Starting with the 2020 season, the Panthers will be seeing some new scenery.

For the 2020 high school football season, the Saucon Valley Panthers will welcome the Pottsville Crimson Tide and the Lehighton Indians to Hellertown as part of their regular season action. In 2020, the Panthers will also make the trip to Blue Mountain for a Friday night fight with the Eagles.

Last week the Colonial League and Schuylkill League held a joint news conference at the Blue Mountain Resort in Palmerton. The two leagues announced what is being called a football only “scheduling cooperative”. It is not a merger, rather a strategic plan to create better competition in the region.

The Lehighton Indians will become a regular fixture on the Panthers schedule beginning with the 2020 season.

WHY?

Both the Colonial League and the Schuylkill League have experienced growing pains of sorts with some school districts outgrowing the others over the past twenty years or so. The Colonial League has developed into mostly a 3A and 4A league. However, Southern Lehigh is classified as a 5A school while Catasauqua and Palmerton are designated as 2A. The Schuylkill League is similar in that it is home to a majority core of 2A and 3A schools. However, the Schuylkill League also includes a few 4A and 1A schools. When the smaller schools play the larger schools in either league, the outcome is usually predictable and frankly, unfair.

“A large percentage of games where larger schools face smaller schools end up in lopsided games and mercy-rule results,” Saucon Valley Athletic Director Bob Frey offered when asked about the reasoning behind the change. “By scheduling through the cooperative scheduling agreement with the Schuylkill League, there are now 28 schools that will be broken down into divisions based on size.”

The Colonial League and Schuylkill League have agreed to tweak their football scheduling.

SIZE MATTERS!

The solution is to create a “cooperative scheduling agreement” between the two leagues. The twelve Colonial League schools and the sixteen Schuylkill League schools will combine for football and, based on size, divide the schools into four competitive divisions.

“Each week will now be a highly competitive game for each of the schools as they will be playing other schools of similar size,” Frey said.

Starting with the 2020 football season, Saucon Valley will compete in the ‘Gold Division’. The Panthers will play against seven other teams in their division who are of similar size. The team with the best division record will be crowned as divisional champs. In addition, each team will have the opportunity maintain their rivalry games. For example, in 2020 Saucon will continue to play Notre Dame (Week 1), Salisbury (Week 2) and Palisades (Week 10).

Gold Division (mostly 4A)

Bangor
Blue Mountain
Lehighton Indians
Northwestern Lehigh
Pottsville
Saucon Valley
Southern Lehigh (5A)
Wilson

Red Division (mostly 3A)

Jim Thorpe
North Schuylkill
Northern Lehigh
Notre Dame Green Pond
Palisades
Pen Argyl
Salisbury
Tamaqua

White Division (mostly 2A)

Pine Grove
Schuylkill Haven
Mahanoy Area
Catasauqua
Palmerton
Minersville

Blue Division (mostly 1A)

Panther Valley
Shenandoah
Marian Catholic
Tri-Valley
Nativity BVM
Williams Valley

The Jungle will be welcoming a few new opponents starting in 2020.

In addition, with the District XI playoff seedings based on a formula that somewhat penalizes teams for playing opponents with lower classifications, a disadvantage is created for the larger schools within a league who are competing to participate in post-season play. The bigger schools may get the league win, but not necessarily the points necessary that will help them qualify for the PIAA playoffs.

The benefits of a big school like Southern Lehigh (5A) playing a small school like Catasauqua (2A) are minimal. Southern Lehigh is more than twice the size of Catty in terms of student enrollment and defeated Catty on the gridiron last season 63-7. The mercy-rule clock was triggered to start the second half in this game. Further, Southern Lehigh may have received a win, but because Catty is only a 2A school, Southern Lehigh didn’t benefit much from this victory as far as the District XI playoff rankings were concerned.

“District XI playoff rankings will be decided on the field,” Frey offered as a benefit. “Of the nine schools in Saucon Valley’s District XI classification (4A), all will now appear on Saucon Valley’s regular season schedule with the exception of Bethlehem Catholic and Allentown Central Catholic. This will be of specific help to Saucon Valley in seeding for the District XI playoff rankings as we will be playing a schedule with a concentration of larger schools.” Post-season play will be more directly determined by weekly performance and head to head competition.

Ch-Ch-Changes?

Aside from competing against schools of similar size for a division crown, the biggest changes for Panther Nation are going to be some new opponents, a little bit more travel and the likelihood of the Middle School and JV programs playing some games on Saturdays.

“There really aren’t that many disadvantages,” Frey noted. “Travel impacts are really pretty minimal. Saucon Valley trades a game with Palmerton (2A) for a game with Lehighton (4A).” Lehighton Area High School is five miles further away from Saucon Valley than Palmerton.

Panther fans will notice that longer commutes to Blue Mountain (51 miles) and Pottsville (59 miles) are now in the future. “There is some additional travel,” Frey acknowledged. “But, considering travel is relatively easy via I-78 to those locations, especially to Blue Mountain, the impact is minimal. In addition, travel to these locations only takes place every other year.”

Perhaps, the biggest change is not even with the high profile varsity programs. Rather, it is in the scheduling of middle school and junior varsity games. “Although details still need to be worked out, discussion is taking place among schools about the possibility of playing at least some games on Saturday,” Frey added. “Especially, with those schools with longer travel times.”

When asked if there have been any talks between the two leagues about possibly expanding the scheduling agreement beyond football to include other sports, Frey said that there has been no discussion and that it is unlikely.