After a wide range of changes to all of the Section III football leagues, the schedule for the 2020 season is now set.
Among area teams, there’s defending sectional Class B champion Solvay and Bishop Ludden making the move to Class C and West Genesee expanding its regular season from seven to nine games.
In Class AA, the departure of Fayetteville-Manlius and Christian Brothers Academy leaves just nine teams. WG is joined by Cicero-North Syracuse, Liverpool, Baldwinsville, Corcoran, Henninger, Nottingham, Utica Proctor and Rome Free Academy.
The Wildcats will open on Sept. 4 against Nottingham at Mike Messere Field and open with three straight home games, including its lone non-league contest Sept. 18 against Elmira. Once the regular season is done, just four teams in Class AA will advance to the sectional playoffs in November.
Solvay and Bishop Ludden are both now part of the Class C-2 division with Skaneateles, that trio paired up with Canastota, Clinton, Little Falls, Westmoreland and Sherburne-Earlville.
Trying to follow up its first sectional-title run in nearly two decades, the Bearcats meet the Gaelic Knights in the Sept. 11 opener as the Lakers will face Solvay a week later after it opens with Westmoreland.
Jordan-Elbridge is still in Class C, but now is in the C-1 division with long-time power Cazenovia, who like Solvay and Ludden has moved from the B ranks, plus General Brown, Hannibal, Lowville, Holland Patent, Mount Markham and Southern Hills. The Eagles will host Hannibal to begin its season Sept. 11.
That leaves just two local teams in Class B – Marcellus and Westhill, who are now in a six-team B West division with Cortland, Homer, South Jefferson and Syracuse’s Institute of Technology Central.
Like in Class C, the regular-season schedule remains seven games long, the Mustangs and Warriors meeting each other Sept. 25, two weeks after season openers where Marcellus hosts Vernon-Verona-Sherrill and Westhill takes on New Hartford.
The entire 2020 schedule takes place a week later than in seasons past. Thus, the sectional finals at the Carrier Dome are Nov. 13 and 15 and the state championships, which for 27 years were held on Thanksgiving weekend, are now on the first weekend of December.
