC has five teams ranked among the top seven.
St. Joseph and Fairfield Ludlowe are two of the four remaining undefeated teams statewide in the Top 10. Coach Mitch Ross’ Fairfield Ludlowe Falcons were ranked No. 1 for the first time in school history in the previous poll.
Fairfield Ludlowe traveled to New Canaan’s Dunning Stadium on the Friday night of Oct. 30 to play the top-ranked Rams and the Falcons achieved their monumental win when they rallied back from a 17-0 deficit for a 34-31 victory.
Fairfield Ludlowe’s Ryan Love fired three touchdown passes while racking up 382 passing yards and the 6-foot, 160-pound senior quarterback also had an 18-yard TD run as the Falcons overcame that 17-0 deficit by scoring 27 unanswered points.
That victory enabled Fairfield Ludlowe to vault five spots up from No. 6 to earn that first-ever No. 1 ranking.
The Falcons came as close as they could to remain No. 1 in this latest poll after their home 40-13 win over Trumbull on Nov. 6.
But it was on that same Friday evening that the second-ranked St. Joseph Cadets team won at third-ranked New Canaan, 21-14.
St. Joseph and Fairfield Ludlowe both received 11 first-place votes, but they flip-flopped positions from the previous poll because St. Joseph’s 7-0 Cadets received just two more polling points than the 8-0 Falcons.
The 11 voting members of the media who voted Fairfield Ludlowe No. 1 all had St. Joseph at No. 2. There were 10 voters who voted for Ludlowe’s Falcons second and one voter had the Falcons ranked No. 3 so that was the difference. St. Joseph received 638 polling points and Fairfield Ludlowe got 636.
Daniel Hand received that other vote for No. 2 from the voter who ranked Ludlowe third. The undefeated Daniel Hand Tigers from Madison improved to 8-0 with their 35-14 home victory over Lyman Hall on Nov. 6 so they received 562 polling points to ascend to No. 3.
The midseason stretch of three consecutive big showdowns for New Canaan is a microcosm of the strength and parity of the FCIAC among its top teams.
That stretch began a few weeks back when coach Lou Marinelli’s Rams traveled down to Greenwich for a No. 1-versus-No. 2 showdown and they maintained their No. 1 ranking because they improved to 6-0 with their 23-19 victory at Cardinal Stadium.
The Rams dropped down two spots to No. 3 in the following poll after that 34-31 loss to Fairfield Ludlowe which ended a most impressive 29-game winning streak the four-time defending Class L state champions took into that game.
New Canaan, now 6-2 after last week’s loss to St. Joseph, received 508 polling points as they slipped down one spot to No. 4 in the current poll.
Masuk’s 8-0 Panthers received 454 points to earn the No. 5 ranking, and they’re followed by FCIAC teams Greenwich (6-2) and No. 7 Staples (7-1).
New Britain (5-2), Pomperaug (7-1) and Southington (7-1) completed the Top 10.
There were 26 teams statewide which received polling points. Darien, Wilton and Ridgefield were the three FCIAC teams among the 16 in the Others Receiving Votes category.
Darien received the 17th most polling points after coach Andy Grant’s Blue Wave improved to 5-3 with a 34-14 victory at Ridgefield, which dropped to 4-4.
Wilton’s Warriors had their own very challenging stretch of games the previous three weeks. They rebounded from losses to St. Joseph and Staples with a big 13-6 victory Nov. 6 at Greenwich to even their record at 4-4.
Coach E.J. DiNunzio’s Warriors received the 21st most polling points and Ridgefield got the 26th most as one voter ranked coach James Reed’s Tigers 15th.
There are two matchups this weekend involving four of those FCIAC teams ranked among the top seven in this week’s state poll.
Second-ranked Fairfield Ludlowe travels southbound across the town border to face coach Matty Jacowleff’s No. 7 Staples Wreckers for a 7 o’clock kickoff on Friday the 13th, and 17 hours later there is a Saturday noon kickoff when No. 1 St. Joseph hosts coach Anthony Morello’s sixth-ranked Greenwich Cardinals.
Like the showdowns in three previous weeks and the three more big matchups involving the top five FCIAC teams in the final couple weeks of the regular season, these games will be pivotal toward determining the rankings and eventual seedings for the three largest of the six Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference state tournaments.
There will be 48 teams which qualify for six state tournaments – eight each in Class LL, Class L, Class MM, Class M, Class SS, and Class S.
Staples (7-1) is ranked No. 1, Southington (7-1) is second, and two-time defending champion Greenwich (6-2) is No. 3 in the CIAC Class LL Football Tournament Rankings which includes three FCIAC teams among the top five. Coach Augie Tieri’s Danbury Hatters are ranked No. 5 after they improved to 4-4 with their 39-22 victory Nov. 6 at Fairfield Warde.
In Class L: Naugatuck (8-0) and Fairfield Ludlowe (8-0) are ranked 1-2, and New Canaan (6-2) is No. 5.
St. Joseph’s 7-0 Cadets are the only FCIAC team in Class MM. Holy Cross (7-1), Pomperaug (7-1), and Middletown (7-1) are ranked 2-through-4. There are no longer any FCIAC teams in Class M, Class SS or Class S.
Listed below are the scores of the three previous matchups and the schedule of the three remaining showdowns involving the five FCIAC teams ranked among the top seven in the current GametimeCT poll state poll.
- Oct. 23: New Canaan 23, Greenwich 19
- Oct. 30: Fairfield Ludlowe 34, New Canaan 31
- Nov. 6: St. Joseph 21, New Canaan 14
- Nov. 13: Fairfield Ludlowe at Staples, 7 p.m.
- Nov. 14: Greenwich at St. Joseph, noon
- Nov. 26: Greenwich at Staples, 10 a.m.