Bridgewater-Raritan with its 2025 North 2, Group 5 championship trophy, the school’s first in football. (Photo: Chris Tsakonas)
After nine weeks of the regular season in high school football across New Jersey (yes, last week was Week Eight, we know it makes no sense) it’s the moment more than 300 teams have been working for since their 2025 season ended: the 2026 state playoffs.
Back on Sunday, the NJSIAA announced the public school pairings, which were spot on with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s projections, and which we ran through Saturday night on our Playoff Projection Show; you can listen back to the entire broadcast at the link.
The Big Central laded 29 teams – out of 57 public schools – in the 160-team playoff field. The most came in North Jersey, Section 2, Groups 4 and 5.
Scroll through for notes and storylines on the tournament, which opens play Friday night. You can find the full NJSIAA football pairings and schedule with times that have been announced so far at this link.
Who’s the defending champ?
Back in the “old days” of the NJSIAA playoffs – pre-2018, when the current UPR system came into being – New Jersey football teams were put into pre-determined geographical sections. So, unless a team moved up or down in Group size, there were few changes in the teams from year-to-year.
Now, with the state split simply into North and South in each group, and the top 16 seeded into fields of eight using a “snaking” process that balances the strength of the brackets, movement of one place up or down could move teams into an entirely different bracket. A Middlesex County team could end up in a North 1 or South Jersey bracket.
Then, add in the competitive balance formula, which moves teams that are open enrollment, choice schools, or similar, to larger groups if they have certain playoff success. That’s what happened this off-season, with Ramapo and Phillipsburg – both of whom were sectional title winners in Group 4 last year, and met in the North state semifinals – as they moved up to Group 5, leaving four sectional champions from 2025 in the North 5 supersection.
And three of them landed in the same bracket. Phillipsburg won North 2, Group 4 last season, and ended up a third-seed in North 2, Group 5. Bridgewater-Raritan won that section last year – its first-ever state title – and is seeded fifth this year. The Panthers will travel Friday night to Passaic Tech, the team that ended their season in the Group 5 state semifinals last year; PCTI was the North 1, Group 5 champion.
North 1, Group 4 champion Ramapo landed in the North 1, Group 5 bracket this year. Had they not, we could have had four state sectional champions all in one bracket.
So close!
Picking up right where they left off…
First round matchups, especially without pre-set sections, often tend to lack juice, but there are two intriguing matchups this weekend:
The first is on Friday night when Woodbridge travels up to Northern Highlands. Not only is that a rematch of a 2024 North 2, Group 4 sectional semifinal – which the Highlanders won 26-7 at Priscoe Stadium – but also of the 2019 North 1, Group 4 title game, played up in Allendale. That was a 37-7 loss for the Barrons, whose star player was Ali Lee, Jr., and it was the last state playoff before the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the GMC era, as the league merged with the Mid-State 37 Conference to form the Big Central.
Then, on Saturday, Piscataway picks up right where it left off with a first-round home game against Bayonne, the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last season with a 27-13 defeat at Kenny Armwood Stadium. Late miscues doomed the Chiefs, but perhaps Friday night’s 16-7 loss at Sayreville was an eye-opener for Dan Higgins’ kids?
Ridge has been battle-tested, but where’s their QB?
Few Big Central Conference teams have played as challenging a schedule as Ridge, which wound up with a five-seed in a very competitive North 1, Group 4 bracket. Five of their eight opponents have been in the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten this year, with four of them being ranked in the top three at one point or another – St. Joseph-Metuchen, Elizabeth, Phillipsburg and Old Bridge – with the only win coming against the Stateliners on a TD catch as the clock hit zero.
But starting senior QB Tristan Frank has missed the last two weeks with an undisclosed injury, with junior Alex Beasley getting the nod in his stead, going 12-for-50 passing in his stead, with no touchdowns, but also no interceptions. Through the first six games, Frank was 42-of-91 for 475 yards, three touchdowns and four picks.
While Beasley has performed admirably in his stead, no doubt the Red Devils would love to have their senior signal-called back in place this Friday night when they travel to fourth-seed Middletown North for a 6:30 kickoff.
Speaking of travel…
We won’t do our annual story on this one, but we do feel obliged to point out how silly some of the travel is involved with the state playoffs. Sure, Texas teams can travel hours for games and stay overnight for playoff contests, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. (Another argument for another time.)
With the concentration of teams greater in North Jersey, these kind of issues never seem to come up there, but in the Central and South sections, there are a few doozies.
Let’s start with South Brunswick, which earned an eight-seed in the South Jersey Group 5 bracket. That means they have to go all the way down to top-seed and defending “Central Jersey” Group champion – and Group 5 state champ – Washington Township.
Once they head out to Route One, then down Route 295, it’s a total 62 mile trip, one way, to Washington Township High School, which is nearly South of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Highland Park also has a long trip, but since it’s the first playoff appearance for the Owls in 16 seasons, they’ll take it. A six-seed in “Central Jersey” Group 1, they won’t be playing anywhere near Central Jersey. They have to go down to third-seed Woodstown, an 84-mile trip that is an hour-and-a-half ride at lunchtime with no traffic, to a high school that is South of the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
But this long travel thing works both ways: in South Group 5, sixth-seed Vineland has to come all the way up to third-seed Sayreville. Again, in a mid-day, lunchtime scenario – with significantly less traffic – the fastest route is a 105-mile trip in an hour and 50 minutes. Assume at least two hours at rush-hour – likely more, considering they’ll have to sit on Route 440 before crossing the Raritan River into Sayreville – and for a 7 pm game where you probably want to arrive no later than 5:30, that’s probably a 3 pm departure time, and they may be lucky to get home before midnight.
And there’s also seven-seed Gateway at second-seed Delaware Valley in South Jersey Group 1. Gateway Regional is just South of Philadelphia, near Washington Twp. High, and the fastest route is nearly 80 miles up Route 295, getting off on Route 31, heading north all the way toward Flemington, then more back roads to Alexandria, home of the Terriers. It’s a hike with a lot of two-lane roads once you get off the highway.
Then again, the scenery in the fall may be worth the trip entirely. If you’ve never experienced a game at Tap Webb Field in the fall, as the leaves are changing color, you should.
Good catch, coach…
Former Brearley head coach Scott Miller, who remains as the school’s athletic director and is President of the Big Central Conference, dropped a nugget on us that we’d overlooked .
With 29 teams qualifying for the playoffs from the BCC, there’s just one all-league matchup: No. 8 seed Linden at top-seed and undefeated Elizabeth. Of course, that means there’s the potential for more Big Central teams to advance to the sectional semifinal round of the playoffs next week.
Last season, 25 public schools from the BCC made the playoffs, but no more than 20 could advance, since there were five games with league teams playing each other: Linden at Bridgewater-Raritan, Plainfield at Piscataway, Colonia at Ridge, Westfield at Montgomery and Rahway at Woodbridge.
In 2024, there were 28 Big Central public schools who got the nod, and three all-BCC matchups: Rahway at Ridge, Watchung Hills at Woodbridge, and Summit at Cranford.
Why so few this year? For the past two seasons, the field of 16 in each supersection was defined by geography. The top two seeds – the two No. 1s – had the northernmost team go in North 1 or Central, the southernmost team went in North 2 or South, and the remaining 16 were split the same way and reseeded.
But this year, snaking was brought to the brackets, which allows for more competitive balance and pays no attention to geography.
Five new coaches make the playoffs in their first season…
Not only that, but three first time coaches also made the playoffs in their debuts.
We’ll start with them, and specifically Evan Baubles at Perth Amboy. To be sure, the Panthers (7-2) got some relief in their schedule, but then again, their recent teams still might not have had the type of success they had with this slate in 2026, not to mention they fact they beat a really good New Providence team – which has been to sectional finals in each of the last two years and could very well go again this year – on October 9th, 39-34. Amboy will play its first playoff game since 2017 as a five-seed in North 1, Group 5, heading up to play at fourth-seed Irvington (5-4) Friday night at 7:00. Baubles spent much time coaching in the Shore Conference, but was the defensive coordinator at Carteret last year.
Speaking of New Providence, they’re in the playoffs under true first-year head coach Anthony Conzentino. However, he spent the last five years coaching running backs, linebackers and special teams at New Providence, making him intimately aware of the talent already in the program. The fourth-seeded Pioneers (7-1) will host five-seed Becton (5-4) Friday night at 6:30 in the North 2, Group 2 opening round.
And then there’s Joe Ascolese, who spent many years as an assistant at Watchung Hills – leading the offense since 2019, and also serving as an assistant from 2005 through 2015. He also took the reins with a solid, working knowledge of the program, working under Rich Seubert, while also having baseball head coach Joe Tremarco on his staff, and serving as an assistant there, too. This is a tight-knit group. The Warriors (4-5) earned an eight seed in North 2, Group 4, and will play at top-seed Middletown North (6-1) Friday at 7 pm.
Others who made the playoffs in their debut seasons this year, but who also had prior head coaching experience were Mike Gerst of South Brunswick and Mike Ryan of A.L. Johnson.
Gerst last coached at Fort Lee, which went undefeated last season in his final year with the Bridgemen in one of the Super Football Conference playoff-ineligible Ivy Divisions, and also is perfect this season, with one more game to play. The eighth-seeded Vikings (4-5) got in on a miracle tie-breaker, head-to-head situation that got them the 16th and final seed in South 5, edging out Monroe due to beating them earlier this season. South Brunswick travels to top-seed Washington Twp. (9-0) for a Friday 6 pm kickoff.
And Mike Ryan has previous head coaching experience at JP Stevens, but also has been an assistant at Sayreville and most recently at Edison.
Playoff droughts end…
Franklin got in the playoffs with a big win at Woodbridge Friday, and that snaps the longest active Somerset County postseason drought, with the Warriors’ last playoff appearance coming in 2012. That leaves North Plainfield and Pingry, who last made it in 2014.
Over in Union County, Dayton ended a 24 year playoff drought, with their last appearance also in 2012. (Ironically, current Woodbridge coach Joe Goerge has coached at both schools, Franklin and Dayton.) That leaves Scotch Plains-Fanwood as next up, dating back to 2014 as well.
Highland Park is in the dance for the first time since 2010, and while that’s longer than the other two, not the longest in Middlesex County. That mark belongs to JP Stevens, which last made it in 2006. The Hawks finished the regular season at 2-6 at the Cutoff.
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