8-1 Spotswood didn’t qualify for the playoffs. 3-5 Camden Eastside did. Someone explain?

Every year, there seems to be a team that’s struggling to make the playoffs. But they’re not a .500 team, they’re an eight-win team.

In the last few years, we’ve had Manville in that situation and Spotswood. Sometimes they’ve been in, sometimes they’ve been out. This year it was an out again.

The Spotswood Chargers beat everyone they faced but one team, 6-2 Dayton, falling 20-19 back on the road back on October 10th. At the end of the game, they scored to pull within one. After a penalty, they went for two for the win, and were stopped short.

One yard, one point. One disappointing playoff season for a group of seniors who won’t have one. But are they giving up that spot to another 8-1 team? Or even a 5-4 squad?

Of course not. They’re giving it up to 3-5 Camden Eastside, which ended up tied with the Chargers for 16th place in the South Jersey Group 2 supersection, at 15.8 UPR. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, and they didn’t play. Next is common opponents, and they had none.

So, it came down each team’s average OSI, the Opponent Strength Index. You take the rating of a team you played and get full value for a win and half for a loss. Eastside won that tiebreaker with a 3-5 record.

That’s right: 3-5. Three wins. They beat teams that were 7-4, 5-2, and 0-9. Not exactly playoff-worthy.

After starting the year 3-1, they lost their last four games through Cutoff Weekend. Not exactly a team on fire or playoff-ready.

Of those four teams, three ended up with seven wins and one had six. But show me the last time any sports league – college or pro – decided to have pity on a team with a hard schedule. Does Rutgers make the College Football Playoff at 4-8 just because they played Oregon and Ohio State?

Don’t even bother to utter the words, because you know the answer before I even named the teams. They don’t.

Camden Eastside had a tough schedule. Maybe even a brutal schedule. There’s no denying that. They may even be a better “team” “on paper” than Spotswood.

But there is denying this simple fact: they won the tiebreaker on their losses, not their wins.

Spotswood beat three five-win teams, a three-win, two two-win teams and a winless team. The opponents the Chargers beat had a total of 22 wins. The opponents Eastside beat had 12, almost half.

Camden Eastside got in on their losses. I repeat: On losses.

Oh, and let’s look at those losses: 45-6 at Kingsway, 27-0 to Pennsauken, 50-0 at Winslow, and 38-14 at Shawnee. A combined 160-20.

That’s what they got in on. Four losses by the sum total of 160 points to 20. Not even close, folks.

But here’s the best part, and why Camden Eastside should be upset, too. What if they were more competitive, played a lot closer, but only lost those games 25-6, 14-0, 20-0 and 38-24?

They actually would have missed the playoffs. Why? Because losing by a smaller margin would have decreased the value of their opponents, resulting in a lower SI, and they never would have made it.

And how would that be fair to Camden Eastside? They did themselves a favor by getting their doors blown off. Could they have been smart enough to know? If not, now they do.

And now the whole state does. If you’re going to lose, lose big. Blowouts help you.

So, if you’re OK with this system, say nothing. Enjoy the rest of the playoffs, you’ll forget about it in the winter, unless you live in Spotswood, Helmetta, or Milltown.

If not, someone print this and send it down to the ADs on the football committee in Robbinsville. Because enough is enough already. (We’re already testing a few ideas.)

The NJSIAA gives trophies for championships in 33 different sports. The champions are winners.

It needs to stop rewarding teams for losing.