Ruden Sports News

Many a coach has said how they and their team aren’t looking ahead past their next opponent, so much so that it’s almost a cliché.

Mitch Ross, the coach at Fairfield Ludlowe, hasn’t taken that tact with his team in contention for a CIAC Class L playoff berth.

“You could pretend you’re not going to say anything,” Ross said, “but in the entire history of the school, we’ve never made the playoffs. The kids are very well aware of the possibility of making the playoffs and the possibility of doing it the first time.”

The games get bigger and more important with each passing week, thus Week 9 of the CIAC’s 12-week regular season has a bunch of them.

Locally, there’s Staples (6-1) at St. Joseph (5-2) on Saturday morning.

Bunnell (6-1) plays at Newtown (7-0) in the South-West Conference on Friday night. That same night, Glastonbury plays host to New Britain (7-0) in the Central Connecticut Conference.

Add this Friday’s game between Wilton (3-4) and Fairfield Ludlowe (5-2) to the list. The latter is trying to make history. Wilton has all but been relegated to spoiler status, even if it’s better than its record shows. And the result will affect both the Class L and MM playoff rankings.

“Our games tend to be exciting with all the offensive power,” Wilton head coach EJ DiNunzio said about the history between the two teams, “so it should be another fun, exciting game on Friday night.”

The game is at 6 at Ludlowe.

The Falcons are sixth in the Class L rankings, with the top eight teams qualifying in each of the six playoff divisions.

Ludlowe more than likely could lose one more game and still qualify for states given the shape of Class L. Ninth-seeded Fitch (4-3) and No. 10 Platt (4-3) are the only teams with winning records outside of the top eight, and both still have at least one challenging game.

Fitch, for example, plays host to longtime rival New London (4-3) on Saturday. Platt plays Meriden city rival Maloney (3-4) on Thanksgiving — the latter has lost to three Top 10 teams (New Canaan, 42-13; Staples, 28-21; and Windsor, 40-14) and unbeaten New Britain (7-0).

Ludlowe’s two losses were to New Canaan (30-14, Oct. 5) and Darien (48-15, Oct. 26). The Falcons are averaging 38.9 points per game.

“Mitch’s offenses are always explosive,” DiNunzio said. “He’s always in trips formations. He’s got kids running in all differ directions. He’s got his back going out. He’s got a whole lot of different things on offense. You have to play a sound defensive game. You have to do what you can when you’re on offense (to) control the ball a little bit and have some time-consuming drives (to) keep his offense off the field. They’re senior heavy and they’re having a great season. They need to beat us to help them get to the playoffs for sure, so we know we’re going into a hostile environment Friday night.”

Senior Grant Stupak has completed 60.8-percent of his passes for 1,850 yards, with 13 touchdowns and 8 interceptions for Ludlowe. Classmate Justin Toothaker has been his leading receiver (37 catches, 591 yards, six TDs).

Wilton is mathematically alive in Class MM but is way down at No. 14. It’s had the misfortunate of playing one of the state’s most brutal schedules, which started with a 33-26 loss to Masuk on Sept. 13. The Panthers (6-1) are ranked ninth in this week’s Hartford Courant coaches’ poll.

The Warriors also just finished the nastiest three-game stretch that any team in the state will endure this regular season, against three Top 10 teams. They started it by stunning Greenwich, then ranked No. 1 in both the GameTimeCT media and coaches’ polls, 20-17, on Oct. 18.

Wilton followed that with back-to-back losses to New Canaan (32-0, Oct. 25) and, last Friday, to Darien, 35-26.

Darien, New Canaan and Greenwich are ranked third-fifth, respectively, in this week’s Courant coaches’ poll.

That the Warriors hung with Darien is noteworthy given they were beat up heading into the game, then lost senior co-captain Jack Schwartz to injury during the second quarter. He plays middle linebacker, guard and special teams.

“He’s easily, pound-for-pound, the best player I’ve ever coached,” DiNunzio said. “(Our players) eyes (were) wide-open when (Schwartz) went out in the second quarter and they knew he wasn’t coming back. My guys, as always, they didn’t quit … I’m very proud of my guys.”

Wilton played in the Class MM final last season. The odds are against it qualifying this season because the division has more winning teams than the others.

Windsor, the top-ranked team in both polls, and Newington are both 7-0 and ranked first and second, respectively, in MM.

There are seven teams with 6-1 records — no other division has more than four one-loss teams.

Class MM also has two teams with 5-2 records and another that’s 4-3.

None of those teams have played as tough a schedule as Wilton, though.

Ned Freeman runs a website, CalPreps.com, which ranks teams via a computer model. The model, which is used to seed the California playoffs, takes into account a team’s schedule and margin of victory against good teams, among other things.

There are 137 programs that participate in CIAC sanctioned football and only Hamden and Maloney have had schedules ranked harder than the Warriors’ according to CalPreps’ model.

CalPreps also ranks Wilton No. 21 in the state (Ludlowe is No. 16).

Wins matter, of course, and if the Warriors finish 6-4 and miss the playoffs, then the loss they’ll rue the most was to Norwalk, 21-19, in the second week. The Bears are 2-5.

“It’s tough to go through that schedule,” Ross said about Wilton. “They’re a very good team that’s obviously won some big games already and played some tight games against other top schools. So, it’s going to be a big, big challenge for us.”

Playoff picture

Trying to figure out every permutation involving the CIAC’s six playoff races all but requires one to have passed math courses such as “Probabilistic Methods in Combinatorics” at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yes, that’s a real class.

One can use common sense, however, to get a decent idea of who does — and doesn’t — have a shot at states.

The FCIAC has teams in the top four divisions. Here is where they stand:

Class LL: Greenwich (6-1) is mathematically tied for first with Fairfield Prep (6-1), but the latter has more tiebreaker points — a team receives two points for every win by an opponent it has played.

The Cardinals are in good shape because only the top six teams have fewer than three losses … and only nine teams have winning records.

Yes, there are only nine winning teams in a 22-team division.

Greenwich also has just one game left against a team with a winning record — at No. 5 Staples (6-1) on Thanksgiving.

Staples has a tougher road, with games at St. Joseph and at No. 7 Trumbull (4-3) on Nov. 15.

Trumbull plays at St. Joseph on Thanksgiving, too.

No. 3 New Britain (7-0) is the only unbeaten team in the division.

Class L: New Canaan (6-1) and Darien (6-1) are mathematically tied for second behind Naugatuck (6-1).

The Rams hold the lottery tiebreaker over Darien (teams are randomly assigned a number via a lottery before the season).

The next time New Canaan and the Blue Wave play a team with a winning record is when they square off at Darien on Thanksgiving.

Ludlowe’s final two games are at Norwalk and at home against Fairfield Warde (2-5) on Thanksgiving.

Class MM: Wilton doesn’t need a miracle to make the playoffs — it needs miracles, plural. No other explanation is needed.

Class M: St. Joseph (5-2) is fourth behind defending champion Hand (7-0), Brookfield (7-0) and Rockville (7-0), respectively.

A 7-3 finish should be enough for a team to qualify. There are three other teams with 5-2 records, three teams that are 4-3 and one 3-3 team (No. 11 East Haven).

A win over Staples on Saturday would obviously be a huge boost for the Cadets’ playoff chances.

A 6-4 finish may not doom St. Joseph, either, given the schedules other contenders face.

No. 7 Watertown (5-2) plays at Holy Cross (5-2) this Friday and plays host to Torrington (6-1) on Thanksgiving.

No. 8 North Haven (4-3) plays at Fairfield Prep next Friday.

No. 9 New London (4-3) plays at Fitch (4-3) on Saturday and at Killingly (7-0) next Friday.

No. 10 Quinebaug Valley (4-3) plays Friday at Cheney Tech (6-1). And whereas St. Joseph’s strength of schedule will help it, as well as the bonus points it earns for beating larger schools, Quinebaug’s schedule is an anchor.

The Pride have played four teams with two wins or less and lost to one of them (Plainfield, which is 2-5). And their final two opponents, O’Brien Tech and the Thames River co-op, have one in between them.

No. 11 East Haven is 3-3 and should finish no worse than 6-4 based on its schedule. It plays at Wilbur Cross this Friday and plays host to Harding next Friday, both of which are 1-5. It finishes at Hillhouse (5-2) on Nov. 22 and at Branford (2-5) on Thanksgiving.

The Yellowjackets’ schedule, like Quinebaug’s, should work against it, though — five of their opponents have no more than two wins, and those five won’t win many more games.

Fab 5

1. New Canaan (6-1): Comparing scores isn’t a foolproof way to rank teams …. but, over the last three weeks, Wilton beat Greenwich by three, lost to Darien by nine and were wiped out by the Rams.

2. Darien (6-1): The Blue Wave can, of course, point out that it beat Ludlowe by 33 points, whereas New Canaan beat it by 16. No matter. The debate will be settled on Thanksgiving. And perhaps again in the Class L playoffs.

3. Greenwich (6-1): The Cardinals had one of the oddest wins of the season against St. Joseph last Friday. They had just 117 total yards, based on the information they inputted into MaxPreps.com’s database, yet they won, 24-13, thanks to pick sixes by Santi Parra (52 yards) and Justin Carroll (23 yards). Football can be really weird.

4. Staples (6-1): The Wreckers bounced back by from their loss to New Canaan by ripping into Danbury last Friday, 41-7. Nick Weil completed 14 of 25 passes for 181 yards, with four touchdowns and an interception, and ran five times for 44 yards.

5. St. Joseph (5-2): The Cadets’ offense has been bogged down by so many injuries, but their defense has played so well that it’s kept them in games (their other loss was to Darien, 14-0).