Big Central Conference finding its groove heading into Year 7, as scheduling takes on increased priority

“Competitive balance.” It’s a phrase that gets thrown around often.

The NJSIAA has used it in tweaking the state playoffs in all sports in an attempt to find a level playing field among public schools that can pull from outside their geographic areas and those that don’t. It’s why Phillipsburg will move into Group 5 this season, after spending the last two in Group 4.

The Big Central Conference is using the concept in its divisional alignments and scheduling, much like many other leagues are.

From the outset, for its first – albeit truncated, due to COVID-19 – season in 2020, the divisions were mainly along the lines of group size. They were even numbered: 1A and 1B, 2A and 2B, right up to 5A, B, C, and D.

Those numbers are long gone, with names like the American Gold and American Silver divisions, but so is that way of thinking. To that end, the Freedom Gold Division, for example, includes Group 1 schools like Brearley, Roselle Park and Highland Park, a borderline Group 1/2 like Dayton, Group 2 South River, and Group 5 JP Stevens.

And a school like Spotswood, which finished 8-1 last season and inexplicably missed the playoffs, is now in with some bigger schools like Group 2s A.L. Johnson, Metuchen, Roselle and New Providence, along with Group 5 (but struggling) Perth Amboy.

On paper, it looks good. The 2026 season will tell if it was a success or not.

But league President Scott Miller is confident that even if it’s not perfect this year, the BCC is moving closer and closer to that mark, all the while knowing that the whole process is an ongoing one, as programs either graduate large, successful classes, or return groups with a wealth of experience.

We got to chat with Miller at the Big Central’s fourth annual Media Day, held Wednesday evening at Kean University’s Harwood Arena in Union, who talked more about that process and the still-relatively-young league’s upward trajectory.