By Jack Krampitz

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) announced Friday its plan for the fall high school sports season.

All sports will have abbreviated schedules, starting later and ending earlier. Football teams will play a six-game schedule, followed by a two-game “playoff” schedule in which all teams will participate.

All the other fall sports teams will play 12-game schedules, again followed by a “playoff” schedule where all teams will be given extra games to play.

The start of practice for all teams except football is Aug. 27. At that time coaches are expected to cohort their student-athletes in groups of 15 for practices that are primarily conditioning and some individual skill work.

Football can begin meeting on Aug. 17, but the first few days are for distributing equipment, reviewing play books and discussing locker room and safety requirements.

The first day of full team practice is Sept. 11, and the first contests of the season can occur on Sept. 24. The last day for regular season contests is Oct. 30 (29 for cross country).

As mentioned earlier, in what the CIAC calls “the Tourney Experience,” all teams will be eligible to play extra contests starting on Nov. 2 and continuing to Nov. 15.  The format for the contests will be announced later.

For Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern high schools that means the season there will not be the traditional Thanksgiving Day game, since the season ends earlier than usual.

All of the contests the teams participate in will be scheduled regionally, cutting down on long road trips.

Fan attendance will be determined by local school districts.

The CIAC guidelines for the fall were published in detail a day after Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke at a conference with Gov. Ned Lamont. Emanuel said he did not see how football, or any contact sports, could be played this fall.

Glen Lungarini, the executive director of the CIAC, responded that the entire plan being released “remains fluid.”

“We understand that what we have today can change based on what the health metrics and the recommendations are tomorrow,” Lungarini said.

“But we recognize that our student-athletes really need sports, not just the educational component of this to truly come back to that school experience.”

To read the CIAC report in detail go to casciac.org/fallplan/.