Big Central Conference, New Jersey Power Rankings: St. Thomas Aquinas overtakes Somerville in BCC, moves into NJ Top 10

St. Thomas Aquinas’ 53-6 blowout win over Montclair in the season opener Friday night has propelled the Trojans to the top of the Week 0 Big Central Conference Power Rankings, while moving them into the top ten statewide.

The power rankings are simply based on the state’s Strength Index formula, which helps determine a team’s OSI, which is 60% of the UPR playoff formula. SI values and will change each week as games are played. See methodology at the bottom of this page.

Please note, our calculations are typically unofficial, with all results based on scores reported to Gridiron New Jersey, which does the official SI calculations for the NJSIAA.

Also, while we initially thought there might be some inaccuracies since the SI values of out-of-state opponents were not readily available, and many teams played non-New Jersey competition, the SI of the New Jersey schools that played them were unchanged on Gridiron New Jersey, which officially calculates the playoff formula for the NJSIAA. That said, we believe the following numbers to be correct.

Meanwhile, three Big Central teams are ranked in the Top 25 statewide, but now St. Thomas Aquinas is the highest of them, moving from 13 to No. 6. Somerville hung in at No. 11 after a season-opening win at Schalick. And Phillipsburg – despite being idle in Week Zero – dropped two spots to 17.

Around the state, defending Group 4 champion Winslow remained No. 1 for now, but could have fallen behind Rumson-Fair Haven – which is just 0.9 points behind – depending on how Winslow’s game against IMG Academy (FL) shook out in the rankings. IMG would likely be very high in the MaxPreps national rankings – which is how out-of-state opponents’ SIs are figured, but we don’t have that number available at this moment. Defending Group 1 champ Glassboro beat Haddonfield Saturday night in the Battle at the Beach, but dropped to No. 5.

Strength Index Methodology: Team A and Team B are compared to find the difference between their rankings, which provides the Expected Result. The margin of the final score is figured in positive or negative terms compared to the Expected Result. The difference is divided by five, and the teams increase or decrease by the resulting number.

Example #1: Team A has an SI value of 80, while Team B has an SI value of 60. The Expected Result is +20 for Team A. When the game is played, Team A wins by 30. That is 10 points higher than the expected result. Than number is divided by 5, meaning Team A increases by 2 (Team A now has an SI of 82) while Team B decreases by 2 (Team B now has an SI of 58).

Example #2: In the same scenario, Team A defeats Team B by 20. That is the same as the Expected Result, no there is no change. Team A remains with an SI value of 80, while Team B retains its 60 SI value.

Example #2: Team A defeats Team B by 10. That is 10 points fewer than the expected result. Divide by 5 to get 2, but in this case, Team A drops by 2 points to 78 (because Team A “underperformed”) while Team B increases by 2 points to 62.

Out-of-State Opponent SI: Strength Index ratings for non-New Jersey teams are calculated by finding their MaxPreps national ranking, then averaging the SI ratings of the next New Jersey team above and below them in the MaxPreps rankings.