What if we got to play a football season in Connecticut in 2020?
What if this pandemic never happened, everything proceeded as normal and we played a full season with 10 games apiece, with no players transferring to other states or needing to plop down hundreds of dollars just to play a handful of independent games?
Well, we’ll never know, but we’ll never stop wishing and wondering what might have happened. And we were curious enough to solicit the thoughts of several other journalists and coaches and piece together a mythical final 2020 Top 10 Football Poll.
And, based on our extremely limited knowledge, here’s what we came up with.
ST. JOSEPH won its fourth-consecutive state championship, winning the Class M title over Killingly, last year’s runner-up. For the second-consecutive year, the Hogs would have been voted No. 1 — likely based on a successful run through the FCIAC, as well.
But it was close. St. Joseph is followed by league rival and No. 2 GREENWICH, which won the Class LL title over No. 3 SOUTHINGTON.
NEW CANAAN comes in at No. 4, having won the Class L championship.
NEWTOWN and its large senior class gave it a run at repeating, but lost in the Class LL semifinals and finished No. 5.
HAND finished No. 6, presumably after losing to New Canaan in the Class L final.
DARIEN finished No. 7 after also falling in the Class LL semis.
MALONEY and its strong senior class, led by James Tarver and Angel Arce, fell just short of playing in the Class L state final and finish this poll No. 8.
And, finally, No. 9 ANSONIA knocked off favored BLOOMFIELD to win the Class S championship. The Warhawks finished No. 10.
Obviously, with little to go on other than hearsay (and a few independent league results, which factored into some of our voters’ decisions) this is nothing more than a glimpse of what could have been in some alternate reality.
You can listen to GameTimeCT’s Sean Patrick Bowley quiz cohorts Pete Paguaga (a voter) and columnist Jeff Jacobs (not a voter) on how they think the voting played out in the Mythical 2020 Final Top 10 edition of The Meat Grinder.
Here are the full results, published below alongside the list of 13 reporters and coaches who kindly gave us their opinions on the matter.
How do you think it would have gone?
The Mythical 2020 Top 10 Football Poll
| Team (1st place votes) | Points | 2020 Class | 2019 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ST. JOSEPH (5) | 107 | M | 1 | ||||
| 2. GREENWICH (5) | 102 | LL | 8 | ||||
| 3. SOUTHINGTON | 88 | LL | 6 | ||||
| 4. New Canaan | 69 | L | 10 | ||||
| 5. NEWTOWN | 53 | LL | 2 | ||||
| 6. HAND | 49 | LL | 3 | ||||
| 7. DARIEN (1) | 45 | LL | 4 | ||||
| 8. MALONEY (1) | 32 | L | NR | ||||
| 9. ANSONIA (1) | 30 | S | NR | ||||
| 10. BLOOMFIELD | 26 | S | 9 | ||||
| Others receiving votes: Fairfield Prep 21, Killingly and Xavier 15, Simsbury 10, Middletown and Platt 8, New Britain 7, Fairfield Ludlowe 6, Sheehan 5, Danbury and Shelton 4, Hall 3, Masuk, New Fairfield and Cheshire 2, Amity and Fitch 1. | |||||||
| Voters: Media -- Sean Patrick Bowley, GameTimeCT; Pete Paguaga, GameTimeCT; Scott Ericson, GameTimeCT; Michael Fornabaio, GameTimeCT; Shawn McFarland, Hartford Courant; Ryan Chischester, New Britain Herald; Dave Ruden, The Ruden Report. Coaches -- Bobby Pattison, Newtown; Anthony Morello, Greenwich; Mike Drury, Southington; Andy Guyon, Xavier; Chad Neal, Killingly; Kevin Frederick, Maloney. | |||||||
