The wheels on the bus: What Big Central teams have the longest rides to playoff games?

With the high school football playoffs beginning this week, it’s time for one of our most popular stories of the year: a look at who will be sitting on a bus for a long ride down to South Jersey. But, hey, we’re not just looking at our Big Central teams’ gas money here; some deep South Jersey teams have to come up here, too!

This didn’t happen much pre-2019, when the NJSIAA had teams in geographical sections, but when the UPR formula was instituted and the state was split into North and South supersections in each group, and teams assigned to sections based on seed rather than location. (Actually, the changes began in 2018, but that first year, teams were slotted by Northing number.)

And travel is more of an issue in the southern part of the state than in North Jersey. If you split the state in the middle, the North would have many more teams, but in the interest of balance, the line shifts higher, meaning the Central and South playoff sections have the same number of teams, but cover a wider geographical area.

These trips may not be long enough to watch “Gone With the Wind” – with a three hour, 58 minute running time – but with traffic, they’ll take a while. We looked at each trip on Google Maps at 10 am, when traffic is generally light, so expect to add some more time for those Friday afternoon trips!

Hunterdon Central at Washington Twp, 6 pm Friday (1 hour, 29 minutes, 75.8 miles): This is the longest trip for a Big Central team in terms of time, but still six minutes less than last year’s longest first-round Big Central trip, which saw Johnson with a one-hour, 33-minute trip to Pleasantville, near Atlantic City. The Red Devils would take Route 31 down to I-295 to the Philly area, then cut further south. They can shave five minutes off by cutting through Pennsylvania on I-95, but at rush hour? Not advisable. And who’s paying the EZ Pass to cross the bridge at Yardley?

Manville at Paulsboro, 11 am Saturday (1 hour, 23 minutes – 72.7 miles): The Mustangs will be at their school at 7 am to board the bus for this one; that’s an early wake-up call on SAT day, where many teams are playing at 2 pm. This is a trip down I-295 to play Paulsboro, which is just south of Philadephia. It’s the second-longest Big Central trip in terms of time.

Hillside at Haddonfield, 7 pm Friday (1 hour, 17 minutes – 79 miles): A bit shorter than Manville’s sojourn to Paulsboro, this is the longest trip by miles for a Big Central team, taking the Turnpike town to play the Bulldawgs. But let’s ask an honest question: how is the second-northernmost Big Central school in South Jersey? The answer, of course, is there are way more Group 2 schools up North than down South, so there’s a big skew. For comparison’s sake, Summit – the northernmost school in the BCC – is in the North. (More on them in a bit.)

The rest of the Big Central teams on the road all generally have travel times of about an hour or less, but some teams coming up to this neck of the woods have long rides, too.

Absegami at Somerville, 7 pm Friday (1 hour, 37 minutes – 107 miles): This looks like the longest trip in the state to us: Absegami will be riding 107 miles up the Parkway to I-287 to play at Brooks Field, a ride that, in rush-hour on a Friday, is more likely to take two hours. The 14 miles they’ll have to travel on 287 might take a half-hour alone at that point. The Pioneers had one of the longest trips in the league last year, going down to Seneca for a first round game that was “only” 64.6 miles away, but an hour-and-33 minutes. This time, they get to roll in from home.

And who’s got the shortest trip?

Summit at Cranford, 7 pm Friday (22 minutes – 8 miles): It’s a hop-skip-and-a-jump for Summit as the Hilltoppers and Cranford rematch their regular season contest, which Summit won 21-7 at home back on September 28th. Doesn’t everyone wish they could be this close? Montclair visits neighboring East Orange Campus, just 4.3 miles apart, but that’s not even the closest trip. In North 2, Group 1, Wood-Ridge could easily walk the 1.5 miles to Hasbrouck Heights!!