NJSIAA football committee looks at additional playoff tweaks, but OT stays the same… for now

The NJSIAA’s football comittee plans on keeping overtime the same for now, but is looking at additional tweaks to the playoff system to balance the competitiveness with geography.

At its January 21st meeting, the committee discussed a number of topics, but the biggest item to come out of it was about the playoffs.

In its Post-Season in review, NJSIAA Executive Director Colleen Maguire presented a proposal from the Football Leagues & Conferences to modify the seeding rules for the public playoffs.

Currently, the top 16 teams in each supersection – one North and one South – qualify for the postseason. The overall No. 1 seed goes into its “traditional” section – i.e., North 1 or 2, South or Central – and the overall No. 2 is the top seed in the other section. Then, the brackets are “snaked,” with one side featuring overall seeds 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16, while the other has seeds 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15.

The new format would designate the top two seeds the same way, but then take overall seeds 3 through 16 and sort them geographically. The northernmost seven teams would go with the top seed in the northernmost section (North 1 or Central) while the others would go in the southernmost section (North 2 or South). Those seven teams would then be seeded in order of overall finish.

Tiebreakers would still be handled on the overall seeds 1 through 16, as would any head-to-head adjustments. They would not come into play once each eight-team bracket is seeded.

When the NJSIAA first adopted the UPR playoff formula in 2018, this was almost the format they used. That one split the teams geographically from 1 through 16, but it may have allowed a fourth-seed overall to be the one-seed in a section if the top three overall happened to be more in one geographic location than another.

The proposal would keep the integrity of the top two teams in each supersection earning No. 1 seeds, then geographically sorting the rest.

Minutes from the meeting state, “The Football Leagues & Conferences reviewed this past year’s tournament seeding under these proposed rules and agreed that these rules better align teams geographically while also keeping the spirit and integrity of the qualification criteria in place.”

The measure passed unanimously.

The NJSIAA also had considered whether to alter overtime rules, adding an extra period, but also moving the starting point to the ten yard line rather than the 25. The goal was to cut down on the amount of ties, but in the four seasons since COVID, there have only been four true overtime games to end in ties.

NJFCA membership voted in favor, but not overwhelmingly, last month. And, according to the meeting minutes, “feedback has been supportive of the current rule and there is no consensus feedback on the need to change the current overtime procedures. There will be no proposal to change the overtime procedures for the 2025-2026 season; however, NJSIAA staff will monitor overtime periods and continue to solicit feedback moving forward.”

No other major changes appeared to be on the docket, however the NJSIAA does seem to be concerned about what it says is an uptick in uniform violations.

In the last couple of years, the state has tightened rules to require numbers and uniform colors to be in high contrast (i.e., white or red numbers on black, as opposed to uniforms and numbers with the same color, and only an outline around the number, or gradient numeral colors).

As a result, while the state isn’t looking to make further changes, the NJSIAA will continue to look for more ways to raise awareness about the rules to get all schools in compliance.