Author: Mike Pavlichko

by Mike Pavlichko

A four-year starting QB, A’rique Fleming gets it done on defense, too, and earns Week 2 Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week honors

It was August 25, 2023 at Kean University in Union when a fresh-faced ninth-grader named A’rique Fleming took to the field to play quarterback for the Elizabeth football team.

He might be a little raw, then-head coach John Fiore told us, but “You’ve gotta see this kid,” he added.

Sometimes coaches are given to hyperbole, and Fiore is no exception. But he was dead on the money on this one.

Elizabeth didn’t win the game, falling 27-22 to the rival Tigers, but Fleming showed great poise for a freshman in a back-and-forth game where the lead was always changing: 7-of-12 passing, 140 yards, one touchdown, one interception. Fiore was on the Fleming bandwagon, and now we were, too.

Fast forward three years to 2026, and he’s been one of the premier quarterbacks in the Big Central for a while now, and he’s already thrown for 622 yards and seven touchdowns in three games.

His latest performance was 17-of-21 throwing the ball for 220 yards and a touchdown, with a team-high 45 rushing yards (and a touchdown). But more impressive? He also plays defense, and is very good at it.

He was especially good last Friday night in a 19-7 win at Union. Playing linebacker, he had a forced fumble and recovery, a team-high tackles, and two interceptions.

One of them was quite critical in the win, too: a 72-yard pick-six with Union driving deep into Elizabeth territory with under two minutes left in a 13-7 game the Minutemen led.

“He made a great read on the play,” says his head coach, Eugene Kline, breaking “multiple tackles on the play” as Elizabeth hung on and made it a 3-0 start to a season for the first time since 2015.

For his efforts, Xavier Wilson is the Bellamy & Son Paving Big Central Player of the Week for Week Two.

Logo of Bellamy & Son Paving highlighting the Big Central Player of the Week.

Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko with Week Two Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week A’rique Fleming of Elizabeth:

We’ll get to see Fleming at least one more time on Central Jersey Sports Radio when No. 7 Elizabeth hosts No. 2 St. Joseph-Metuchen (2-0) in the Friday night Bellamy & Son Paving Big Central Game of the Week. Kickoff is 6 pm at Williams Field, with pregame at 5:40. Alec Crouthamel and Dylan Allen will have the call; click here to listen.

The Bellamy & Son Paving Player of the Week is chosen from nominees by Big Central coaches. At the end of the season, one player will be chosen to receive a $500 scholarship courtesy of Bellamy & Son Paving. As always, we will recognize selected “Honorable Mentions,” and recognize all other all nominees in our weekly story.

Honorable Mentions:

  • Nolan Walsh, Bernards: In a 49-29 win over Governor Livingston – the Mountaineers’ first of the season after starting 0-2 – the senior QB rushed for four touchdowns (of 3, 34, 30 and 11 yards) while throwing for 54- and 19-yard scores. He completed 13-of-18 passes for 223 yards and two touchdowns. logging 348 yards of total offense and accounting for all five of Bernards’ first-half scores.
  • Zach Mutton, Montgomery: The senior plays five positions for Sean Carty’s Cougars, who got their first win of the season Thursday, 32-14 up at Watchung Hills. At running back, he took the rock 23 times for 104 yards and two touchdowns. He’s also a kicker, and made two field goals of 32 and 41 yards, the latter a new school record. He had a punt, too, that pinned the Warriors back on their own two-yard line early to help establish momentum. At defensive back, he also added two tackles, both of the solo variety.
  • Ja’Quan Robinson, Rahway: The senior quarterback often does a lot of great things on the field, but it was more than that Friday night in a 42-21 win at Woodbridge. He tossed 2-for-6 for 50 yards and two touchdowns, and carried ten times for 129 yards and two more scores of nine and 55 yards. On defense, at linebacker, he also had three solo tackles and a TFL. And he even had three punts for 109 total yards. But his coaches say the captain did his biggest work in the locker room, bringing the group together and spurring them on to outscore Woodbridge 21-7 in the second half. And then, he put his money where his mouth is, scoring a 55-yard touchdown to finish the game.
  • James Hampton, Somerville: In a 54-6 shellacking of North Hunterdon Thursday night, the junior wide receiver had seven catches for 106 yards and two touchdowns of 32 and 15 yards. At cornerback, he also had a 40-yard interception return for a touchdown.
  • Tyler Hicks, South Hunterdon: The senior quarterback for the Eagles – 2-1 in Kyle Hart’s first season as head coach – went 16-of-29 for 210 passing yards and a touchdown in a 21-15 win over Middlesex Thursday night. Facing a 15-13 deficit with under a minute to go, he scrambled on fourth down to evade two tacklers. His pass went incomplete, but drew a pass interference call. Eventually, on third down on the Blue Jay six, he hit Charlie Dickerson for a touchdown to take a 19-15 lead, then hit him again for a two-point conversion for the final score.

Other Notable Performances:

  • Elijah White, Belvidere: IN a 42-2 win at Dunellen Friday, the senior wide receiver had four catches for 2333 yards, with three of those hauls going for touchdowns, including a 96- and a 55-yarder. He Laos had an 80-yarder called back on a penalty.
  • Marcus Smith, Highland Park: In the third straight win for the Owls – a 43-0 win at JP Stevens that gives them their second 3-0 start in three seasons – Smith threw for 74 yards and a touchdown, while rushing for 48 and a second score. Highland Park has outscored its first three opponents 99-0, and has three consecutive shutouts for the first time since 1964. (They had six in a row that year.)
  • Jonathon Gosk, Manville: The senior quarterback – in his first year starting – was 9-of-13 passing to 148 yards and touchdown passes of 46 and five yards in a 35-7 home win over arch-rival Manville Friday night, heard here on Central Jersey Sports Radio. He also rushed five times for 18 yards and scoring runs of 21 and two yards.
  • Tommasso Demetrio, Monroe: In a 42-7 win at North Brunswick, the senior wide receiver caught five balls for 60 yards and a touchdown, as well as five rushes for 25 yards and another score. Four of his first five touches were either a touchdown or gave his team a first down. At outside linebacker, Demetrio had three tackles, two TFLs, and a sack. Oh, and he also was 6-for-6 on PATs and booted two 50-yard punts.
  • Charlie Maneely, New Providence: The senior runningback carried 12 times for 87 yards and a score, while also catching four passes for 36 yards and another score in a 27-20 win at Johnson on Thursday. At linebacker, he also had three tackles and two fumble recoveries.
  • Ariel Rosario Sime, Perth Amboy: In a 42-6 win over Roselle
  • Gabriel Manson, Sayreville: The senior H-back carried six times for 104 yards and two scores for the Bombers, while adding a 60-yard catch in a 41-6 home win over Edison. More impressively, he allowed zero catches from his position at cornerback.
  • Vinny Young, Spotswood: Very similar to his last outing, the senior runningback carried eight times for 121 yards and two touchdowns, while also grabbing two passes for 22 yards in a 47-14 home win over Metuchen Thursday night. At outside linebacker, he added four solo tackles, two assists and a TFL.
  • Aiden Morse, St. Thomas Aquinas: The junior running back carried ten times for 73 yards and three touchdowns in a 40-0 win at Franklin on Friday night.

by Mike Pavlichko

NJSIAA announces all state football finals to be held at MetLife Stadium on Thanksgiving Weekend, even teams that play on Turkey Day

NJSIAA Executive Director Colleen Maguire Wednesday at the association’s first Executive Committee meeting of the year that all seven state football finals – five public and two non-public – will be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford this year, on Saturday and Sunday, November 28th and 29th.

It would be the first time ever – since state finals were introduced in 2022 – that all title games were held at MetLife.

The news was first broken by Darren Cooper of Varsity Aces on Twitter, the social media account for the Bergen Record.

The move was made possible because the NFL’s Giants are in Indianapolis on that Sunday, and the Jets are in Miami that same day. And it was necessitated, at least in part, by Rutgers hosting Michigan State in its season finale on Saturday, though a time has not yet been set.

Conceivably, Sunday games could have been played at Rutgers, with the Scarlet Knights’ season most likely over by then, but the NJSIAA decided to put all seven title tilts at the Meadowlands.

Notable is the fact that, in previous years, teams that play on Thanksgiving – and there are still a handful around the state, including Phillipsburg, the only team left in the Big Central Conference to do so – would typically play the next Wednesday. But that won’t be the case this year.

Reporter Darren Cooper, who covered the meeting for Varsity Aces, says Maguire acknowleged the tradition of Thanksgiving games, but said the championships would all be played on the 28th and 29th, Saturday and Sunday, and that it would be up to those teams to figure out.

It’s possible some Thanksgiving games could move to Wednesday to give more time to prepare, and that the NJSIAA could put those games on Sunday.

Per the NJSIAA Football Regulations for 2026, their only restriction on time between games is as follows: “A team may not play more than two football games in a period of nine days. A player may not participate in more than five (5) quarters on consecutive days. This includes freshman, sophomore, junior varsity, and varsity competition.”

READ MORE: NJSIAA moves all state finals to Thanksgiving weekend, but how many teams will it affect?

Any team that makes the state finals and plays on Thanksgiving would have played in the sectional semifinals on November 20 or 21, Thanksgiving on either Wednesday (the 25th) or Thursday (the 26th), and a state final on the 28th or 29th, which would mean the potential to play three games in ten days at best (if a team played on November 20th, Thanksgiving Eve or the day of, and November 29th), and, at worst, three games in eight if they played a state semifinal on Saturday and a state final the following Saturday.

Reached Wednesday afternoon, Maguire confirmed to Central Jersey Sports Radio that teams will be allowed to play on Thanksgiving, even if they are in the state semis the week before and in the finals the following weekend.

For the record, according to NJ.com schedules, this year there is one game on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving – Camden Catholic at Paul VI – and 14 Thanksgiving Day games. That’s 30 teams out of over 330 in the state.

Out of those 30, two made it to the state finals last year: Camden and Shabazz in Group 2, who both are now in Group 3. None of the four non-publics who played in the A or B final last year play on Thanksgiving this year.

This year’s Thanksgiving teams who played in last year’s state semifinals include Camden, Shabazz, Haddonfield, and Phillipsburg, which reached the Group 4 state final in 2024.

Bernards looking to leave Skyland Conference, maybe Big Central?

Cooper also reported that after the meeting there would be a hearing about Bernards leaving the Skyland Conference, which includes teams from Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties.

Whether that would also affect their membership in the Big Central Conference – a football-only league that includes girls’ flag football as well – is unknown, but the idea has been talked about for at least a year now. The general feeling among some at the school is there are many similar size and quality schools Bernards could play in multiple sports in much closer proximity, including Morris County, than traveling long distances in the Skyland or Big Central.

It’s also unlikely to affect their standing in the Somerset County Tournament in sports like baseball and basketball. There is no Skyland Conference Tournament, and schools typically participate in either the Somerset County Tournament or the Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex tournament.

by Mike Pavlichko

“The Big Central in 2 Minutes” – Week 3

Week Two play is in the books, we’re a third of the way through the regular season, the first playoff standings of the year are out, and Mike Pavlichko takes a closer look in the Week Three edition of “The Big Central in 2 Minutes!”

On this week’s episode, Mike talks about one tweak he’d like to see with the playoff standings, then looks at some notable positions, including Piscataway leading North Group 5, as well as Elizabeth, Old Bridge, Ridge, Rahway, Spotswood and Highland Park. Plus, a closer look at the Owls’, who are blowing opponents away the first three weeks of the season. And finally, a look at our two live broadcasts this week and a big one for Marcus Borden on Friday.

All on this week’s edition of “The Big Central in Two Minutes!

Click below to listen to the 2026 Week 3 edition of “The Big Central in Two Minutes”:

by Mike Pavlichko

Big Central Schedule for Week Three: A trio of Top ten matchups highlight the slate

Week Three will feature some pretty big games in the Big Central Conference, with three Top Ten matchups on the slate.

We’ll have one of them live right here on Central Jersey Sports Radio Friday night at 6 pm, as No. 2 St. Joseph-Metuchen (2-0) travels to Williams Field to take on No. 7 Elizabeth (3-0) in a battle of unbeatens. The Falcons have won ten straight Big Central games – sweeping the BCC slate last season – while the Minutemen are 3-0 for the first time since 2015, when they began the year with four straight wins over Watchung Hills, Hunterdon Central, Franklin and Union.

Elsewhere, No. 4 Old Bridge (2-1) heads back home after a shutout win over South Brunswick to host No. 8 St. Thomas Aquinas (3-0) at Vince Lombardi Field for a 6 pm kickoff, while No. 5 Bridgewater-Raritan (2-1) – fresh off its first win over Hillsborough since 2017 – entertains No. 9 Ridge, which has beaten the Panthers eight straight dating back to 2018.

Bridgewater’s last win over the Red Devils also was a long time ago, in 2015, a year they beat Ridge twice: 47-27 on Cutoff Weekend, and two weeks later, 30-29, in the North 2, Group 5 semifinals. That was the first of three years Bridgewater-Raritan went to the North 2, Group 5 title game, losing all three years to Westfield, which never lost a game in that span.

Below is a look at the Week Three schedule in the Big Central Conference:

THURSDAY SCHEDULE

  • North Plainfield (1-2) at New Brunswick (0-3), 6 pm

FRIDAY SCHEDULE

  • #2 St. Joseph-Metuchen (2-0) at #7 Elizabeth (3-0), 6 pm (LIVE on CJSR)
  • South Brunswick (1-2) at #3 Piscataway (3-0), 6 pm
  • #8 St. Thomas Aquinas (3-0) at #4 Old Bridge (2-1), 6 pm (Follow Marcus Borden on Twitter for updates)
  • #9 Ridge (2-0) at #5 Bridgewater-Raritan (2-1), 6 pm
  • Johnson (0-2) at Roselle (0-2), 6 pm
  • Woodbridge (1-2) at Plainfield (1-2), 6 pm
  • Highland Park (3-0) at Roselle Park (1-2), 6 pm
  • South Hunterdon (2-1) at Bound Brook (0-3), 6 pm
  • Colonia (1-2) at Montgomery (1-2), 6 pm
  • Watchung Hills (1-2) at #6 Somerville (2-1), 6:30 pm
  • North Brunswick (1-2) at Edison (0-3), 6:30 pm
  • East Brunswick (2-1) at Monroe (2-1), 6:30 pm
  • Metuchen (1-1) at New Providence (2-0), 6:30 pm
  • Hillsborough (1-2) at #1 Phillipsburg (2-1), 7 pm
  • #10 Rahway (3-0) at Linden (2-0), 7 pm
  • Summit (2-1) at Cranford (2-0), 7 pm
  • JP Stevens (2-1) at Dayton (2-1), 7 pm
  • Hunterdon Central (0-3) at North Hunterdon (0-3), 7 pm
  • Carteret (1-2) at Scotch Plains-Fanwood (0-3), 7 pm
  • Hillside (3-0) at Voorhees (1-2), 7 pm
  • Perth Amboy (2-1) at Spotswood (2-1), 7 pm
  • Warren Hills (1-2) at Delaware Valley (2-1), 7 pm
  • South Plainfield (2-1) at Bernards (1-2), 7 pm
  • Westfield (1-2) at Union (2-1), 7 pm
  • Franklin (0-3) at Sayreville (2-1), 7 pm
  • Middlesex (0-2) at Belvidere (2-1), 7 pm
  • Dunellen (0-2) at Manville (2-1), 7 pm

SATURDAY SCHEDULE

  • Brearley (2-1) at South River (0-3), 1 pm
  • JFK (0-3) at Governor Livingston (1-2), 2 pm (LIVE on CJSR)

by Mike Pavlichko

Debut of new playoff standings revealed with additional info, but could still use more

Since the shutdown of Gridiron New Jersey this June, high school coaches have been talking and wondering what the new layout would look like when NJ.com took it over.

Wonder no more.

The first UPR standings of the season were revealed, section by section, beginning Monday morning on NJ.com, and by later in the afternoon all ten public supersections and the two non-public groups were posted online.

Our feeling? Well, done, but we could still use a few tweaks. Granted, our needs may be a bit more demanding that the average coach, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

What do the tables show?

The NJ.com UPR standings, which can be found by clicking here, show much of the same data Gridiron’s standings did. Obviously, there’s the team’s overall rank, record, power point average, OSI average and UPR. They’ve also added two other columns Gridiron did not have: power point rank and OSI rank.

These numbers are very important, because this is how the UPR is figured. Since power points are 40 percent of the equation, and OSI is 60 percent, we multiply power point rank by 0.4 and OSI rank by 0.6 to get the UPR number. This may actually help clarify that procedure for some people, so we like this addition. (To learn the rank in Gridiron, you’d have to sort the table by power point or OSI rank, something NJ.com does not do. So, this takes out an extra step.)

We think there’s one thing missing, though.

The calculations…

Gridiron New Jersey had a link on each team’s homepage to their power point calculations, always a helpful tool. When the Born Power Index was introduced in 2018, the formula wasn’t revealed. Gridiron founder and owner Jon Fass, was provided the numbers each week from Bill Born, but wasn’t privy to the calculations, so while his site showed power point calculations, it didn’t show the Born Index.

The next year, SI came into play, but the calculations were not shown. You’d have to go to Team A’s schedule, and click on each opponent to get their Strength Index number, then grab a calculator and do the math.

Not so with NJ.com. Sort of.

When you click on a team in the UPR standings (or on Power Points from a team’s home page) you’ll see their opponents, along with their record and SI value. However, we think this needs one more column, maybe two.

While we like the addition of an “SI Change” column (this shows how much your team went up or down in SI based on that result) we think a column should be added to show what the end value of that game is, since you get 100 percent for a win, 75 percent for a tie, 50 percent for a loss, and 70, 75 or 80 percent for losses to certain non-public multipliers. This will show the true math, just like how quality points and residuals are shown for power point totals.

Strength Index… where is it?

Gridiron New Jersey put a team’s Strength Index value on its home page. NJ.com is almost there.

The Strength Index value on NJ.com is shown on a team’s power point calculation page. But that’s an extra click, and we think it would be better if it were on the team’s actual home page with their record and schedule. There, you could tell in one place, how many power points a team is worth (by knowing their record) and how many SI points they are worth.

Another option would be to add it – not necessarily in place of the other locations; after all, records show on a team’s home page, in their calculations, and the standings – to the UPR standings. Why not? That would at least help coaches looking in their section, where many of the teams they play are.

A third option? And again, you can still do this and all of the above.

Publish a list each week of the entire state, sorted alphabetically. Kind of like we do.

In fact, here are all the Strength Index values for this week, including games played on Week 2.

One glitch…

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. And it probably won’t affect too many contenders, but…

One of the fun quirks of the NJ UPR playoff system is the “floor” the NJSIAA set in terms of SI value for low-rated teams. The minimum SI value available to a team from an opponent is 20.

There are two teams in the state with a Strength Index value below 20. West Windsor-Plainsboro is at 19.35 and Gloucester Catholic at 17.99. But any team that beat them should be getting 20 for a win (or 10 for a loss) due to the NJSIAA rule.

That is not currently reflected in the NJ.com OSI calculation; they are using the sub-20 number. Who will that affect?

So far, JP Stevens in the Big Central, Clearview and Middle Township, as well as West Windsor-Plainsboro itself since they played Gloucester Catholic this past weekend – and won, 18-14! (It’ll also affect the Rams, but their playoff seeding is determined by committee.)

But in the future, it will affect more teams:

  • West Windsor-Plainsboro: Pemberton, Mastery HS of Camden, Lindenwold, Atlantic Tech, Holy Cross, Deptford
  • Gloucester Catholic: Palmyra, Wildwood, Pitman, Florence, Haddon Twp., Lindenwold

That will be something for NJ.com to work on in the coming days.

scientific calculator on wooden surface
by Mike Pavlichko

OFFICIAL NJ Football Strength Index numbers for all teams following Week Two action

Now that NJ.com has released its first UPR playoff standings of the season, we have a clear look at the official Strength Index numbers for everyone in the state.

They can be found by going to a team’s home page, then clicking on power Points.

How did we do the first three weeks? Considering we were told of one incorrect score as reporter to NJ.com this weekend, and that out-of-state OOS determination is dicey at best, we did pretty well.

In the end, we had 285 of 336 on the nose. A portion of those incorrect played an OOS opponent, mainly in Week Zero. But remember, if that’s wrong, and Team A plays an OOS in Week One, then the resulting SI will be wrong, and that sets an incorrect basis for the next game. So now, it affects Team A and B, then in Week two when Team A plays Team C and Team B plays Team B, all four will be wrong. The problem compounds exponentially.

Nonetheless, we’ve confirmed all our numbers, and below you’ll find a full list of Strength Index values for all teams in New Jersey.

Each week, SI values change based on the final score and the rating of the two teams that played. Here’s an example. SI goes up or down depending on how a team did compared to the difference between the two teams. If Team A (80 SI) plays Team B (60 SI) and Team A wins by 20, there’s no change. If Team A wins by 10, they underperformed by 10 points, and Team B overperformed by 10 points. Team B increases by 2 points to become a 62, and Team A drops to a 78. Team A then gets the full value of Team B for its OSI (62) while Team B gets half the value of Team A (39).

Here are Central Jersey Sports Radio’s UNOFFICIAL Strength Index values after Week Two play:

2026 Strength Index (Official) after Week 2Download

Note: The NJ.com standings also revealed the SI values of out-of-state opponents for games already played. You can find them by going to a team’s power point calculation page.

Changes? NJ.com says that updates will push every morning at 6 am, if there are any. If an incorrect score has been confirmed and changed, that could affect the SI and OSI of multiple teams, depending on how many games have been played, if any, since the error.

by Mike Pavlichko

Another week at the top for Phillipsburg in Big Central Power Rankings, but there’s a new No. 2

Phillipsburg remains No. 1 in the Big Central Conference Power Rankings for Week Three, but there’s a New No. 2 in town.

Piscataway rose from sixth to No. 2 this week after a blowout of East Brunswick, while Bridgewater fell to No. 3 after a blowout win over Hillsborough. St. Joseph-Metuchen fell one spot to fourth, while St. Thomas Aquinas rose from No. 11 to No. 5

The power rankings are simply based on the state’s Strength Index formula, which helps determine a team’s OSI, and is 60% of the UPR playoff formula. SI values and will change each week as games are played. See the methodology at the bottom of this page.

Rounding out the top ten, Somerville climbed four spots to No. 6, Rahway edged up one spot to seventh, dropping Elizabeth one to eight. Old Bridge fell from five to nine, while New Providence dropped six spots into the tenth position.

Statewide, Phillipsburg, which made its move into the Top 25 last week, fell back out to 33. Four Big Central teams are in the Top 50. Besides Phillipsburg, there’s Piscataway (43), Bridgewater-Raritan (45) and St. Joseph-Metuchen (50).

Atop the rankings, the lead is ever slimmer for No. 1 Winslow, but they are also the first team to crack 100 this season, and we’ve only played three weeks. Don Bosco narrowed the gap, but remains in second at 99.64, followed by Bergen Catholic, which rose eleven spots to third and knocked Glassboro and Donovan Catholic down to four and five, respectively.

Strength Index Methodology: Team A and Team B are compared to find the difference between their rankings, which provides the Expected Result. The margin of the final score is figured in positive or negative terms compared to the Expected Result. The difference is divided by five, and the teams increase or decrease by the resulting number.

Example #1: Team A has an SI value of 80, while Team B has an SI value of 60. The Expected Result is +20 for Team A. When the game is played, Team A wins by 30. That is 10 points higher than the expected result. Than number is divided by 5, meaning Team A increases by 2 (Team A now has an SI of 82) while Team B decreases by 2 (Team B now has an SI of 58).

Example #2: In the same scenario, Team A defeats Team B by 20. That is the same as the Expected Result, no there is no change. Team A remains with an SI value of 80, while Team B retains its 60 SI value.

Example #2: Team A defeats Team B by 10. That is 10 points fewer than the expected result. Divide by 5 to get 2, but in this case, Team A drops by 2 points to 78 (because Team A “underperformed”) while Team B increases by 2 points to 62.

Out-of-State Opponent SI: Strength Index ratings for non-New Jersey teams are calculated by finding their MaxPreps national ranking, then averaging the SI ratings of the next New Jersey team above and below them in the MaxPreps rankings.

by Mike Pavlichko

All but Phillipsburg win, and all ten teams remain the same in Week 3 Bellamy & Son Paving Top 10

Sure, there was a full slate of games in the Big Central in Week Two, but Top Ten wise, it was very quiet.

And while No. 1 Phillipsburg (2-1) was the only team to lose, falling 32-31 to Freedom (PA) in their final Pennsylvania game before getting into the BCC slate, that loss didn’t cost them, as they retained their top spot in the Bellamy & Son Paving Big Central Week Three Top Ten.

This week, the Stateliners open divisional play in the BCC American Silver Division when they come back home to Maloney Stadium to take on Hillsborough.

In fact, nobody moved this week – all ten teams remained in their same positions as last week.

That includes St. Joseph-Metuchen (2-0), which beat Westfield on the road Friday night, 28-6. They’ll be one of six teams involved in three Top Ten matchups this weekend, as they travel to No. 7 Elizabeth (3-0) Friday night to face the Minutemen in a battle of unbeatens you can hear live on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with kickoff set for 6 pm. Elizabeth was a 19-7 winner at Union Friday night.

Holding in third is Piscataway (3-0). The Chiefs were 42-7 winners at East Brunswick on Thursday night, and this week are back at Kenny Armwood Stadium to face South Brunswick at 6 pm.

Old Bridge (3-0) remains in fourth after a 21-0 win at South Brunswick Thursday night, in which starting QB Aiden Rios dinged up his non-throwing shoulder. The Knights will hope he can be back Friday for a home date with No. 8 St. Thomas Aquinas. The Trojans (3-0) were 40-0 winners Friday night at Franklin.

A sign featuring the text 'BELLAMY & SON PAVING' in bold red and yellow letters, highlighting residential and commercial paving services.

Holding at No. 5 is Bridgewater-Raritan (2-1), which beat Hillsborough for the first time since 2017 Thursday night, 40-14. The Panthers, whose lone loss came in a barnburner at St. Joseph-Metuchen last Saturday afternoon, are back in action for a Top Ten matchup against No. 9 Ridge (2-0) at Basilone Field Friday night. They won out at Hunterdon Central Thursday night, 23-17.

Somerville (2-1) maintains the sixth spot, thanks to a 54-6 drubbing of North Hunterdon at Brooks Field Thursday night. The Pioneers are back in the Ville again this week, hosting Watchung Hills at 6:30 pm.

And No. 10 Rahway (3-0) held serve with a 42-21 win at Woodbridge, the return of head coach Brian Russo to his alma mater, where he also coached. The Indians visit neighbor Linden Friday night at 7.

Below is the complete 2026 Week Three Bellamy & Son Paving High School Football Top Ten:

by Mike Pavlichko

CAUTION: Our very UNOFFICIAL Week 2 UPR standings; there’s a lot going on out there

Alright, here we go. Take a deep breath.

Central Jersey Sports Radio is publishing today its first unofficial – and we cannot stress this enough, so please let there be no confusion – New Jersey high school football UPR standings. These are the standings that determine playoff eligibility on Cutoff Weekend.

Before we get to the standings, a few key points:

  • We have been tracking Strength Index since Week Zero, and many of you have seen our weekly unofficial updates. Previously, Gridiron New Jersey would update the official values from the very beginning of the season. So far, NJ.com has not. So these numbers are very likely mostly accurate, but some may be off by smaller amounts. (Note: We encourage all coaches to check these from the very beginning of the season and let us know if you think there’s a discrepancy.)
  • There have been a few issues with SI values for out of state teams. In Week Zero, we neglected to find these in real time from MaxPreps, and has to recreate them with the use of AI research. We believe they are reasonably close. One other issue: the NJSIAA regulations say to find the out-of-state (OOS) team rating, then find the NJSIAA member school above and below them, find their corresponding SI and average. But for a couple of teams, we found an OOS team with the exact same MaxPreps rating as a New Jersey team. Do we still find the ones above and below, or use the exact match? Common sense might say the exact match, but the regulations do not specify. (Perhaps something to fix for next year?)
  • On the same topic, we are using what we project to be the out-of-state SI values that NJ.com will release this week. These are post-Week Two values, which will be used for the next several weeks through Week Six. New values will be released before Week 7, and again before Week 8 (Cutoff Weekend), when the SI values of all NJ teams are locked in. It should be noted that SI values of OOS opponents are not “calculated” based on game results throughout the year as they are for New Jersey schools. Rather, they are looked up on MaxPreps separately, regardless of prior scores. Just because a team may rise in MaxPreps rankings, does not necessarily mean they rise in SI, since the two formulas are completely different.

  • We also were alerted by the Pitman public address announcer that NJ.com had two different scores online as of 2:30 Sunday afternoon. The Scoreboard page said Pitman had beaten Pennsville 41-6, but the box score for the game had 41-0 Pennsville, which the Pitman P.A. man says is the correct score. It has since been fixed on NJ.com, and we adjusted our numbers with the correct score. Whether this was a reporting issue by a coach (highly unlikely, since the score in one place should automatically transfer to the scoreboard, or vice versa) or a bug in NJ.com’s software (we think that’s more likely), we are unaware of any other incorrect scores as of this publishing. Nor do we have the time to check 155 box scores around the state (after all, the NJSIAA is not paying us to do this). But it may call into question the accuracy of other games, which could affect our standings.
  • In past years, each week we checked our standings with Gridiron. Often, in the rare chance of an error, it may have been a game added to the schedule from out of the CJSR-area that we didn’t hear about, or it might be a different opponent compared to the schedules we entered during the preseason. However, there have been Gridiron errors as well, often due to incorrect score reporting by coaches.

All of the above means we make no guarantee on the accuracy since we have seen no prior SI values to look up and check our work. This will be a very fluid situation throughout the year, and we’ll keep monitoring as we move along.

Once NJ.com publishes its official standings – no later than noon Tuesday, though it appears they will have them Monday, we will check our work and see how we did.

That said, here are out entirely unofficial Week 2 UPR standings for public school supersections in New Jersey. (Due to the fact non-publics are seeded by a committee, with the UPR as a guide, but not strictly followed, we do not keep track of non-public standings. However, we do keep track of non-public SI values for our state and Big Central power rankings, as well as for SI calculation of public schools that play non-publics.)

by Mike Pavlichko

INSTANT REPLAY:  Manville 35, Bound Brook 7

Senior quarterback Jonathan Gosk rushed for two touchdowns and threw for two more as Manville defeated arch-rival Bound Brook, 35-7, in the Big Central Conference Freedom Silver Division opener for both teams.

Logo for Bellamy & Son Paving, promoting the Big Central Game of the Week, featuring bold text in red and yellow colors.

Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Vin Ebenau call all the play-by-play live from Ned Panfile Stadium in Manville, NJ, on September 11, 2026:

1st Half
2nd Half