Four Connecticut High School Football Teams Open Season With Two Straight Shutouts
The short version
- Ansonia, Hand, New Canaan and Staples are 2-0 with zero points allowed.
- New Canaan is No. 1 and Hand No. 4 in the GametimeCT poll; both are defending champions.
- Four teams with opening shutout streaks is the most since 2022.
- Bloomfield (2018) is the only team since 2011 to open with two shutouts and win a state title.
- Week 3 games: Ansonia hosts Waterbury Career Academy Thursday; the other three play Friday on the road.
Ansonia, Hand, New Canaan and Staples are all 2-0 and have yet to surrender a point heading into Week 3.
Four Connecticut high school football teams have not given up a point through the first two weeks of the 2026 season. Ansonia, Hand, New Canaan and Staples are each 2-0 with clean sheets, and all four reached the playoffs a year ago. Two of them, top-ranked New Canaan and No. 4 Hand, appear in the latest GametimeCT poll, and both are defending champions.
Staples has been the most prolific of the group, outscoring Westhill and South Windsor by a combined 109-0. Hand has scored 75 points, New Canaan 74 and Ansonia 44. New Canaan's results include a 47-0 win over Trumbull and a 27-0 victory against No. 10 Fairfield Prep.
Four teams starting with consecutive shutouts is the highest total since 2022, when the same number did it. Since 2011, only one of the 33 teams that opened with two shutouts went on to win a state title: Bloomfield, which beat Haddam-Killingworth 25-7 in the 2018 Class S final on the way to a 12-1 season.
Only three teams in the past 15 years have extended a shutout streak to three games — Cromwell/Portland and Middletown in their respective seasons and Tolland in 2016 — and none has done it through four games since 2011.
All four unbeaten defenses face road tests in Week 3. New Canaan, Hand and Staples each play Friday, Sept. 25 at 7 p.m., at McMahon, North Haven and Ridgefield respectively, while Ansonia hosts Waterbury Career Academy on Thursday, Sept. 24 at 6 p.m.
