CRANFORD, NJ — In this year of 2025, official high school football practice in New Jersey began on Monday, Aug. 11.
How much longer before that date creeps into July?
The regular season this year starts Thursday, Aug. 28, the beginning of Week Zero as it’s annually called.
As far back now as 2018, have there been football games in late August, before Labor Day and before school began.
Now, in some school districts, for the first time, school begins before Labor Day. That was never the case in the Garden State.
Not everyone is in favor of an earlier start to the football season.
Cranford High School head coach Erik Rosenmeier, a 1983 Arthur L. Johnson Regional High School graduate, is among that percentage and is very vocal about it.
“Before the pandemic, the topics were heat, concussions and participation,” Rosenmeier said. “We’re starting earlier in hotter weather, which I believe leads to concussions. Also, it’s a negative effect on how many kids come out for the team.
“Kids should still be enjoying their summer vacation time.”
Cranford opens Week Zero on Friday, Aug. 29, at Bernards High School, which is ahead of when Cranford students report to school for the first time. At Cranford, that is still after Labor Day.
“You practice in hotter weather, you put your head down and then there’s more chance of getting a concussion,” Rosenmeier said. “I find it ironic that the state focuses on heat, concussions and participation, yet makes decisions as far as when the season starts that go against those things.
“Kids have to have a summer and spend time with their families before sports begin again.”
When Rosenmeier played his high school football in Clark in the early 1980s, the season didn’t begin until around Sept. 21.
‘That’s the biggest change since I started here, how much earlier everything is now,” said Rosenmeier, who is in his 21st season at the helm of the Cougars.
Cranford is one of 10 Union County schools that is opening Week Zero, with games scheduled to be played Thursday, Aug. 28, and Friday, Aug. 29.
For the first time, Cranford is playing Bernards in a season-opener. Bernards, in the same manner as Cranford, has had one of the top records among public school teams in the state the past 15 years, including winning their first sectional state championship in the playoff era in 2023 when the Mountaineers captured North 2, Group 2.
Much of the earlier start to the season has to do with the fact that football is now played down to a group champion, which began with the 2022 season. Almost all Thanksgiving football is done as a result, even Westfield High School vs. Plainfield High School, who this year will open against each other and then, beginning next year, play each other on the final weekend of the regular season.
Many teams now hand their gear in before Halloween, your typical 2-7 finishes. The Toms River North High Schools of the world are the less than 1% of teams that are able to grab that final glory.
Toms River North captured the first three overall Group 5 state championships, doing so with records of 14-0 in 2022, 12-2 in 2023 and 14-0 again in 2024. Its only losses in 2023 came against parochial schools.
Toms River North, which begins the 2025 season with a 19-game winning streak, last lost to another public team in 2021.
Toms River North won a sectional state championship in 2015 at 11-1 and then went 11-1 again in 2016, reaching another sectional final.
The Mariners then dropped to 1-9 in 2017 before coming back to state championship status the last three years.
