Official Strength Index values for every New Jersey team heading into Cutoff Weekend

As coaches around the state try to figure out where they might land in the playoffs, who they’ll play, or even if they’ll get in at all, the key number they’ll need is the Strength Index value of their opponents.

The Strength Index – a number that changes every game based on the results in relation to the SI value of both teams – is locked in this week, but only for playoff calculation purposes. This makes the art of predicting a little easier, taking one more variable out of the equation.

Using our own calculations – and comparing to the official numbers used by Gridiron New Jersey, which calculates the playoff formula for the NJSIAA – we’ve compiled a list of every high school football team in the state, along with their Strength Index number.

The SI is used to calculate a team’s OSI, with teams getting the full value of a team for a win, half for a loss, and three-quarters for a tie. Inotherwords, a team that defeats an opponent with an SI of 80 gets an 80 added to their average. A loss nets 40, and a tie nets 60.

While the numbers are locked this week for calculating OSI, they are still run behind the scenes and for the entire rest of the year, whether it’s a playoff game, consolation, regular season game – even Thanksgiving. That’s because the final numbers from this season are recentered one-third of the way to a midpoint of 60 (teams above 60 go down 1/3, while teams above rise by 1/3) to make things more even at the start of the next season. (Example: A team rated 90 would go down by 10 to an 80, or one-third of the way to 60. A team rated 51 would go up by 3 to a 54, one one-third of the way to 60.)

Click below for a full, downloadable .pdf file with a list of New Jersey schools and their Strength Index values as of 10 pm on October 16. Please note that values may change if errors are discovered by Gridiron New Jersey, as was the case last week with at least four known games that had wrong scores reported, affecting dozens of other teams in the process.