We’ve researched the out-of-state SI numbers for New Jersey public schools at the Cutoff, it makes no sense; here are the UNOFFICIAL numbers, and our take on a better way

Let’s start this story with the fun stuff: People in Florida are losing their minds over MaxPreps.

And to show you how bad it is, here’s a link to a Palm Beach Post story by Jon Santucci of the USA Today Network, of which MaxPreps is a part.

If you don’t have time to read the whole story, have no fear, we’ll sum it up for you: The Florida High School Athletic Association this summer created an Open Division. Essentially, it puts eight teams from around the state in an elite bracket. It would be somewhat like if you took the top eight teams from all of New Jersey, regardless of school size, and put them in one playoff bracket, then held the rest of the playoffs “as is” with the remaining teams.

Well, the FHSAA decided to dispense of its own formula for this new endeavor, and use MaxPreps ratings instead. How’s that going?

“The problem is that we watch games every week and we know what happens on the field. And it doesn’t match the computer.”

That’s the short version.

The longer: “Let’s start with Carol City, an immensely talented team that MaxPreps can’t seem to figure out. Carol City on Sunday (September 27) was ranked No. 54 in the state, a 45-spot drop following a 42-point win. Carol City, without playing a game or having any of its opponents play a game, moved up 13 spots in the rankings Thursday.”

What’s notable about MaxPreps ratings is since it’s owned by a for-profit company, its formula is proprietary (like Bill Born’s was until this reporter – with a lot of help from some others – figured it out and exposed it for not capping blowouts and rewarding teams that ran up the score with better seeds, even though we were told otherwise).

Now, admittedly, I wouldn’t know Carol City from Panama City, so let’s look at New Jersey … in a moment.

The NJSIAA currently uses MaxPreps to determine Strength Index values for out-of-state opponents, since they don’t use the SI system. SI of opponents determines the OSI (Opponent Strength Index), which is 60 percent of the state playoff formula. To do this, we find the MaxPreps rating of the out-of-state team, then find the first NJSIAA member school above and below them, then average their SI values.

Below is our lookup of those numbers for all public schools that play out-of-state competition this year. Those numbers will be used for the final OSI rating along with games played this weekend.

Now, Monday’s Maple Shade-Florence game is in the books, and no one anywhere is playing games today, nor will until Thursday. So, when NJ.com updates the out-of-state SI values, these are the ones they should be using.

If not, we need to figure out why they’re different. Did MaxPreps ratings change between Tuesday at 11 am and whenever NJ.com looked it up? And if so, why? After all, nobody is playing on Tuesday or Wednesday. How could they change?

But let’s look closer at the chart. Specifically, look at Phillipsburg’s Week Zero opponent, Parkland (PA), which they beat at Maloney Stadium on August 28, by a score of 28-21.

Parkland’s MaxPreps rating is 64.2. The closest two NJSIAA member schools are Red Bank Catholic (65.17) and Pope John (64.03). But when we look at RBC’s SI value, it’s 93.94, while Pope John’s is 64.03. That is a hugely wide swing.

Red Bank Catholic has the sixth highest SI value in New Jersey. Pope John is at 170. That means there are 164 teams in between the two in the Garden State. Is this really the best metric?

They are two completely different systems. The SI system is “simply” how a team performs score-wise against the difference between the teams’ ratings. It doesn’t take into account wins, losses, or even strength of schedule. It’s solely based on scores. MaxPreps explains its formula here, but it’s very vague.

We have a better idea…

Of course, we do. We don’t like to complain without offering a solution, right?

In all other sports that use power points, the NJSIAA eliminated Group Points and instead uses the OOWP. This is the opponent’s opponent winning percentage. For New Jersey schools, it’s the OOWP plus .500, and that is multiplied by the total of power points for that game.

So, if in basketball, Team A beats Team B, Team A gets 6 quality points, and we’ll say 30 residuals, for a total of 36 points. If the total win percentage of Team B’s opponents is .510, then the OOWP factor would be 1.010. So you’d multiply 1.01 times 30 and get 30.3 power points.

But for out-of-state teams, which would be immensely complicated to figure out (just like football), the state awards them a .500 OOWP even, so the OOWP factor simply is 1.0 and the true power points are awarded.

So how could this apply in football?

Very simply: Every out-of-state team – regardless of record or MaxPreps ranking – is assigned a 60 SI value when they play an out-of-state team. When the game is over, the SI value would be calculated in the normal way.

So if Team A is an 80, and the OOS team is a 60:

• If Team A wins by 20, they get 60 points (no change).
• If Team A wins by 30, their SI goes up to 62, the OOS team goes down to 58, and they get 58.
• If Team A loses by 10, their IS goes down to 74, the OOS team goes up to 66 for its SI value, and Team A gets 50 percent for a loss, meaning they get 33.

That SI value would stay the same the duration of the season. No further lookup on MaxPreps or anywhere else.

Now, what about if two New Jersey teams play the same OOS team? For example, both Morristown-Beard and Pingry played Poly Prep (NY) this year. In that case, Poly Prep would start each game at 60, and the resulting SI would be given to whichever school played them.

So, if Pingry beat Poly, and their SI goes down to 58 because Pingry won by a lot, they get the value from their game, a 58. If Morristown-Beard beat them by less, and Poly’s SI goes up to 62, then Morristown-Beard gets a 62.

And here’s a good reason why this works. If Poly played Morristown-Beard tougher than they played Pingry, they should be worth more to Morristown-Beard than they are worth to Pingry. We now have something relative to how they actually performed on the field.

And isn’t that what it’s all about?