Tag: NJFCA

December 20, 2025December 20, 2025 by Mike Pavlichko

2025 NJFCA Super 100 All-State team unveiled: 23 honorees from the Big Central Conference

The New Jersey Football Coaches Association has come out with the 2025 edition of its “Super 100” All-State team, with nearly two dozen Big Central Conference standouts being honored.

The NJFCA Super 100 is chosen by coaches among its members, and 25 are recognized in each of four sections – Central, South, North 1 and North 2 – with non-publics included as well. The Big Central is represented in Central and North 2.

According to the NJFCA, players must first be nominated by their coaches for inclusion, then the selection committee makes its picks.

There were 22 Big Central teams represented, with all but North 2, Group 5 champion Bridgewater-Raritan getting one player each on the list; the Panthers got two.

Here are all players honored from the Big Central Conference, as well as others from the area:

Central

Andrew Scwharz, Hillsborough
Grant Lorentzen, JFK
Josh D’Ambrosio, Manville
Trey McFadden, Montgomery
Jordan Burnett, North Plainfield
Brody Nugent, Old Bridge
Josiah Zayas, Piscataway
Anwar Witherspoon, St. Thomas Aquinas
Shaun Jackson, Sayreville
Aidan Vesuvio-Bush, Somerville
Dominic Massaro, South Plainfield
Joshua Allen, Woodbridge

North 2

Justin Simpson, Bridgewater-Raritan
Declan Kurdyla, Bridgewater-Raritan
R.J. Wortman, Colonia High School
Chidiogo Iherobiem, Dayton
James Keneally, New Providence
Sam Dech, Phillipsburg
Tylor Hunter, Plainfield
Andrew Avent, Rahway
Nathan Engdahl, Ridge
Anthony Trujillo, Summit
Matteo Tramutola, Voorhees

Others from Central Jersey

Daysir Spille, Immaculata

Here’s the full list of statewide NJFCA Super 100 All-State honorees, as the association unveiled Saturday morning on Twitter:

NORTH 1

A table listing high school students with their respective schools, first names, and last names.

NORTH 2

A table listing students' names and schools, detailing members of the NJFCA Super 100 All-State team.

CENTRAL

A list of honorees for the NJFCA Super 100 All-State team from various high schools, organized by school and player's name. — *Please note: **Aidan Vesuvio-Bush**‘s name was misspelled on the original NJFCA posting above.*

SOUTH

A table listing student athletes' names, first names, and the high schools they represent, organized into columns for easy reading.

June 9, 2025June 9, 2025 by Mike Pavlichko

Piscataway’s Dan Higgins inducted into NJFCA Hall of Fame; Montgomery’s Milich receives Lifetime Achievement Award at Phil Simms North/South All-Star Classic

When Dan Higgins – the longtime head football coach at Piscataway High School – was inducted into the New Jersey Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame this weekend, the honor may have given Piscataway a quite distinct one.

It’s unknown (though we’ll try and dig to find out) whether anyone else has had three consecutive Hall of Fame coaches spanning 55 years in any other program in New Jersey, but that’s what Piscataway now has.

Higgins was inducted along with three others – while Montgomery’s Zoran Milich, who stepped down as coach earlier this year, was given the Dr. John Bateman Lifetime Achievement Award – Sunday afternoon at the Phil Simms North/South All-Star Classic at Kean University in Union.

Higgins’ late father, Tom, was Piscataway’s coach from 1970 through 1989, and Dan was a waterboy for him before he was even a teenager. The senior Higgins was inducted in 2001. Joe Kuronyi succeeded him, coaching from 1990 through 2002, and was enshrined in 2010. Now Higgins, who has been coach since 2003, is in the Hall of Fame with them.

*Longtime Piscataway football coach Dan Higgins was inducted into the NJFCA Hall of Fame Saturday at the Phil Simms North/South All-Star Classic at Kean University in Union. (Graphic by John Thompson)*

That means that for all but eleven years of Piscataway football’s 66-year history on the gridiron, they were led by a Hall of Fame coach.

How many schools can claim that?

Higgins is 173-58 in 21 seasons (Piscataway sat out fall sports in 2020 due to COVID) and has won seven state titles, with ten championship games berths. (New Jersey didn’t start playing to group champions until 2022.) Koronyi won a title in 2002, and Tom Higgins won championships in 1974 – the first year of the playoff era – and 1981. Dan Higgins’ 2018 team won the inaugural North Group 5 NJSIAA “regional bowl” championship, beating Ridgewood at MetLife Stadium.

Zoran Milich – who founded the Montgomery program more than two decades ago, and just stepped down in the off-season – was given the John Bateman Lifetime Achievement Award. Milich won his 100th game this past season, and finishes his tenure at the helm of the Cougar program with a record of 104-121-1. His longtime offensive coordinator, Sean Carty, now is leading the program.

Former longtime Montgomery football coach Zoran Milich was honored with the Dr. John Bateman Lifetime Achievement Award by the NJFCA at the Phil Simms North/South All-Star Classic on Sunday at Kean University in Union. (Source: @FootballMonty on Twitter)

Click here to read out story on Milich from late-January, including a one-on-one interview.

Also inducted into the NJFCA Hall of Fame along with Higgins were:

Longtime Morris County coach Cosmo LoRusso, who coached at Roxbury, Sussex Tech and Pequannock
Nine-time state champion Joe Rotondo, who was head coach at Union City and has been a part of nine state champions, now an offensive line coach at St. Peter’s Prep
Longtime Cranford and AL Johnson coordinator Joe Hubert

Click below to hear Dan Higgins talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko about his induction into the NJFCA Hall of Fame, and his long career with the Chiefs’ program:

What about the game?

The South beat the North 19-18, with the event now split 21-21 with two ties. And two Big Central standouts were critical in the win. Derek Anderson of Woodbridge won the Offensive MVP award, while his twin brother Brian was the Defensive MVP. Both will be playing at West Chester in the fall.

January 14, 2025 by Mike Pavlichko

New Jersey football coaches vote in favor of overtime changes, but it’s far from a landslide

In an effort to cut down on tie games in the high school football regular season, the NJSIAA has been considering changes to how overtime is run. And New Jersey’s coaches appear to be in favor of it, but not by a terribly large margin.

The New Jersey Football Coaches Association asked its membership before Christmas to weigh in on the issue. And in its weekly newsletter out Tuesday, the NJFCA reports 54.1 percent of coaches who answered its survey supported a change, while 45.9 percent said to keep it the way it is.

Currently, there’s a maximum of three overtime periods, which each team getting a chance from the 25-yard line, and teams that score a touchdown in the third overtime have to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking the extra point.

The new OT procedure proposes two changes.

The new rules would start teams from the ten-yard line beginning with the second overtime period. Teams would still have to go for two starting with the third overtime, but a fourth period would be added.

That would mean the first OT would start from the 25, the remainder would start from the ten, and teams would have to go for two in the third and fourth overtimes. Those rules would continue into the postseason – as they do now – but, as always, playoff games couldn’t end in a tie. Ties would still be possible in regulation.

NJFCA Commissioner John Jacob told Central Jersey Sports Radio the survey isn’t a vote and is non-binding – it doesn’t officially adopt a new plan, or reject it – it was just to get a feel from the membership to send down to Robbinsville.

And though it was clearly a vote in favor, it was nowhere near, for example, the landslide that voted in 2021 that allowed the NJSIAA to change its constitution to allow for state champions in football, where 94.6 percent said yes.

There haven not necessarily been a plethora of overtime games in recent years.

In the four full football seasons since the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, there have only been four regular season overtime games to end in ties, and all those have come in the last two seasons.

There were three in 2024 and one in 2023. There were none in the two seasons prior, but in 2022, Clayton and Mastery HS of Camden tied when their game was called in the third quarter – with the score 0-0 – due to police receiving a call threatening a shooting at the game.

January 13, 2025 by Mike Pavlichko

NJFCA announces its Super 100 All-State team, Big Central Conference has 24 honorees

The New Jersey Football Coaches Association has unveiled its 2024 “Super 100” All-State team, with several Big Central Conference standouts getting recognized on the Central and North 2 teams.

The NJFCA Super 100 is chosen by coaches among its members, and 25 are honored in each of four sections – Central, South, North 1 and North 2 – with non-publics included as well.

Four schools – Phillipsburg, St. Thomas Aquinas, Somerville and Woodbridge – had two players recognized each, while 14 other Big Central teams were represented, 18 in all.

Here are the two dozen players honored from the Big Central Conference, as well as others from the area:

Central

Terrence Hanratty, Bernards
Jackson Jankowicz, Hillsborough
Darren Ikinnagbon, Hillside
Na’quavere Thomas, Manville
Brandon Rector, Montgomery
Jahir Dawud, North Brunswick
Aaron Potts, North Plainfield
Brandon Bradsher, Perth Amboy
Jahai Johnson, Piscataway
Elijah Thomas and Roman Blanks, St. Thomas Aquinas
Terrell Mitchel and Josh Rodriguez, Somerville
AJ Perales, South Plainfield
Bryan Anderson and Derek Anderson, Woodbridge

North 2

John John DeSarno, Dayton
T.J. Munn, New Providence
Matthew Scerbo, Jr., and Felix Matos, Phillipsburg
Kevin Taylor, Rahway
Aidan Stieglitz and Ryan Turner, Ridge
Oscar Marx, Summit

Others from Central Jersey

Cole Hayden and Aaron Melick, Immaculata.

Here’s the full list of statewide NJFCA Super 100 All-State honorees:

NORTH 1

NORTH 2

CENTRAL

SOUTH

September 6, 2024 by Mike Pavlichko

Some H.S. football teams still not reporting scores to Gridiron New Jersey; NJFCA reminds coaches of their obligations

For the second week in a row, the New Jersey Football Coaches Association is reminding high school coaches in its weekly email that they must report their scores to Gridiron New Jersey as soon as possible after their games are completed.

While many log in and add scores and update statistics on NJ.com, the only mandate from the NJSIAA is that all scores of all games must be reported to Gridiron New Jersey within two hours of a game’s completion, and they need to be reported by both teams for the sake of accuracy.

According to the NJSIAA’s football regulations for 2024: “Final scores must be reported within 2 hours of the conclusion of each game to Gridiron New Jersey via email to football@njsiaa.org or via text to Jon Fass. Please be sure to include both team names and final score. For those schools not timely reporting their game results, as indicated above, a warning will be given the first time the school fails to comply. Future failures to timely report results may be subject to a $150 fine.”

On Week Zero, dozens of scores were not reported around the state, and the NJFCA sent coaches an email reminder.

So far in Week One, with 16 games scheduled Thursday night, four of them were missing as of the NJFCA’s email sent out around 10:15 am. By lunchtime, the missing scores had been reported.

Because the NJSIAA uses Strength Index to determine OSI, which is 60 percent of the UPR playoff formula, and Strength Index is reliant on the scores of game, it’s important scores are reported in a timely fashion, and are accurate.

A wrong score, discovered weeks later, not only affects the two teams in that game, but any subsequent games played by those two opponents, and anyone else they played.

For example, if Team A and Team B play, and their score is wrong, and it’s discovered two weeks later, it also will affect Team A’s next two opponents, and Team B’s. And when Team A plays Team C the following week, it will affect Team C’s and Team A’s opponents the following week.

So, one wrong score, can affect up to a dozen or more teams just two weeks down the line.

January 7, 2024January 7, 2024 by Mike Pavlichko

NJFCA honors more than two dozen Big Central football players on annual Super 100 Team

The New Jersey Football Coaches Association has announced its Super 100 list, honoring players from all across New Jersey for their efforts on the field this past season.

The Super 100 features 25 players from each geographic section of the state, those traditionally in South, Central, North 1 or North 2, regardless of group size. Players are nominated by member coaches.

With many Big Central Conference teams split between two sections, 12 were named on the Central list, with another 11 named in the North 2 section, giving the league 23 honorees out of 100 statewide.

Below are the players from the Big Central honored by the NJFCA. For the full list, visit the NJFCA Twitter page by clicking here.

Central