The Baltimore-Washington area's two strongest high school football leagues, the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association and the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference are in the early stages of discussing a possible merger by fall 2011. In the meantime, the possibilities of such a merger will be showcased at the inaugural I-95 Classic on Sept. 4 at Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium.

Although the lineup is still tentative, the Classic is set to finish off the day with a meeting between defending MIAA A Conference champion Gilman and WCAC champ Good Counsel. The two played in September with Good Counsel taking a 49-37 victory.
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The tentative slate of games: Mount St. Joseph vs. Bishop McNamara at 11 a.m.; Loyola vs. DeMatha at 2 p.m.; Calvert Hall vs. Archbishop Spalding at 5 p.m.; and Gilman vs. Good Counsel at 8 p.m.

“We wanted to put something out there to highlight the power that we have as high school football in the state,” said Tony Kennedy, who is organizing the event through his nonprofit organization Extra Point.

“Most states are gauged on their high school football by their college teams. In California, you have USC; in Florida, you look at Miami; in Texas, you look at Texas, and so on, but that’s a little deceptive because two-thirds of our athletes don’t go to the University of Maryland. It’s unfortunate that all our kids don’t go to one school. Then you could really gauge our high school football,” Kennedy said.

“In setting up this, we wanted to flex our muscles to the rest of the country. The teams that are in this Classic are some of the best teams on the East Coast.”