From The Tribune staff reports
On Friday, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced a plan to delay its high school football season until Oct. 2, due to complications surrounding coronavirus. The original plan was to play Week 0 games on Aug. 28.
According to New Jersey’s Return to Play plan, high school football teams will begin holding workouts on July 13 and continue until Aug. 28. On Aug. 29, team activities will shut down for a stretch of two weeks.
Fall camp will begin on Sept. 14, followed by regular season kickoff on Oct. 2.
“High school sports are school-based, so we need to first ensure all is in order with the opening of our schools,” says Colleen Maguire, NJSIAA chief operating officer. “After that, we can begin playing sports. To be clear, our goal is to return to play – while making sure that health, safety, emotional well-being, and academics come first. We have a different model than some other types of programs that are far smaller in scale and operate independently. We have a duty to ensure that New Jersey’s schools and their more than 1.5 million students and teachers, including 283,000 high school student-athletes, can first return to school and their academics, and then participate in extracurricular activities like sports.”
According to reports, New Jersey’s six-game regular season will end on Nov. 7, leading to a shortened postseason format that will run from Nov. 13-22.
This news comes one day after the state of New Mexico moved its high school football season to the spring.
As of now, the Alabama High School Athletic Association is on schedule to open its football season Aug. 20.