As if adjusting to league realignment isn't enough, some local football teams in the Jersey Sports Now area are scrambling to fill a sudden hole in their schedules caused by the closure of one Catholic school and the suspension of another school's football program.

Paterson Catholic closed its doors for good in June, just weeks after announcing its plans to shut down. The decision threw a monkey wrench in all the planning done for the new North Jersey Interscholastic Conference (NJIC), the new league for smaller schools in Passaic and Bergen Counties that begins play this fall.

In the short term, the closure of PC meant nine teams suddenly had a hole in their football schedule for this fall. That list included Pompton Lakes, which was slated to play the Cougars in its season opener.

Meantime, a group of Morris County schools were recently hit by the unexpected announcement that Morristown-Beard would suspend its varsity football program for one year due to a shortage of players. Six JSN-area teams play in the Independence Division of the NJAC (Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference) with the Crimson.

There would seem to be a simple solution to this problem: have the teams affected by each situation just play each other. But the timing was poor, as the announcement of the Paterson Catholic closure came more than a month earlier than Mo-Beard's decision. That meant some of the NJIC schools found games before the NJAC teams learned they needed a new opponent.

So at this time, only two local schools have apparently filled their openings, with Pompton Lakes traveling to play Kinnelon in the season's first week. That matchup works out quite well, as it involves two schools just minutes apart who rarely play each other.

But for five other local schools--Boonton, Butler, Mountain Lakes, Pequannock and Whippany Park--the hopes of filling the unexpected gap in their schedules may be slim. With the opening kickoff just two months away, it will take some real work to find an opponent with the same open date anywhere in the tri-state area.

-- Paul Mencher for Jersey Sports Now