Unofficial SI values for out-of-state NJ football opponents in Week Two

Typically, out-of-state opponents make up many early-season games in New Jersey high school football, and then the number of games starts to dwindle as league and division seasons take a stranglehold on the schedule.

And that’s the case this week as we enter Week Two of the season in the Garden State.

There were 13 New Jersey teams playing out-of-state opponents last week, but only seven this week, including one in the Big Central. That’s Phillipsburg, which in addition to playing traditional rival Easton on Thanksgiving, added Pennsylvania schools Parkland, Emmaus, and Freedom this week to their schedule, playing them in the first three games of the year.

Next week, there will be just two: Pingry hosting John Carroll (MD) and Montclair-Kimberley at King School (CT).

The out-of-state SI is calculates by finding the opponent’s rating on MaxPreps. In the case of Freedom, their rating is a 40. We then go to the New Jersey rankings and find the two NJSIAA member schools closest to them, above and below: Nutley (40.24) and Oakcrest (39.98). Then we take the two Strength Index values of the schools (63.33 for Nutley, 61.87 for Oakcrest) and average them to get 62.60 as the SI value for Freedom.

That number won’t be used in the standings for OSI, nor will their new SI value after the game. Rather, Freedom’s SI using the same lookup procedure will be determined officially after MaxPreps updates its ratings this week, and that will be used in the UPR standings without change through Week 6. By NJSIAA rule, another update will be made for Week 7, then the SI locked in for Week 8 (Cutoff Weekend), when all NJ schools are locked in for qualification only. (All games through the end of the playoffs are calculated in the background in order to get an accurate starting number for 2027).

But for now, here are the SI numbers for this week’s out-of-state opponents, which will be used to determine the new SI numbers for next week. Phillipsburg, for example, is rated a 79.8 in the Strength Index, so they would be considered about 17 points better than Freedom.

• Bergen Catholic: St. Joseph’s Prep (PA), 87.04
• DePaul: Msgr. Farrell (NY), 79.77
• Immaculata: Archbishop Stepinac (NY), 73.57
• Paramus Catholic: Iona Prep (NY), 80.22
• Phillipsburg: Freedom (PA), 62.60
• Seton Hall Prep: Chaminade (NY), 75.51
• St. Peter’s Prep: St. Anthony-Melville (NY), 70.71