Inside the rise of the Super Football Conference, and where it goes from here

EAST RUTHERFORD – It’s still a Media Day where the teams outnumber the media by almost a two-to-one margin.

You can’t possibly interview every player and coach (which makes me feel bad), and guess what? Every coach is confident that his team is ‘better’ and the players have been ‘working hard.’

It’s a cliché convention, to be honest.

But last week’s Super Football Conference Media Day at MetLife Stadium is proof that the league is a major player in New Jersey and beyond. It’s a 112-team behemoth that spans eight counties, every school size and many different styles of football.

What other high school football conference can take over an entire NFL stadium for a day? What other conference can bring in sponsors to show off their wares, hand out lunches, and give kids a shot at sitting at the microphone to spout those clichés?

The SFC is the biggest football-only conference in America. Now it’s trying to be the best.

“We were spinning our wheels for a couple of years, but once we got going, we got going,” said new SFC president John Fraraccio, who is also the athletic director at Memorial High School in West New York.

Check out the photo gallery, then continue reading.

Humble beginnings

The first Super Football Conference Media Day that I can remember was held at Clifton Stadium.

We were out on the field on folding chairs. It was then called the North Jersey Super Football Conference (they later dropped the "North Jersey" part). Rutgers coach Chris Ash was the featured speaker. The whole thing was underwhelming.

Born in 2016, the Super Football Conference was the merger of six different football leagues spread across northern New Jersey.

Before that, things were getting nasty. Schools were outright refusing to play the non-public programs, and some public schools were locked into leagues based on geography and tradition that they could never compete in.

The SFC was supposed to be the panacea. And you know what, the system is better. Perfect? No. But a whole lot better. Because of its size, the SFC was able to group teams in divisions that roughly took into account both geography and competitive balance. Roughly.

The non-publics were shifted into their own divisions, appeasing them and giving them a base of games to play. They didn’t need to play any public schools if they didn’t want to. The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association helped out by loosening the rules on scheduling requirements, so non-publics didn’t have to play as many in-state games.

“It just made sense,” Fraraccio said. “It made sense for us, and we had three or four guys that said we can be more than a scheduling component. [Former SFC President] Joe Piro had a vision, and when he talked about his vision, the light bulb went on in my head. I said Joe, 'I agree, we can do all these other things'.”

The divisions are still pretty small, but that’s intentional. It unlocks the biggest thing needed in high school sports today: flexibility. It allows the SFC to adapt and evolve as programs rise and fall.

STATE OF THE PROGRAM: Inside look at every HS football team in North Jersey

Today’s SFC

Westwood athletic director Dan Vivino is the SFC’s scheduling mastermind, creating schedules that – going in – set a team up for certain levels of success and challenges. Back when the regular season was nine games (now it’s eight), teams were given three games they could/should win, three games they’d be underdogs in and three games that were toss-ups.

Hey, the NFL loves parity, and the SFC loves it too.

The SFC leaders saw they had a good product, but just as the league was coming together, the game of football was in trouble. Concussion concerns, then COVID, drove down participation and maybe some interest.

So it was time to bring in some money to change the narrative. The SFC has sponsorships, just like any other big-time college conference. Alliance Orthopedics, Parisi Speed School and the New York Jets have been invaluable giving their facilities and infrastructure. The SFC held a seminar for athletic trainers, held a youth football coaches clinic at the Jets facility in Florham Park, started sponsoring a Young Man of the Year Award, and even brougt in a consultant on name, image and likeness (NIL) matters.

“We can give back to our kids and our schools,” Fraraccio said. “Not only do we have sponsors, we have educational partners. The Jets really buy into our philosophy and what we’re trying to do. We are big on the educational piece.”

The idea is to promote the sport, sure, but also promote the evolution of football. No one can ever guarantee that the game will be 100 percent injury free, but it can be safer.

“Football has been under attack for many years,” Fraracchio said. “We are trying to, you know, do things a little bit different. Gone are the days of triple sessions and banging heads every day, Junction Boys don’t work anymore. You have to be smarter.”

Truth be told, a lot of SFC teams didn’t even bother showing up for Media Day in early years, now, they almost all come. They want to be part of the show.

The SFC Takes Over

With its size and financial support, the SFC is well positioned to help shape the sport of football in North Jersey and beyond.

While it’s not official yet, look for the SFC to take over girls flag football in this part of New Jersey. The plan is to keep it as a pilot program – called ‘non-strenuous’, meaning girls can still play another spring sport – for two years and study just where it belongs on the New Jersey sports calendar.

The SFC is going to broaden its social media presence, its branding in today’s parlance. It is sponsoring its first mega season opening event at Overpeck County Park in Palisades Park, the five-game Jim Grasso Classic on Aug. 25-26, named for former Ramsey AD and one of the key creators of the SFC before his death five years ago.

In this case, the SFC is stealing from the West Jersey Football League with its big Battle at the Beach multi-day, multi-game opener.

While the SFC can’t match the scenery of the stadium at Ocean City, they still haven’t played their biggest cards. If they wanted to, the SFC could stage season-opening games for powerhouse teams like Bergen Catholic, Don Bosco, and St. Peter’s Prep, and draw big crowds.

The SFC is still where the state’s best teams play. And if you want to play them, they say the phone lines are open.

On the Road Ahead

If the SFC has one big blemish, one issue it can’t solve, it’s the neighboring North Jersey Interscholastic Conference. Geographically, the NJIC’s footprint is roughly the same: North Jersey, except the NJIC is almost exclusively Group 1 and Group 2 schools.

The NJIC has a unique scheduling system in which the first six games of the regular season are set, but the rest of the match-ups hinge on those results. The NJIC crowns an overall league champion, and also retains scheduling flexibility, giving teams a chance to boost their power-point metrics for state playoff seeding purposes. That may not have been the goal originally, but it’s a nice perk.

The SFC has an Ivy Division for struggling programs, and the NJIC has a Union Division with the same ideology. I actually would love to see the SFC adopt the same NJIC scheduling model and essentially crown a Group SFC champion before the playoffs start. It would take some doing, but it’s possible.

Maybe it’s a company line, but the SFC doesn’t really see the NJIC as an issue. It’s kind of like ‘we wish they were with us, but its OK if they don’t want on this train.’ The two conferences have begun scheduling more regular-season games, and the NJIC has found a cool niche.

“I don’t know how to say this, but they should be adopting our scheduling model,” Fraracchio said. “They should be doing what Dan Vivino does with our schools because I believe our schools are put in the best position to win sectional and state championships.”

Last year was the first year New Jersey crowned public school state champions in each of the five groups. SFC schools won both of the non-public titles (Bergen Catholic in Non-Public A and DePaul in Non-Public B), Caldwell won public Group 2 and Old Tappan won public Group 3. That’s four out of seven state champs from one conference. Going deeper, of the final 14 teams playing in the seven state finals, eight hailed from the SFC.

Some of this is just the way the system is set up (SFC teams make up the bulk of North 1 and North 2 sections), but maybe at the next Media Day, the SFC President should be a featured speaker. There’s lots to say.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Super Football Conference: Inside the rise, what comes next