Cutoff Weekend is this Saturday. It’s the final weekend before the NJSIAA announces the playoff seeding for the 2022 postseason. It’s a complicated system used by the state, but we have you covered, explaining it all in plain, simple English. (We hope!)
The Non-Public school cutoff is next weekend, and with those brackets seeded by a committee, we’re focusing on the public schools this week. Here we go!
How many teams make the playoffs?
There are five groups in the state, and each group is divided into two supersections, North and South. The top 16 teams in each supersection qualify for the playoffs, so that’s 32 per group, 160 statewide. About half the teams in the state that make the playoffs.
How are they broken down?
Once the top 16 are chosen (we’ll get to how tiebreakers and such are decided later), two sectional brackets of eight teams each are seeded in a snaking fashion. That is, the overall No. 1 seed goes into a section with the overall Nos. 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16 teams. That section is named for the top (overall) seed’s “traditional” section (South, Central, North 1 or North 2). The other section’s top seed – No. 2 overall – goes into the other section with overall Nos. 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, and 15. This is much like how the NCAA seeds its college basketball tournament every year and is aimed at ensuring parity between the brackets, rather than sections determined solely by geography, where one may be “stronger” than the other.
How are the teams ranked?
Since 2018, New Jersey has used the United Power Ranking (UPR), a mix of traditional power points, and what now is the Opponent Strength Index (the Born Power Index was used in for one year, in 2018, before it was scrapped, and a similar formula was used, but in reverse fashion).
So how do I figure the UPR?
There are two factors to UPR: a team’s power point average and a team’s Opponent Strength Index (OSI). Every team in a supersection is ranked in both categories. The UPR formula is 40% power point average and 60% OSI. To find the UPR, take a team’s ranking in each, and multiply their power point rank by 0.4, their OSI rank by 0.6, and add the numbers. A lower UPR is better.
For example: a team ranked first in both power point average and OSI would have a UPR of 1. (Power point rank 1 x 0.4 = 0.4, while OSI rank 1 x 0.6 = 0.6, then add 0.4 + 0.6 = 1.
A team ranked first in power point average and second in OSI would get 2 x 0.6 for OSI for 1.2, adding 0.4 for power point average, would give them a 1.6 UPR. But a team ranked first in OSI and second in power point average would be 0.4 x 2 = 0.8 plus 0.6 for OSI for a 1.4 UPR. Since 1.4 UPR is lower than 1.6 UPR, the team with a 1.4 UPR is higher than the 1.6 team (because OSI weighs more heavily).
That’s good, but how do I figure power points?
Power point calculations remain essentially the same as they’ve been for years. A team that wins a game gets 6 quality points for the win, Group points based on the group size school (i.e., 5 for a Group 5 opponent) and 3 points for every win by an opponent, but only up to the opponent’s first seven games. A loss earns no quality or group points, but 1 residual point for every win by that team.
Beating a Group 5 school with 4 wins results in 6 quality points, 5 Group points, and 12 residuals (3 for each of the 4 wins) for a total of 23 points. Losing to that same school would result in 5 points (1 for each of the wins, including the one against your team – that used to not count in the past). The power points are averaged out over however many teams a game played, so unlike previous years, where a team’s ninth game didn’t count, every game counts (and has since the implementation of the URP system in 2018).
One more not on this: some coaches ask if it’s better to play eight or nine games, or even seven before the cutoff. The answer is it doesn’t matter, because it’s an average. The old way, when power points were cumulative, even a loss would get you more points. But now it’s an average. A win typically increases your average (unless you play a winless team) while a loss typically lowers it.
OK, I remember power points, but how do I figure OSI?
This is a little complicated, but it’s also simple. You start with the fact that every team has a Strength Index number, determined by how well you do against another team – win or lose – based on the relative strength of the two teams. These numbers change every time a game is played, except they are locked in for calculation purposes only heading into Cutoff Weekend. (They’re run behind the scenes because next year’s preseason number is based on this season’s final number, so they keep on getting calculated throughout the playoffs, consolations, etc.)
If Team A has a Strength Index of 70 and Team B is a 60, Team A is considered stronger by 10 points. If Team A wins by more than that, its Strength Index goes up, and Team B goes down by the same amount. The theory is that Team A outperformed its Strength Index value, and Team B underperformed.
If Team A wins by fewer points, or loses, it didn’t meet expectations, and Team B outperformed its expectations. Team B goes up and Team A goes down, by the same amount.
The amount of change is 1/5 the difference between the actual and expected result. In this example, if Team A wins by 20, the difference is 10. One-fifth is 2, so Team A becomes goes up by 2 points and becomes a 72, while Team B becomes a 58.
If Team B won by 10, it outperformed by 20, since it was “supposed to” lose by 10. One fifth of 20 is 4. Team B would go up from 60 to 64, Team A would drop from 70 to a 66.
But that’s the SI, which is used to get the OSI, the Opponent Strength Index.
The OSI is calculated by taking the full value of an opponent you beat, and half the value of a team you lost to, and averaging it out. If you beat an 80, you get 80. A loss gets you 40. If you played two games, beating an 80 and losing to an 80, you’d have 80 + 40 = 120, divided by two (averaged) you get 60, the OSI.
In this system, teams are rewarded for doing well against strong opponents. Losing to a team with a Strength Index of 80 is just as good as beating a team with an SI of 40. If your schedule has too many weak OSI teams, you might not make the playoffs going 8-0.
How does my team move up or down in UPR?
This part can get confusing. While a team wants to move up as much as it can in UPR, it can’t do so directly. Since it’s two ranking systems (power points and OSI) that make up the UPR, you need to climb in those rankings to make up ground. Every time you move up one spot in the power points its worth 0.4 UPR points. Moving up in OSI by one place is with 0.6 UPR points.
So if you need to jump a team in front of you by 0.2 UPR points, moving up just one place in either ranking will do it.
The trick is this: sometimes they are not all the same teams in front of you. For example, say your team is in 9th place overall. But the team in front of them in UPR might be 11th in power points and 8th in OSI. So you can only catch them in OSI. They’re already behind you in power points. It’s tricky. And the team ahead of you in power points might be behind you in OSI.
Now, what about all those tiebreakers?
Once the 16 teams are determined by UPR, some may end up tied. The tiebreakers are: head-to-head, common opponents, OSI ranking, power point ranking, and – in the end – a coin flip.
But there’s still one more thing to check for, any head to head results where teams are not tied. That goes from the top-down. If the No. 2 team beat the No. 1 team head-to-head during the year, they flip. No. 2 becomes the new No. 1 team. Then they look at the third team. It’s possible to move more than one place, so if the No. 3 team beat No. 2, it moves up, and if No. 3 beat No. 1, they move up again. Then they go to No. 4.
This rule only is in effect with a team directly behind another. Inotherwords, if No. 3 beat No. 1 but did not beat No. 2, team No. 3 cannot move up.
Once that’s settled, the sectional brackets are filled as described above.
But wait, is there more?
Of course, this is New Jersey. There are always a few caveats:
Going back to power points, teams that played two multipliers in past seasons could only claim the best of them, while the other got traditional power points. For some reason (the Shore Conference and WJFL wanted it) the NJSIAA allowed two this year, which has greatly affected some supersections – like South 5, with Lenape and Cherokee – in an unnatural way.
Multipliers are set, inflated power point values assigned to certain Non-Public schools like Bergen Catholic, Don Bosco Prep, St. John Vianney, or St. Joseph-Hammonton. The full list can be found on the NJSIAA website.
In addition, any undefeated team not finishing in the top 16 automatically qualifies for the playoffs, while the minimum number of wins to qualify for postseason play is two victories against New Jersey schools. A team with one win or no wins, regardless of where they stand, will not be eligible for the postseason.
What happens after the sectional semifinals?
Since 2018, there has been one more round. That first year they were called “Regional Bowl Championships,” then just “Regional Championships.” Essentially, they were group semifinals that ended that. Kind of like a tie. Yuck!
Two years ago, the NJSIAA struck language from its Constitution that disallowed naming Group Champions in football, as is done in every other scholastic sport in New Jersey. Then, last year, the membership voted overwhelmingly to expand the playoffs to Group Champions.
So, once sectional champs are crowned – with games at higher seeds – group semifinals will take place the following weekend. The South vs. Central games will be at Cherokee High School in South Jersey, while the North 1 vs. North 2 games will be at Franklin High School in Somerset County.
After a week off for Thanksgiving – and Turkey Day games, a big sticking point to getting this far in the past – Group Champions in Groups 1 through 5 will be crowned the first weekend of December at Rutgers University’s SHI Stadium in Piscataway.
Did I hear there’s another tournament this year?
Yes, instead of the teams that don’t make the top 16 getting “consolation” games, whose pairings were sometimes criticized, the next eight teams (Nos. 17-24) will make up a “Regional Invitational Tournament.” Those eight teams will be split into two groups by Northing number (a geographical latitudinal measure, North to South) and the brackets seeded. There will be two mini four-team brackets.
The remaining teams (24 through the end, some sections have 32 teams, some have fewer) will play consolation games, if they so wish.
Let’s look at an example:
Here are the standings as we head into Cutoff Weekend in North Group 5, which has a couple of ties, and some head-to-head tiebreakers as well.
If the playoffs started today – which they don’t, of course – Phillipsburg would be the top seed in North 2, Group 5. So the next team down would be the North 1, Group 5 top seed, but it wouldn’t be Passaic Tech. While they are ranked ahead of Ridgewood in power points and OSI, Ridgewood beat them earlier this regular season. So Ridgewood would get the No. 2 spot, and the top-seed in North 1, Group 5.
Then we check Union City, which also played Passaic Tech, but lost. So PCTI stays in third, and Union City in fourth.
Now we have to break the Watchung Hills/Clifton tie. They did not meet head-to-head and have no common opponents, so next up is OSI rank, and Watchung Hills is 5th, while Clifton is 7th, so the tie goes to the Warriors. Now, did they play Union City head-to-head? No, so they stay in 5th. Clifton didn’t play Westfield, so they stay in 6th, Westfield in 7th, and East Orange in 8th. Eastside remains 9th, followed by Piscataway at No. 10.
Bridgewater and West Orange are tied for 11th, but didn’t play each other. They do have a common opponent in Passaic Tech, but both lost to PCTI, so we’re still tied. Bridgewater is 9th in OSI rank, and West Orange 11th, to the Panthers are the No. 11 team overall. West Orange is 12th, and beat the team behind them – Montclair – so they remain, while the Mounties are 13th. Union stays at 14, Bayonne at 15. Elizabeth and Morristown are tied for 16th with a 17 UPR. They didn’t play head-to-head and had no common opponents. The Minutemen have the higher OSI rank of 15, with the Colonials at 17, so Elizabeth gets the 16th overall position, and the field is set.
Now, we snake the bracket, as described above. For the first section, we go 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 16. So, the two sections are as follows:
NORTH JERSEY, SECTION 2, GROUP 5
- Phillipsburg
- Union City
- Watchung Hills
- East Orange
- Eastside
- West Orange
- Montclair
- Elizabeth
NORTH JERSEY, SECTION 1, GROUP 5
- Ridgewood
- Passaic Tech
- Clifton
- Westfield
- PIscataway
- Bridgewater-Raritan
- Union
- Bayonne
The winners of those traditional 8-team brackets would play in the sectional semifinals the week before Thanksgiving, and the winner would play the winner of the South 5 vs. Central 5 semifinal on the first weekend of December at Rutgers.
Whew!
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