New Jersey football coaches vote in favor of overtime changes, but it’s far from a landslide

In an effort to cut down on tie games in the high school football regular season, the NJSIAA has been considering changes to how overtime is run. And New Jersey’s coaches appear to be in favor of it, but not by a terribly large margin.

The New Jersey Football Coaches Association asked its membership before Christmas to weigh in on the issue. And in its weekly newsletter out Tuesday, the NJFCA reports 54.1 percent of coaches who answered its survey supported a change, while 45.9 percent said to keep it the way it is.

Currently, there’s a maximum of three overtime periods, which each team getting a chance from the 25-yard line, and teams that score a touchdown in the third overtime have to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking the extra point.

The new OT procedure proposes two changes.

The new rules would start teams from the ten-yard line beginning with the second overtime period. Teams would still have to go for two starting with the third overtime, but a fourth period would be added.

That would mean the first OT would start from the 25, the remainder would start from the ten, and teams would have to go for two in the third and fourth overtimes. Those rules would continue into the postseason – as they do now – but, as always, playoff games couldn’t end in a tie. Ties would still be possible in regulation.

NJFCA Commissioner John Jacob told Central Jersey Sports Radio the survey isn’t a vote and is non-binding – it doesn’t officially adopt a new plan, or reject it – it was just to get a feel from the membership to send down to Robbinsville.

And though it was clearly a vote in favor, it was nowhere near, for example, the landslide that voted in 2021 that allowed the NJSIAA to change its constitution to allow for state champions in football, where 94.6 percent said yes.

There haven not necessarily been a plethora of overtime games in recent years.

In the four full football seasons since the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, there have only been four regular season overtime games to end in ties, and all those have come in the last two seasons.

There were three in 2024 and one in 2023. There were none in the two seasons prior, but in 2022, Clayton and Mastery HS of Camden tied when their game was called in the third quarter – with the score 0-0 – due to police receiving a call threatening a shooting at the game.