Start Your Engines

It’s the eve of the start of the Bulldog season, and the day of the overall kickoff of 2011 football in NYS, so it’s time for some thoughts and predictions on how things might play out this year.

Things in Section IV look quite a bit different this year, with quite a bit of movement of teams and divisional changes. Up top, Elmira has taken Corning’s cue from last year in merging their class A football programs, with Elmira Free Academy and Southside combining to make the new class AA Elmira Express. Exiting class AA are Horseheads and Union-Endicott, which are lower in enrollment and are now in class A. U-E has in fact been of class A enrollment for a couple years now, and has chosen to play up in AA, but for whatever reason has made the move to A this year. So, given the 4 Elmira/Corning schools merging to 2 teams, classes AA and A now only have 4 teams apiece – Binghamton, Ithaca, Corning, and Elmira in AA, and U-E, Maine-Endwell, Vestal, and Horseheads in A.

Class B is mostly the same, with the departure of Waverly to class C being the only change.

Class C remains at 11 teams, with the addition of Waverly being offset by the departure of Spencer-Van Etten to class D. The eastern division remains the same with Forks, Sidney, Unatego, Greene, and Unadilla Valley-Edmeston, and the 6-team western division has the Waverly/SVE replacement as the only change of the year.

Class D is not terribly different in terms of the schools – the addition of SVE is the only change there…..but the divisional alignment and the playoff setup are very different for 2011. Gone is the 2-division setup with an eastern and western division. It has been replaced by a 3-division setup. Delhi’s Division VII remains mostly in tact actually, with the only difference being that Seton Catholic has left. Seton joins Division VIII, and Divisions VIII and IX also contain the balance of the western D teams, with seemingly no geographical logic to their placement (for example, Elmira Notre Dame and Elmira Heights Edison are reasonably close and are in different divisions, and Groton and Moravia are quite close and are in different divisions).

The setup of the class D playoffs is still somewhat of a mystery. I know that 8 teams will make the playoffs, with quarterfinal, semifinal, and final rounds. I’ve heard that the seeding will be based on a point system, presumably the “Kelly-Redmond” system that is used to break 3-way ties. I would assume that the divisional winners will make the playoffs along with the next 5 in points, then seeding will be done on the points, with the quarterfinal game being hosted by the higher seed, but I’m not certain of that. I will give some updates when I get further information on how this will all play out.

Given the point system, the non-league games suddenly become of vastly greater importance. That means tomorrow’s game at Liberty (class C) and next week’s home contest against Unatego (class C) are very important to how our playoff seeding will look. I really see both of these games as very tough, as Unatego has some nice returners back, and Liberty returns a very athletic 3^rd year starter at QB.

As for predictions for the year, I think I’m going to drop the statewide predictions, as it is tough to come up with anything meaningful there. But I can make a decent stab at the sectional and division champs. Let’s start with the latter:

I – Corning

II – Union-Endicott (will they do anything in states now that they are A?)

III – Chenango Valley

IV – Owego

V – Forks

VI – not sure, guess I’ll try Newark Valley

VII – Los Angeles

VIII – Tioga

IX – Candor

Last year I got only 3 of 7 correct, but from the other 4 divisions, 2 of the teams I picked to win actually beat the champ at some point in the season, so I wasn’t too far off. For IVCHAMPS:

AA – Corning over Binghamton

A – Union-Endicott over Maine-Endwell

B – Owego over Johnson City

C – Forks over Greene

D – Los Angeles over San Diego

Last year I picked 3 of 4 champs correct (missed Chenango Valley winning class B), with 5 of 8 finalists correct. Not too shabby.

So, let’s see what we can put together this year, all the best to the 2011 Bulldogs!

For this weekend’s games, I’m picking…..BG over UVE, Candor over SVE, Forks over Windsor, Binghamton over Newburgh, Dryden over Union Springs, Waverly over END, Trumansburg over Groton, Elmira over Horseheads, Vestal over Oneonta, Oxford over Unatego, Corning over FM, Edison over Odessa, Maine-Endwell over Chenango Valley, Greene over Seton, Norwich over Sus Valley, Whitney Point over Harpursville, Deposit/Hancock over Eldred, Watkins Glen over Newfield, UE over Owego, Newark Valley over Tioga, Johnson City over Sidney, Walton over Ellenville, East over Ithaca, and Moravia over Lansing.