UNOFFICIAL Sectional Playoff Update: Here’s how all the public school sections would look if the playoffs started tomorrow

No. Bridgewater-Raritan hosts Hunterdon Central at Basilone Field in Bridgewater on September 19, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Football Notebook
by Mike Pavlichko

That headline includes one of our biggest pet peeve phrases: “if they playoffs started tomorrow.”

Well, of course they don’t. The NJSIAA state football playoffs start in two weeks, and Cutoff Weekend is still a week away. But with the new playoff seeding procedure of assigning teams to sections based on geography, things will look a little different this year.

Previously, the NJSIAA “snaked” brackets, where Team 1 would go in one section, Teams 2 and 3 would go in the next, Teams 4 and 5 would go with Team 1, and so on, such that no bracket would have too many high or low seeds.

But complaints about long travel times to some games, mainly in the South Jersey supersections, which covers about two-thirds of the state because the teams are much more spread out, led to this year’s changes. And mainly, they are keeping teams close to home.

In this update, contrary to the full supersection standings posted earlier, we have indeed broken any UPR ties and head-to-heads. By NJSIAA rule, in the initial field of 16 in each supersection, two main checks need to be performed.

  • Break any ties in UPR. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, followed by record against common opponents, OSI, power points, and then a coin flip. Simple enough.
  • Break head-to-head ties. Starting from the top-down, make sure no team is directly below a team they beat. Did Team 2 beat Team 1? If not, then go down: Did Team 3 beat Team 2? If yes, Team 3 moves up. They can keep moving up if they beat a team directly above them. This is done all the way down to Team 17. If Team 17 beat Team 16, Team 17 gets in the playoffs, Team 16 is out. They can keep moving up, but once the 17th place team gets in, the field of 16 is set.

We’ve done this for all ten public school supersections, and also eliminated Weequahic and Princeton – taking the 17th place teams in those sections to fill out the brackets – as both are ineligible due to player disqualifications during the season.

Detailed table of NJSIAA North Group 5 football standings, showing teams, wins, losses, ties, power points average, overall strength index average, UPR, Northing, UPR rank, and N rank.
A table displaying the standings for Central Group 5 and South Group 5 high school football teams, including columns for wins, losses, ties, power points average, OSI average, UPR, Northing, UPR rank, N rank, and NK.
A table displaying the standings and statistics for NJSIAA state football playoffs, including teams, wins, losses, ties, PP AVG, OSI AVG, UPR, Northing, UPR Rank, and N Rank across various groups.
A table displaying football team statistics for Central Group 4 and South Group 4, including wins, losses, ties, power points average, OSI average, UPR, Northing, UPR rank, and N rank.
A spreadsheet displaying the standings for North 1 and North 2 Group 3 high school football teams, including columns for wins, losses, ties, power points, and ranking information.
Table displaying football standings for Central Group 3 and South Group 3, including wins, losses, ties, power points, OSI average, UPR, and rankings.
Table displaying NJSIAA football playoff standings for North Group 1 and North Group 2, including teams, wins, losses, ties, power points average, OSI average, UPR, Northing, UPR rank, and N rank.
A table displaying rankings and statistics for Central Group 2 and South Group 2 teams in a sports league, including wins, losses, ties, average points per game, OSI average, UPR, and northing.
A table displaying NJSIAA state football playoff standings with columns for team names, wins, losses, ties, power points average, OSI average, UPR, Northing, UPR rank, and N rank.
A table displaying NJSIAA football playoff rankings, including team names, wins, losses, ties, performance averages, and UPR rankings for Central and South Group 1.

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