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West Jersey Football League

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The West Jersey Football League (or the WJFL) is a 96-school superconference that stretches from Princeton, New Jersey, to Wildwood, New Jersey, encompassing schools from the Colonial Valley Conference, the Burlington County Scholastic League, the Olympic Conference (New Jersey), the Tri-County Conference (New Jersey), the Colonial Conference (New Jersey), and the Cape-Atlantic League. The WJFL is made up of 16 divisions: (American, Capitol, Classic, Colonial, Constitution, Continental, Diamond, Freedom, Independence, Liberty, Memorial, National, Patriot, Royal, United, and Valley) with divisional alignments being based on school size, geography, and a strength-of-program component. The league operates under the auspices of the Leagues and Conferences Committee of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Three new schools (who are debut programs) were added to the league in the 2024 season. Those schools are Mastery High School of Camden, first-year program Atlantic County Institute of Technology, and KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy. New Egypt High School left the WJFL in 2024 to join the Shore Conference. The league covers teams from counties ranging from Mercer to Cape May.

History

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The league comprises 96 teams from public and private high schools in South Jersey and is the second-largest high school football league in New Jersey. The league was created in 2010 as a better way to balance teams that had faced imbalances in the size and quality of teams within conferences. While some regretted the loss of old rivalries, the conference made an effort to establish crossover games between teams that had traditions under which they had played each other regularly in the past.

With a decline in the number of student athletes playing football at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North that would be inadequate for the school to field a team of its own, the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District attempted to combine the teams from the two schools to have them operate as a single co-operative football team for the 2017–18 school year based at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South. Given that the size of the schools is larger than the threshold established by the state for co-op programs (North is classified as Group 3 and South as Group 4 based on the size of the enrollment of each school), the proposal was rejected in a 76–16 vote by the West Jersey Football League and by the Leagues and Conferences Committee of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, before an appeal of the decision was rejected by the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education.[1] In August 2017, the district announced that WW-P North would cancel its program. The members of the canceled program will be eligible to play for the North junior varsity football team, but will not be able to play for the South team.[2]

Divisions

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Here is the 2024–25 West Jersey Football League divisional alignment. The new divisions were announced by the WJFL on November 29, 2023. Division alignments change every two years depending on school size. The schools are organized into their 2024–25 NJSIAA group classification. Each division’s number of teams range from 5 to 7.

American Division
Capitol Division
Classic Division
Colonial Division
Constitution Division
Continental Division
Diamond Division
Freedom Division
Horizon Division
Independence Division
Liberty Division
Memorial Division
National Division
Patriot Division
Royal Division
United Division
Valley Division

References

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  1. ^ Miller, Sean. "State denies West Windsor-Plainsboro's appeal in football merger", The Times (Trenton), July 12, 2017. Accessed September 25, 2017. "The New Jersey Commissioner of Education's office on Wednesday rejected an appeal by the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district for emergent action in its plan to merge the North and South High School football teams.... The district wanted the two school football teams, WW-P North and WW-P South, to combine into a 'co-op' for the upcoming 2017 season. But the NJSIAA denied the action, because North is classified as a Group 3 school and South as a Group 4."
  2. ^ Kahn, Lea. "West Windsor-Plainsboro North varsity football season canceled", CentralJersey.com, August 10, 2017. Accessed September 25, 2017. "West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North will not field a varsity football team this season because of a lack of players, according to West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District officials. The varsity football program at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South will continue but players from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North will not be allowed to play for that team."
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