OPINION: We all want to see the football playoff standings, but we all need to be patient

It’s a casual Saturday afternoon. I just got finished mowing the lawn. Had a nice grilled cheese with maple-smoked bacon for lunch. And now, I sit down to write on a light Saturday for high school football, at least in the Big Central Conference.

Week Two of play has just about wrapped up, and per the NJSIAA Football Regulations for 2026, the first UPR playoff standings for the season are due out no later than noon on Tuesday. But they will no longer be on Gridiron New Jersey, they will be on NJ.com instead.

We are not privy to the machinations that brought the UPR over to NJ.com, which houses all the playoff standings for the state. (That should really be a job for the NJSIAA, not one specific media outlet, but that’s another debate for another time.) But the gist that we got from talking to some people in the know is as follows:

At some point, the state decided to put all its playoff standings on the same platform, in this case NJ.com. Gridiron was paid a significant sum of money to do the work since the advent of the UPR system in 2018. Since it was no longer being paid, it was no longer feasible for founder and owner Jon Fass to keep the site running.

While many bemoaned the loss of the history and records, that information can still be found.

Gridiron had every playoff bracket from 1974 to the present. We now have that on our site under the history tab in the menu, or by clicking here. (We’ve also added a Big Central Record Book, as well as county tournament history for boys’ and girls’ basketball and baseball in the GMC and Somerset County; you can find links to all by clicking here to visit our history homepage.)

As for season results? NJ.com goes back to 2010, MaxPreps to 2004, and the Dr. Roger Saylor Collection goes from 2010 back to the 1800s. (We’re not kidding.) You can find the link to that on our history homepage.

So, what about those standings?

High school football coaches have been on edge about the change since well before Gridiron New Jersey even shutdown in June. Shortly after the state finals, the website was temporarily available while they worked on “improvements.” The site never came back.

What are the standings going to look like? What information will there be? When will it be posted?

I happened to have seen a sneak peek of a development site, and I can tell you that the standings are expected to be in a similar layout to what Gridiron had, and may even include more information, a definite improvement. The NJSIAA and NJFCA both pushed for this. It also appears you’ll be able to click on each team to see their point breakdown and math, just like you can on their site with power points.

And the NJSIAA Football Regulations give the same deadlines for when they should be posted each week (no later than noon on Tuesday, and on Cutoff Weekend it’ll be noon Sunday). That doesn’t mean they’ll always be that late, but even Gridiron, if there was a Sunday game due to bad weather or field conditions, Fass would wait.

My only initial concern is that SI numbers will be easy to find. They shouldn’t be buried in each team’s calculations. Put it on each team page (like Gridiron did) or put it in the standings. Fass never wanted it in the standings for fear of confusing SI with OSI. But that was eight years ago. We all (should) know the difference by now. Putting it in the standings would be great. Publishing a master list (like we do every week, and did last week with our unofficial SI numbers) would be ideal, and – yes – an improvement over Gridrion New Jersey.

And Gridiron was not infallible. There was a notable bug the first year after COVID, late in the season, that resulted in OSI corrections for over a dozen teams, the vast majority in the Big Central Conference.

While NJSIAA has logged power points for years, those still are relatively simple, even with the addition of the OOWP (Opponent’s Opponent Win Percentage). Why? It’s all just wins and losses, easy accessible, easily calculated by a script or a spreadsheet. But when you start talking about points, and scores reported incorrectly, it gets infinitely more complicated.

Then, there are the caveats. You only get residuals from an opponent’s fist seven games. But you’re also capped at 18 residuals. There are multipliers, but a public can only use two. (Rumson-Fair Haven has three, so only the top two point totals will count, and guess when the third is? Cutoff Weekend, of course!) Then there are the top-down, head-to-head tiebreakers, then the snaking, oh and you can’t make the playoffs unless you have at least two wins, but undefeated teams automatically qualify and knock out the 16th-seeded team. And then, what if a team had too many disqualifications and isn’t eligible.

It’s a lot. I’ll betray confidences a bit here. In one of my many conversations with Jon Fass about this stuff, one moment stuck with me, one thing he said to me in the midst of it all: “This system is a real pain in the ass.”

No truer words could be spoken. And the system itself? Well, that’s another topic for another day.

Many of you who know me, and know me well, are well aware that patience is not exactly my strong suit.

But go with me on this one. Be patient. If something looks wrong, ask someone. But let’s wait for it to come out. If for some reason it’s not out by noon Tuesday, and it’s out Wednesday, just wait for it.

After all, do we want it fast? Or do we want it right?