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High school football: Big Bone game moves from Thanksgiving to Labor Day weekend

The Big Bone game between Lincoln and San Jose, the longest-running Thanksgiving Day high school football rivalry series west of Missouri, has a new home on the calendar.

It is moving to Labor Day weekend.

This season’s matchup between San Jose’s oldest public high schools is scheduled to be played on Sept. 3 at Lincoln.

“It’s not something that happened overnight,” longtime Lincoln coach Kevin Collins said. “It’s been a gradual progression.”

The rivalry has waned over the past two decades as Lincoln has dominated the series. The Lions’ victory in the most recent Big Bone game, Nov. 28, 2019, was its 22nd in a row over San Jose.

With many of the games not competitive, attendance has declined and talk of pulling the plug has gone on for a few years.

The games top has bounced around in recent seasons from its longtime home, San Jose City College, to Oak Grove and Independence high schools.

The 2019 game was played at Lincoln.

Messages to San Jose principal Sarah Field and athletic director Luis Lerma were not returned.

Collins, who has coached Lincoln for more than a quarter-century, said his players were a little saddened because the move to Labor Day weekend will eliminate pregame activities such as the Bog Bone breakfast and dance.

But Collins said both of those events probably would not have happened this season because of COVID-19.

“They’re a little disappointed but also excited with the idea that if we have a good season we could go to the playoffs,” Collins said.

The Central Coast Section playoffs have become more enticing for Lincoln since the section went to a competitive-equity model in 2019. If Lincoln were to qualify for the postseason, it would be placed in a bracket with teams at its level.

The 2020 Big Bone game was not played because of the pandemic. The teams did not play in the spring 2021 season.

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James Clarke, the last San Jose coach to win the Big Bone, sent reporters a letter before the 2019 game in support of the game continuing on Thanksgiving.

“This is a CITY Tradition where families are divided on Thanksgiving Day, where in the past Thanksgiving family festivities were planned around going to the game, seeing old classmates and Alumni reliving the past, both good and bad, the wins and losses,” the former San Jose coach wrote. “This Game cannot go away, it needs to continue.”