No. 1 New Canaan vs. No. 2 Greenwich is just the start of an epic FCIAC football stretch

It's like déjà vu all over again, the late, great Yankees catcher Yogi Berra said, referring to watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris belt back-to-back home runs in 1961. 

Fast-forwarding a few generations (and significantly narrowing the cultural scope), and that's what Friday's Week 7 football showdown between No. 1 New Canaan and No. 2* Greenwich feels like and has felt like for a year now.

None of us are surprised. Since the 2026 schedules were announced, with the FCIAC's home-and-home schedules reversed and this matchup set again at the season's midpoint, the countdown was on for a rematch of last year's battle atop the New Haven Register/GameTimeCT Top 10 football poll.

New Canaan is a four-time defending Class L champion. Greenwich is a two-time defending Class LL champion and has won three titles in four seasons.

As long as nobody slacked off in the offseason - and we thank their respective coaching staffs for running tight ships - New Canaan-Greenwich II has been fait accompli. All they had to do was brush aside a few pesky obstacles - nice try, Alliance schedule makers - and get here in one piece, 5-0.

They've done just that, with a tour de force we've come to expect out of Fairfield County for the better part of a dozen years. 

Many of the names have changed, but the uniforms still look the same as they play the same. Only 14 and 13 points have been allowed, respectively, by the Rams and Cardinals this season, and far too many points for.

The league has been home to the final Register/GameTimeCT No. 1 team every year since Southington claimed it in 2014. 

And, by watching tonight's matchup, the season's results to date, the five FCIAC teams that have been camped among the Top 10 poll all season, and the fact that Hand (easily the best non-FCIAC team out there) won't get to play any of them in Class SS - and you get the message that it's a trend that's not ending soon.

Not a fan? Get used to it. Southington, 5-0 in Class LL, appears to be the only one that might mount a resistance. Then again, the Blue Knights were wholly outmatched against Greenwich in last year's LL final.

Yep. The FCIAC remains the meanest, toughest, baddest bros low down around this town. Tonight, we get to see who's the meanest, toughest, baddest one of all.

For a week, at least.

Huh? Oh, did you not catch that asterisk on Greenwich's No. 2 ranking? Never good (as Roger Maris once discovered).

That's the tie at No. 2 that unbeaten and dominant Greenwich has had hanging over its collective head all week, courtesy of some fickle, if not impatient voters who have begun to think the Cards aren't the second-best team in the FCIAC ever before this game kicks off.

Apparently, a few of us just couldn't wait to bring Class MM favorite St. Joseph in lock-step with the Cards in the state rankings. 

Not without cause, mind you. After all, the formerly ranked No. 3 Hogs, idle this week, have been equally as dominant as tonight's combatants. 

Led by a Big Ten-bound monster named Will Zaccagnino, St. Joseph's defense has been touted the state's best, and the offense, led by fellow New Haven Register All-Stater Jake Rios, might be the best of all three.

Yet, this unprecedented move - and we can't remember anything like it in state polling history (prove us wrong, historians), added extra spice to a game that actually needed none.

Yet, there it is: Greenwich and St. Joseph: T2.

There's good news amid this prognostication kerfuffle: Judgment Day won't be one night only this season.

Last year, after New Canaan knocked off Greenwich 14-7, the Rams had very few high hurdles remaining on their road to the state title. Greenwich famously got upset by Wilton a few weeks later, but that didn't ruin its final No. 3 ranking.

This year, their judgment cometh, and that right soon.

Tonight's game is only the beginning. 

Next week, New Canaan faces No. 6 and unbeaten Ludlowe at Dunning Field.

The week after that, they play host to the current T2-ranked Hogs.

The week after that, the Hogs head home to face Greenwich at Dalling Field, high noon on a Saturday.

The week after that, on Thanksgiving, Greenwich plays current No. 7 Staples in Westport. 

Can't say we've seen anything like this lineup of epic encounters in at least 15 years. 

FCIAC fans will recall the madness of 2009. So will I: It was the greatest two-month stretch in my 25 years covering the sport here.

New Canaan knocked off Tyler Matakevich and St. Joseph in a rainy home shootout. Christon Gill and Bridgeport Central, who were shut out by Trumbull a few weeks before, stunned Greenwich at Kennedy Stadium. The next week,  No. 1 New Canaan rallied to stun Greenwich with a hook-and-ladder 2-point conversion and took a 24-game win streak up to rainy Kennedy, where Gill and Central thumped ‘em 42-7 to reach the FCIAC championship game.

All the while Staples was lurking in the shadows. Central had them beat in that final, but the Wreckers rallied to win it in an epic.

There's no FCIAC championship anymore. Staples still blames it for ruining their Class LL title dreams that season, Central hit ‘em so hard. And after all that FCIAC madness, Notre Dame-West Haven finished as the No. 1-ranked team when the season was through (So, there's still hope for your, Hand).

But, anyway, thata's the kind of football we could be witnessing over the next five weeks.

Like a solar eclipse, No. 1 vs. No. 2 typically only comes around once every three or four years.

But right now, the stars are indeed aligned for a great conjunction that'll last the rest of the season.

Enjoy tonight, just don't ruin your appetite.

This article originally published at No. 1 New Canaan vs. No. 2 Greenwich is just the start of an epic FCIAC football stretch.