SCFCA Discusses Division Realignment

This time of year select football coaches from Suffolk County develop ideas for division realignments that often land in the garbage as quickly as they were pondered.

The latest is to go to a conference structure, where seven teams would go into two leagues within each conference, doing away with the four division breakdown currently in place.

• Conference I: League I and II
• Conference II: League III and IV
• Conference III: League V and VI
• Conference IV: League VII and VIII

With the proposed plan, developed by Bay Shore head coach Jim Giattino, Babylon head coach Rick Punzone and Northport head coach Kip Lukralle, each team would play six league games, and a seventh cross-over game against an opponent from the adjacent league. The other games would trickle down to the current playoff system of a quarterfinal, semifinal and championship round.

Why change? Small schools want to tighten the competition gap for schools with such disparity of enrollment totals.

"I don't think it's going to happen," said Sachem North head coach , who has yet to make up his mind if the Suffolk County Football Coach's Association (SCFCA) were to vote on such a plan. "Teams that don't generally win would like to see the enrollment ratio shrink. Teams that win want to leave the structure how it is."

It would help programs like Sachem East that finished 0-8 last season.

"If adopted, this will be great news for Sachem East football," said former head coach , who was removed from the head coaching position two weeks ago. "Sachem East will find themselves atop in League II with the likes of Bay Shore, Northport and Connetquot."

With 14 teams in the current division structure, there are often points of sandbagging in pre-season ranking votes. Some coaches request a ranking too low, often playing weak opponents and cruising through the regular season with no hassle. The proposed conference structure would nix the disproportionate schedules.

The drawback … teams that aren't in the top eight of the conference at season's end have to play a mandatory eighth game that means nothing. The playoff seeds will already have been picked and Week 8 will turn out to be a brutal battle of lost bravado. How about six regular season league games and two cross-over contests? Or, better yet, how about leave well enough alone and don't tamper with the system at all?

The county's athletic directors make the final vote, but the coaches association needs to vote on it first before it goes to that level. Sachem athletic director Pete Blieberg said he does not favor the plan.

Former Babylon head coach and president of the SFCA, Hans Wiederkher, did not return an email for comment.