Feb 222013
The Naugatuck Valley League voted Friday to add Oxford as the conference’s 15th member starting in the 2014-15 academic year, according to the Republican-American’s Joe Palladino.
According to the Rep-Am, not many details have yet been worked out but the NVL will split into three divisions (they are currently nameless):
Division A: Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour, St. Paul
Division B: Crosby, Holy Cross, Kennedy, Sacred Heart, Wilby
Division C: Naugatuck, Torrington, Watertown, Wolcott, Woodland
League tournaments in all sports except football will continue. The fate of football’s championship game is not yet determined.
Quick thoughts on the matter before we open it up for discussion:
- It came as a bit of a surprise that this decision came when it did. Some of us were under the impression that it would be at least another week or two.
- In the end, Oxford’s inclusion is probably a good thing. The Wolverines geographically belong in the NVL; it’s just a shame they didn’t join when the invitation was open at the school’s inception.
- The divisional alignment is pretty interesting. We had been hearing that most of the city schools were against an all-city division (probably because of the likelihood that Holy Cross would win the majority of championships across all sports) but that’s exactly what one of the divisions will be. Also, it’s awfully surprising that St. Paul found itself in what would otherwise be known as the Valley Division. Geographical wisdom would suggest that St. Paul should be paired with Torrington, Wolcott and Watertown, but at the same time Woodland and Naugatuck can ramp up their rivalry by being in the same division. We’ll be anxious to hear some explanation as to why the divisions ended up like they did.
- What the league decides to do with the football championship will also be something to watch. Three leagues in Connecticut have three divisions: the ECC, the SWC and the FCIAC. The ECC only crowns divisional champions, while the SWC and the FCIAC do. The FCIAC uses a power rankings system to determine its top two contenders while the SWC also plays a championship game using its top two teams.
This is good news for local football fans. The move makes sense, geographically.
I’m sure the Oxford students are excited. But I wonder how the Oxford parents and community will take this.
In other news, Oxford will miss the Arkeel Show.
Yep. But they will get to see the McKnight and Tyler Bailey show. haha
As someone who taught in Waterbury for 35 years, I’ve enjoyed watching the city schools compete in the NVL. I do not like this new set up at all. The Waterbury schools are isolated in their own division, giving Holy Cross dominance in most sports except Boys Basketball. That definitely is unfair, seeing HC can pull students from all over. The Waterbury schools should have refused this set up and told Oxford no thank you if this was the result. Its a shame. The NVL should go back to the drawing board and come up with something that is more balanced competitively, not drawn up geographically. Waterbury public schools got shortchanged on this deal.
They should swap Woodland and St. Paul for geographical and tradition reasons.
good move by nvl—would like to see st.paul—woody switch also—-st.paul cant be happy with this one.remmy—-they will have deal with TYLER BAILEY
—– the only thing that will keep that kid from running wild is another rebuilt o-line,and a possible staff overhaul due to retirement.
TB? The heir apparent to AK? Where’d he come from? New Zealand?
Shameful treatment of W1.
all in all not bad. the more I think about it surprising it even went through. Rem – the guys on the Southbury side of 188 in the 3800 square foot houses HATE this. Don’t blame em one bit. What do they care about Seymour or history or location? Honestly? They drive to Hartford or Stamford for work every day….the guy they sit next to at work is from Newtown and his kid goes to ND ffld.
I figured it was going this way:
Division A: Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour, Woods
Division B: Crosby, St. Paul, Kennedy, Sacred Heart, Wilby
Division C: Naugatuck, Torrington, Watertown, Wolcott, Holy Cross
St. Paul obviously chose spending tons of money on gas over having to play Waterbury in everything twice in each sport. You can hand HC the “title” in that division in every sport every time minus hoops, but we knew that would happen.
Would like to see Woody in the valley league, but I guess Prospect technically doesn’t count.
Agree with Ribby’s division lineups with a St.Paul – Holy Cross switch. As long as there’s no more title game, what’s the diff? Good for Oxford and kudos to the NVL. It’s the right move all around. Got a great lineup for a 16 team league (how I wish) but, as the Revlons sang, dreams are for fools.
I do like how Woodland is with Naugatuck (and Wolcott; the Woodland-Wolcott rivalry is bigger than most realize). NVL president Tom Pompei told Joe Palladino that the divisions were aligned by size, outside the city division. Still not sure how I feel about that city division.
Oxford does belong, though, so it’s nice to see the Wolverines finally coming … in a year and a half.
Div C might be the most competitive as of now. HC should roll in the B.
Is there always this little amount of football talk on here? This seems like a nonsense blog. No real discussions and no insight.
As a Seymour fan I like the divisions. The Class S schools are grouped together except for Woodland and the city schools and the larger M and L schools are together so most games should be competitive and I think will give more teams a shot at the state playoffs.
Agree that Woodland is a better fit with Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Oxford but:
#1 – That was probably the only way they could get St. Paul on board and I suspect consensus was important to them
#2 – I assume Woodland will remain Seymour’s Thanksgiving rival so it’s sort of a moot point if they’re in the same division for me.
Did you play at Ansonia, Remmy?
Wl1234 you don’t see much football talk on here this time of year. Personally I would prefer you take your insightful knowledge somewhere else. I can already tell you might be a knucklehead.
How so? I didnt know saying that this is a nonsense blog would get snyone in a ruffle. It seems as if this is an ansonia blog seeing that remmy said the arkeel show. I thought by the games that the receiver 4 and the qb carried them.
Newsome had 2245 yds rushing and 42 total TD’s this past season… and missed games with a leg injury. While the QB McKnight and the receiver Matos (#4) had great years too. Ansonia was just more balanced in it’s attack this year. But make no mistake, this is Newsome’s team fro one more year.
Now… let’s see if Derby goes and gets Oxford on Turkey Day. That would definitely be heartbreak strike 3 vs. my old alma mater across the Housy. Haven’t figured out how to walk away from the school yet for the 2 strikes it already has.
wl—-your obviously short in the football knowledge department if you wanna talk football
please be informed it makes it easier not to make a fool out of yourself.
Ok nevermind. Tried to be a new blogger on here. You five guys that post can have fun.
Given the general disagreements with the way the divisions were laid out, are they subject to change?
After reading this morning’s sports page, it appears that there will be no Football championship game. That is not the way to go. The league needs to crown a champion in football and it should find an equitable system to make that happen. While teams like to win the division, they really play for a league title and of course a shot at the States. NVL athletic directors need to rethink that.
I’m all for a league title game as long as the two teams did not meet in the regular season — top-two records/points in the league that have NOT faced each other all year.
Who is Wl1234 sounds like a jerk?? On to another topic congrats to Oxford. Should be fun.
Think Oxford will be 8-2 their first season in the league?
Don’t think so. Last year they would have gone 6-4 at best. But there program is on the rise with a good coach and good guy.Should be fun Rem with Bruno and now Oxford in the future. Maybe someone can play with AHS????
I really hope Naugy can. I think Naugy has a stud at QB. This year is going to be tough but I think Naugy has a real shot to beat Ansonia in 2014. Bradley and McKnight will be seniors.
As for Oxford, I don’t know. Oxford lost a really good QB. I don’t know who the replacement is let alone who will be the QB when the Wolverines finally begin NVL play. I’m excited for Oxford. I would love to see all of Oxford’s games in 2014 vs. the other Valley schools (including Woodland).
Yo GB, Who do figure would have been Oxford’s 4 losses last year?
Rem’s an Oxford fan now. sorry Ansonia.
Why would I be a fan of either? I have no ties to either town.
One thing I certainly am a fan of is
.
,,,and BEER. lol
How is there not more of an uproar about Woodland or Naugatuck not being in Division A. I really wanna know whose brilliant idea it was to put St. Paul in that group. Each team is about 10 minutes away from one another, except for that terrible school in Bristol. I have no evidence to prove this, but it simply seems that Woodland is straight scared of Ansonia. Some how they get away with not playing them next season, even though the schedules are based on the previous years results and they were the 2 top teams. Now, they escape having to play them every year. Last year when Torrington openly admitted to not wanting to play Ansonia every got pissed, yet now people are letting this slide. Keeping rivalries together isnt a good argument. Each team gets 6 out of division games, I think it would be acceptable for Woodland and Wolcott to schedule a game every year. College leagues have been growing and creating divisions that last 2 years without destroying in league rivalries.
Right. This is how I’d like to see the divisions (not that anyone cares).
Division A: Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour, Woodland
Division B: Crosby, Kennedy, Sacred Heart, St. Paul, Wilby
Division C: Holy Cross, Naugatuck, Torrington, Watertown, Wolcott
I like that scenario Remmy. Also, a big congrats to my good friend Jim Caouette on being named the new Head Coach at Avon. He’s a top notch guy who will do great things with that program, Avon is lucky to have gotten him..
Rem, that works perfectly. I’d even take Naugy in A and Woodland in C, this allows the Woodland/Wolcott rivalry people seem to care about, and would renew the Seymour/Naugy rivalry. Also, Naugy and Derby have formed alittle rivalry of their own since Derby joined the league. I’m sure St. Paul would prefer to be in the Waterbury Division, their only 2 league wins came from waterbury schools last year.
Let’s face it. St. Paul is not going to like playing against the Valley teams every year. That’s going to be rough.
I wouldn’t mind Naugy in Division A. However, I think Division C is a better fit for Naugy not only because there is decent competition there, but because the only Class S school would be Holy Cross. You would have S, M, M, L, LL in that Division and I think it would work out best.
It still looks to me like St. Paul wanted to be in the “small school” division with the other four Class S teams. That minimizes their enrollment disadvantage and gives them the best chance to be competitive at the cost of a 70-mile round trip to play their division games.
Cracks me up every time I read or hear about a team being afraid of another team. It’s high school football, man. Hit the guy across the line before he hits you.
Like I said earlier, I don’t mind Woodland in C because it still has Naugatuck as a natural rival (I think that’s one of the top all-sports rivalries in the league). In a perfect world, I would love to see both Woodland and Naugatuck in that A division, but six teams is obviously not going to work.
The Waterbury division is a snoozer in all sports. If I were Holy Cross, I’m not sure I would even like it. Sure, you get to win a division every year, but it’s just a bunch of boring games.
I’m on board with drake. Nobody’s “afraid” of anybody, and if anybody thinks divisions were based on which schools were “afraid” of others, go away.
Overall, they could be better, I think. But I think they’re pretty much set in stone. Oh well.
While it may be a snoozer in some sports, its by far the strongest boys basketball division. No other division comes close.
Agreed. But I’m still surprised the division ended up shaking out like it did. Everything I had heard before the announcement was about the four city schools besides Holy Cross being against that division. I don’t blame them.
There will be off years when one of the other teams challenges Cross for division titles in sports other than boys basketball, but otherwise it’s pretty competitively skewed.
At the same time, it’s tough to pick another arrangement that works seamlessly. Those four city schools are competitive in certain sports in certain years but the consistency isn’t there. But it’s tough when deciding divisions to try to pick them based on competitive balance, because that balance is different in each sport.
Kyle, who is responsible for this division configuration? Was it Pompei’s decision or did a few people discuss this and come to a conclusion?
I think the divisional configuration is probably what took this decision so long to happen. It was a decision they needed the majority of ADs to make, so it wasn’t just one or two guys.
Ansonia is loaded beyond belief. Naugayuck is loaded as well. We should have a great year this year! Both teams undefeated on turkey day!
Fish,
Did coach caouette coach anywhere last year?
He did not coach last season.
I just came across this article the NH register printed back in January. I found it interesting.
http://nhregister.com/articles/2013/01/26/sports/high_school/doc5104702b0569c572652390.prt
Good find, fish. I think Jude Kelly’s take on our soft society is a good one. There seems to be an awful lot of hovering now by people who really shouldn’t be hovering.
For the reasons most of the coaches in that article stated, that’s why I don’t like to get on them. All these high school coaches are putting in way more time than they’re really paid to do, and it’s all because they enjoy teaching kids. They’re good men in my book.
How are they going to schedule inter-divsion games?
Good question. I’m assuming they’ll try to revamp the power schedule system starting after the 2013 season (that means the fall 2013 schedules will only last one year, effectively, except the Week 6 games against the SWC).
Divisional championships might not be decided sometimes until Thanksgiving (Torrington and Watertown are both in the same division, as are Kennedy-Crosby and Sacred Heart-Wilby) so I assume they would not figure into anything the league decides to do for its championship.
It will be interesting to see how the interdivisional games will be handled. I don’t think anybody will push to eliminate the Thanksgiving rivalries (Ansonia-Naugy, Woodland-Seymour, Holy Cross-Wolcott are the three interdivisional Thanksgiving games) but that would always leave a fixed interdivisional opponent on each team’s schedule. Some other teams wouldn’t have that fixed opponent.
Also, it’s worth wondering whether Oxford and Pomperaug will keep their Thanksgiving eve rivalry. Currently Derby is the only team who plays a nonconference Thanksgiving game (against Shelton) because St. Paul’s recent series with Hamden Hall technically doesn’t count as a sanctioned game.
Questions abound.
I’ll be at the NVL weightlifting championships Saturday morning at Seymour. I’ll try to have a brief report when I get back.
Why not just divide up the League into 2 divisions,Based on Football accomplishments over the last 5 or so years ?
Something like this :
D 1 {7 Teams}
Ansonia
Naugatuck
Woodland
Holy Cross
Woodland
Torrington
Watertown
D 2 {8 Teams}
Derby
Oxford
Seymour
St. Paul
Crosby
Kennedy
Sacred Heart
Wilby
Correction
D1
Woodland in twice{Wolcott} should be in D1 list
good idea fan—-but makes too much sense to nvl
Not a bad idea. The league should be currently doing that. Teams are given very different schedules. Too different. For example, Naugatuck has not played wolcott in 2 yrs. woodland will not be playing ansonia or wolcott.
Can someone explain the scheduling to me, because it seems the method is bend over for Woodland. How does the top team in the Copper avoid playing the top 2 teams in the Brass when scheduling is supposed to be based on standings. Each team has 6 division games, 1 out of league, 1 SWC, that leaves 3 openings for the other division. Woodland plays Seymour on Thanksgiving, which leaves 2 openings. Instead of getting a matchup with one of the 2 top Brass teams, somehow they schedule Derby and Crosby, please explain. Both Ansonia and Wolcott play Torrington, HC, and Naugy, the #2, #3, #4 Copper teams after Woodland, yet Woodland schedules the #3 and #7 teams in the Brass.