We've Moved To The New NVL Blog!

We've moved the whole operation over to our brand-new Naugatuck Valley League Football Blog! Of course, we'd like for you to join us as we try to improve our discussion of local high school football on our own new forum.

Click on any of the links in this post or head on over to www.nvlfootballblog.com to visit our new blog. We'll keep this one up as our archive for old posts, but this will be the last post here and the comments will be shut down.

Our new blog will allow us to better ensure smooth discussion on our commenting system, better design for more features and organization, and the same, great football discussion you guys have all helped us build over the last few years.

Thank you all so much for your support and visitation over the last few years, and we look forward to continuing our pastime at our new website. Make sure you change your bookmarks!

So without further ado, join us on the new NVL Football Blog!

Getting Closer And Closer, So We Update You

As many of you know, I'm sure, today was the start of conditioning for the teams who elected to start their fall seasons early (here's looking at you, Derby, Sacred Heart, Seymour, Watertown and Wolcott). The rest of the teams begin Monday.

If for whatever reason you decide to watch whatever happens at these practices, feel free to post something interesting.

I'll let you peruse Mark Jaffee's work (he's been all over it, like usual) over the last week to address our two main issues this summer.

UPDATE: Capuano Fills In At Wilby

Wilby will not hire a full-time coach for this season following the somewhat-unexpected-but-not-really resignation of Patrick Russo earlier this month. Wilby AD Steve Baldwin told the Rep-Am that the school will hire an interim coach in time to start conditioning Monday.

And the school did. Jaffee reports Gino Capuano will be the interim coach. Capuano formerly coached the Wilby freshmen under Chris Eckert and played and coached at Watertown.

Coggins, Martin Still Not Enrolled At Naugatuck

Coggins. Credit: Chris Massa/RA

As I mentioned in my post late last month, there was some red tape to be overcome in Sacred Heart-to-Naugatuck transfer situation. That is still the case, according to Jaffee's report today.

Xavier Woods is all set to begin practice Monday. Dave Coggins and Javon Martin are not. The issues of tuition payments and transcript releases have still not been resolved, and apparently Martin's mother (also Coggins' guardian) hasn't yet even found a place to settle in Naugatuck.

You figure Coggins and Martin have to be enrolled in a school somewhere come the end of the month, but it's anyone's guess as to which school that might be at this point.

NVL Blog Update

Hope y'all are excited because hopefully this is our last-ever post on this version of the NVL Football Blog. We'll be rolling out a new, better-than-ever version of the blog in the very near future (we're working on it as you read this). It should be pretty cool.

That's been the reason we're holding off a few days on our season previews. We plan on starting the 2012 season with a totally fresh blog. Hopefully we can start rolling out the previews (and once they start, they're going to be rapid-fire) before everyone else starts practice Monday.

Cheers!

Russo Officially Out At Wilby

Patrick Russo is out at Wilby after one year.
Credit: Erin Covey/Rep-Am

We've received final word, via Mark Jaffee's report in the Republican-American, that Patrick Russo is officially out at Wilby.

This one went back and forth for a while. The rumors that he would be resigning or forced out kicked up about a month ago, but we received an email last week from the Wilby football account that Russo was staying. An email to Wilby athletic director Steve Baldwin was never returned, and he hasn't returned messages from Jaffee, either.

But Russo left a message with Jaffee that he would be resigning to focus on coaching his sons in Pop Warner football, and Wilby's principal confirmed the exit. The move will become official this week and Wilby can then post the job, which might be tough to fill from the outside with such little time until the season begins.

It's the second offseason in a row that Russo has left an NVL coaching job after doing the same at Wolcott, although that exit was earlier in the offseason. We'll see what happens with Wilby.

Make of this what you will. Some people think there's more behind it and some take it at face value. Regardless, Russo will not be on an NVL sideline this fall.

We're enjoying reading all the banter started by last thread about the Naugatuck transfers. We'll kick this thing into high gear in about 10 days (as soon as I'm back from Stamford).