There will be Thanksgiving football around the FCIAC, after all.
In a statement released Friday, the league announced that it has adjusted its football schedule for the 2015 season.
The main change concerns the FCIAC championship and the rivalry games, which had been moved to the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, based on votes by league coaches, athletic directors, and the Board of Directors in April. Under that scenario, the conference title game was to be played on Thanksgiving Day.
One of the changes announced today will put the FCIAC final back in its previous spot on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. The game is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 21, with the site to be determined.
With the Thanksgiving slate now open, teams will have the option of moving their games from what had been dubbed “rivalry weekend” to Thanksgiving day or any date between Friday, Nov. 20, and Thursday, Nov. 26, excluding Sunday. That would include the Wilton-Trinity Catholic rivalry game, which has traditionally been played on either Thanksgiving Eve or Thanksgiving Day.
The two league finalists would also play their rivalry games on Thanksgiving.
In addition, FCIAC Executive Secretary John Kuczo will be organizing a football scheduling advisory committee consisting of three FCIAC football coaches and three athletic directors from league schools.
The committee will look into options for future seasons and present their findings to the league’s scheduling committee in September.
The adjustment to the 2015 schedule comes after nine days of drama based on the decision to eliminate the Thanksgiving Day rivalry games, announced last Wednesday.
League coaches, who had voted 9-1 in favor of the new schedule back on April 8, cried foul and called for the FCIAC to revisit the changes.
Here’s the full statement from John Kuczo as released on the league’s website, FCIAC.net:
The FCIAC is making the following adjustment to the 2015 football schedule: We are changing the football championship from Thanksgiving Day to the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21. In turn, the rivalry games scheduled on the weekend before Thanksgiving can be played on Thanksgiving Day or any other date between Friday, Nov. 20, and Thursday, Nov. 26, by mutual consent of participating teams.
I will be organizing a football scheduling advisory committee comprised of FCIAC football coaches and athletic directors. This committee’s charge will be to examine all options for a football schedule available to our league, given the new CIAC mandate of a maximum of 10 regular season games. This committee will report its findings to our scheduling committee by September, 2015, and a new schedule will be developed. The 2016 schedule will represent what is most important to FCIAC players, coaches, athletic directors and communities.
