Tag: NJSIAA

September 2, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Here are projected SI values for Week 1 Out-of-State Opponents based on state formula

While the entire NJISAA UPR playoff formula is very complicated, with caveats seemingly at every turn, the actual calculation of a team’s Strength Index – which helps determine the OSI for playoff qualification – is actually very simple.

You find the difference between the two teams’ ratings before the play, compare that to the difference in the final score, then divide that difference by five. That’s how much one team goes up and the other goes down.

But what do you use for an out-of-state or non-NJSIAA member, where the SI is not regularly calculated?

That’s our cue to give you a quick crash course.

According to the NJSIAA football regulations for 2026, with NJ.com now doing the official calculations instead of the now-defunct Gridiron New Jersey: “In order to assign a Strength Index value to an out of state/non-member opponent, NJ.com will consult MaxPreps national rankings. NJ.com will identify the closest NJSIAA member school, per the rating column, both ABOVE and BELOW the out of state/non-member opponent. The Strength Index for these two NJSIAA member schools will be averaged – the average Strength Index will be the value assigned to the out of state/non-member opponent.”

This week, there are 13 New Jersey NJSIAA-member schools playing out-of-state competition. So, let’s just take Phillipsburg as an example.

The Stateliners play Emmaus (pronounced “em-AY-us”) of Pennsylvania, the second of three PA opponents they will start the season with before getting into the Big Central slate. Emmaus has a 50.7 MaxPreps rating as of Wednesday, September 2nd.

So now, we go to the New Jersey rankings and find the two teams closest to them, above and below. That’s Southern, with a MaxPreps rating of 50.79, while Bridgewater-Raritan is right below them at 50.54 on MaxPreps and a 76.63 SI value. (Yes, one is higher than the other, depending on which system you use, but that’s another discussion for another time.)

The last step is to average the two SI ratings, which gives us a 76.30 Strength Index rating for Emmaus. Phillipsburg has a 77.17 SI rating, meaning the formula considers this a toss-up game: the Stateliners are considered 0.87 points “better” than Emmaus. Essentially, the winner will increase, the loser will decrease.

But, that won’t affect Phillipsburg either way, because teams qualify for the playoffs and are seeded based, in part, on OSI, not SI. And as for Emmaus? Their SI won’t be calculated each week, but the week before the cutoff, their SI will be figured again by the same process, using the MaxPreps rankings.

That said, here’s a look at this week’s out-of-state games involving NJSIAA-member schools, and the SI of their opponents:

Bergen Catholic: Our Lady of Good Counsel (MD), 78.91
Don Bosco Prep: Roman Catholic (PA), 85.35
Delbarton: Erasmus Hall (NY), 67.14
Immaculata: St. Joseph-by-the-Sea (NY), 67.84
Morristown-Beard: Christ the King (NY), 43.98
Paramus Catholic: St. James (VA), 61.59
Phillipsburg: Emmaus (PA), 76.30
Pope John: Cardinal Hayes (NY), 75.65
Ramsey: Suffern (NY), 50.98
Red Bank Catholic: St. Anthony Melville (NY), 80.25
Southern: Belmont Charter (PA), 67.84
St. Joseph-Montvale: Creekside (GA), 92.08
St. Peter’s Prep: St. Thomas More (CT), 48.81

NJ.com is expected to release “starting” SI numbers for all out-of-state opponents, per the NJSIAA regs, upon conclusion of Week 2. Those numbers will not adjust each week of the season as SI traditionally does, but using the same MaxPreps search, will be updated again after Week 5, and one more time on October 20th in advance of Cutoff Weekend, which is when all the New Jersey teams have their SI’s locked for playoff qualification.

So, for example, the SI value for Emmaus will be whatever MaxPreps turns up after Week 2. That will be used for the Week 3, 4 and 5 standings, with a new SI revealed after Week 5 to be used for standings in Weeks 6 and 7. The values searched on MaxPreps after Week 7 are what will be used for Cutoff Weekend, as well as the SI of New Jersey teams after Week 7. SI will not change – at least not for playoff calculation – after Week 8/Cutoff Weekend games.

Those are the numbers NJ.com will be using in its official calculations, and we will use in our own unofficial calculations as well.

It should be noted, however, that SI calculations are still run behind the scenes for all games – playoffs and what used to be known as “consolations” – through the end of the year to determine the most accurate starting numbers for 2027.

August 31, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Exclusive: Here’s a look at unofficial updated Strength Index numbers for all NJ Football teams following Week Zero play

With the shutdown of Gridiron New Jersey over the summer – and the job of calculating the NJSIAA’s complication playoff formula moving to NJ.com, Central Jersey Sports Radio will continue to run its own unofficial numbers all year, and that includes the Strength Index calculations, which are critical to figuring out a team’s OSI (Opponent Strength Index), which is 60 percent of the playoff formula.

Unlike Gridiron, at least for now, it doesn’t appear NJ.com will be publishing the Strength Index numbers on a weekly basis. While the playoff standings are expected to debut after a couple of weeks – most likely after Week 2 play, since early season standings are often misleading when some teams have only played one game – Gridiron had always updated each team’s page with their current SI value. We would run our own numbers to compare with Gridiron the first few weeks, but no such mechanism currently exists.

So, we’ve run our own numbers, and are publishing today the season’s first unofficial updated Strength Index values.

We’re confident in about 95% of our numbers, but a little less about the rest. Why? Because out-of-state opponents are tricky. We’ll get to that in a bit.

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).

In a real life example this week, let’s take Piscataway and East Orange, a game played on Saturday. Piscataway had a preseason SI or 68.34, and East Orange had a 66.91 SI value. Piscataway is considered 1.43 points stronger, but won the game 26-20, a six-point win. In that sense, the Chiefs overperformed, and would rise, while the Jaguars would go down. By how much?

Piscataway “beat” the expected result by 4.57 points. The formula says “divide by 5,” so we get 0.91 out of that. Add that to Piscataway’s number and we get 69.25. Subtract that from East Orange and we get 66 even. Those are the new SI numbers.

When it comes to SI, Piscataway won, so they get all 66 points. Since East Orange lost, they get half of Piscataway’s 69.25, or 34.63 OSI points.

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

2026 Strength Index (Unofficial) after Week 0 Download

Now, back to the out-of-state opponent issue.

Some of the teams who played non-NJ opponents in Week Zero may be slightly skewed. The issue is, we need to come up with an SI value for the out-of-state team, but they are not part of the New Jersey formula.

NJSIAA rules are this: Find the out-of-state team’s rating on MaxPreps. Then find the two closest New Jersey teams to that rating number (the first one above and the first one below). Then we take the SI of those two teams and average them.

But MaxPreps ratings are sometimes updated multiple times a week, and also depend on other games being played, whereas SI is only dependent on the two teams that play a game, and OSI can go up or down in a given week, depending on how past opponents play. MaxPreps essentially rolls that all into one.

For CJSR, we found the SI values of the out-of-state opponents Big Central teams play this year (just Phillipsburg – which has three – South Hunterdon and St. Thomas Aquinas) a few weeks ago when we did our “projections” for the playoffs, because we needed the SI of all opponents. However, we neglected to to that for the entire state, and there were 17 other teams that played out-of-state opponents this week.

And we can’t use the MaxPreps ratings as of today, because they have already been updated based on Week Zero results. So we had to reconstruct what we think are the correct numbers based on Google searches. If the adjusted SI numbers for New Jersey schools are off, they are not by much.

NJ.com should be calculating all of this in the background for Week Zero, so we trust they did this research. (If not, it is tricky to go back and fix it, for the reasons we mentioned above, but it needs to be done; if the SI numbers are off after Week Zero, that affects Week 1 games, then the number of teams wrong grows exponentially.)

That said, here’s a real life example. Rumson-Fair Haven played Tottenville (NY) from Staten Island this weekend. We determined that Tottenville’s preseason MaxPreps rating was 61.08. So, we then looked at who the closest New Jersey schools were. St. Joseph-Hammonton was the closest above at 64.4, while Seneca has a 60.82 MaxPreps rating, the closest below. Now we find their SI values (57.24 for St. Joe’s and 74.98 for Seneca) and average: we get 66.11. That’s the SI we use for Tottenville in the game vs. Rumson, which had a 73.05 SI coming in. Since the Bulldogs “underpeformed” in the game – winning by one when they were “expected” to win by 6.94. Rumson, as a result, saw its SI fall to 71.86 this week.

One other note… the formulas are not the same, and we believe some other option should be considered in the future. Look back at how we found the MaxPreps ratings. St. Joe’s-Hammonton was almost four points higher in the MaxPreps numbers, but Seneca was more than 17 points higher in the SI value. So, it’s not an entirely accurate way to determine out-of-state SI, but for now, it’s all we have.

black calculator near ballpoint pen on white printed paper

August 28, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

The road to the playoffs: How many wins to get to the postseason? We look at every Big Central public school’s target for 2026

We at Central Jersey Sports Radio so this every year.

It means the high school football season is upon us.

With the advent of the Opponent Strength Index (see one of our previous stories here for an explanation) we have a great tool to be able to predict how many wins each team will need to make the playoffs. The only minimum set by the NJSIAA is that a team must have at least two wins against NJSIAA members schools.

How great a tool is it?

We’ve been doing these projections since 2021, and up until last season, our projections held true for 220 of 228 teams – a 96.4 percent average success rate! (Non-publics St. Joseph of Metuchen and St. Thomas Aquinas are not included, since they are seeded by a committee, and all non-publics make the playoffs unless they otherwise opt-out or are disqualified.)

Looking back year-by-year, here’s how many teams were true to our recommendations. That means, if they met the minimum number of wins to make the playoffs and made it, or if they didn’t reach the minimum and failed to make the playoffs. If a team made it with fewer wins or missed while reaching our minimum projection, we got it wrong.

2021: 55 of 57 (96.4%)
2022: 55 of 57 (96.4%)
2023: 54 of 57 (94.7%)
2024: 56 of 57 (98.2%)

Are we just that good? Well, we got brought back down to Earth a little last year.

For the teams that made it, we were spot on. All 24 teams that made it didn’t need any magic or voodoo, they all reached at least the minimum wins we projected they would need.

That leaves the 33 teams that didn’t and that’s where it went off the rails.

Of those that missed the postseason, 17 failed to reach even our minimum win total. Another six met the minimum, but did not earn the one additional win we consider would have made them a “lock.” So, we consider we got those right.

But that leaves ten others who missed the playoffs, all of whom at least reached our “lock” number. Seven reached it exactly, two beat it by one win, and one last team Voorhees, went 8-2 – four more than our projected minimum and three more than our “lock” – and still missed the playoffs.

That means we went 47-for-57, or 82.5%. It’s a B, and we’ll take it.

Plus, overall, in five seasons, we’re still a total of 267-for-286 and a 93.7% success rate. We’re still on the Dean’s List.

Here’s how we figure it out:

One of the best things about the Opponent Strength Index – which is 60 percent of the NJSIAA’s UPR formula for playoff qualification – is that we can have an idea going into a season how challenging a team’s schedule is. Unlike power points, it carries over from year to year.

We look at the maximum OSI a team could get, assuming the won all their games, and the lowest they could get, assuming they go winless. We divide that by the number of games on the schedule to find out an average of how many points each game is worth.

Using round numbers, here’s an example: Team A plays eight games against teams that have an average SI value of 80 points.

If Team A goes 8-0, they would have an OSI of 80 (assuming for simplicity the SI values all stayed the same), getting 100 percent of the SI value of each team they beat. If Team A goes 0-8, they would have an OSI of 40, getting 50 percent of the SI value of each team they lost to. (Let’s not get into mutlipliers.)

That gives us a range of 40 points (40 to 80), and over eight games, each would be worth an average of five points. A one-win season would mean an OSI of 45, a two-win season would be 50, and so on.

Then, we look at the minimum OSI to make the playoffs. Again, it’s not a set number, but it varies by supersection. We look at the highest OSI team to miss the top 16 cutoff, then find the next team higher than that which qualified.

Since these numbers can vary from year to year, we’ve been using an average over time, dating back to 2021.

So how did we get it so wrong?

It’s tough to do a deep dive for so many teams, but there are some easily explainable reasons:

First, as we’ve stressed, the SI values change over time. If an 0-8 team all of a sudden goes 8-0, their SI will skyrocket, and that will help a team. If the reverse happens, it could hurt the teams they play.

Where it gets worse is with one-off crossovers. If you play a one-off crossover, like Old Bridge will this Saturday against Shawnee in the Battle at the Beach in Ocean City, and if Shawnee tanks, Old Bridge can’t do much to get those points back. Whereas in divisional play, the Knights have Edison, Monroe, Piscatway and South Brunswick. If Piscataway tanks this year, the other teams in the division that beat them will increase, and Old Bridge can still get the benefit. But if Shawnee does, they can’t.

A good example this year is Hunterdon Central, which moved to a new division, but will play crossovers against Ridge, Phillipsburg, Bridgewater-Raritan and Hillsborough, their old division mates in the American Silver. If Phillipsburg all of a sudden went winless, Ridge, Bridgewater and Hillsborough’s SI’s would increase off that, and Hunterdon Central could “make up” the fewer points they got by beating the Stateliners with the extra points they could get from beating the other three.

And sometimes it’s just out of your control. Maybe some other teams in some other league had a really good, surprising year. It happens.

What are this year’s targets?

We’re basing our targets for 2026 on a continuous average since 2021, the first true year of the current OSI system. (The initial year was 2019, and those numbers were derived from the Born Power Index in 2018, then 2020 had no playoffs.)

North 5: 40.32
South 5: 43.09
North 4: 43.13
South 4: 42.74
North 3: 43.04
South 3: 42.59
North 2: 41.97
South 2: 41.95
North 1: 38.26
South 1: 36.65

With that data in hand, we can reasonably predict how many wins it would take a team to get into the playoffs. We call them “steps,” and we assign all Big Central teams two numbers: the first is to just get over the minimum, and the second is a “full step” over.

For example, if the minimum OSI is 42, and four wins gets a team a 43 OSI, we would say they need four wins to get in, and going one full step over, five should make them a lock.

That being said, Here’s the list of all 57 Big Central Conference public schools (the non-publics are seeded differently, by committee) along with their playoff supersection, target OSI, and their minimum wins needed, plus one step over to make them a “lock.”

The list below is based on the NJSIAA official football classifications for the 2026 and 2027 seasons:

Looking at the chart, you might wonder why JP Stevens and Bridgewater-Raritan, for example – both in the North 5 playoff supersection – have different win requirements. Wouldn’t the target be the same?

Not necessarily. That’s because they have different schedules, and based on SI values, Bridgewater-Raritan’s schedule is more challenging that that of the Hawks. If the SI values of their opponents stayed exactly the same, the average SI of the Stevens’ opponents would be 43.11, and they need about a 40.32 to get in. Meanwhile, the Panthers could get as high as 63.18, meaning they can absorb a few losses and still get in, because their schedule is more challenging.

Overall, our projections indicate that 44 of the 57 public schools in the Big Central would need between three and five wins to make the playoffs. One area of concern is that’s down from 50 last year, when we projected 13 needed at least five wins and four needed at least six. None needed more than that, although in the end it turns out they did: Spotswood and Voorhees both missed, at 8-1, and 8-2 respectively, at the Cutoff.

Additionally, last year, we projected only four teams needed six wins to get in, none needed seven or eight. This year, we project ten to need six wins, two would have to win seven (South River and Metuchen) and one would need eight (JP Stevens). But that doesn’t necessarily mean the schedule-makers got it wrong.

Stevens would be a longshot to make the playoffs anyway, with just two total wins for the program since the start of the 2019 season, and both came in 2024. South Hunterdon and South River – who are projected to need six – are in the same boat. In this case, and for other similar programs, the Big Central got it right.

This type of scheduling is a win-win: JP Stevens gets some schedule relief to try and rejuvenate the program, and top schools can play more challenging competition that will help them improve their playoff standing, should they qualify.

But as far as the playoffs, in the end, is needing six wins to get in the playoffs a bad thing? We don’t think so.

Come back in November, and we’ll see how we did!

August 26, 2026August 26, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

More than a dozen Big Central squads do the NJSIAA shuffle as state unveils Group and Supersection classifications for next two seasons

There are a total of 14 Big Central Conference football teams who find themselves in new supersections Wednesday morning, with nine of them moving up or down into a new group based on school size.

One of the more prominent moves was Phillipsburg, due to the NJSIAA’s new competitive balance formula, which moves teams to larger sections based on playoff success according to a points matrix, if those schools are designated as being able to draw from areas outside their traditional geographic boundaries. Such schools must be open enrollment, choice schools, and the like, or charters, all of which are considered public schools (compared to non-publics) because they receive public money.

The Stateliners, who won their second straight sectional title last season, winning North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4, moved up from the North Group 4 supersection to the North Group 5 supersection. That’s where they played in the 202 and 2023 seasons, but not due to the rule, which had not been established yet. It was due to their school size, and P’burg has gone back and forth in that regard, so it’s not something that program is unaccustomed to.

Westfield – which also has been in Group 5 in the past, but was in Group 4 the past two years – also is back up to Group 5, staying in the North.

Other notable group changes include North Brunswick dropping to Group 4, while also moving into the North from the South; Carteret and Summit – with the Hilltoppers having gone to the North 2, Group 3 final last year – moving up to North 4; New Providence moving up from North 1 to 2, and Jonathan Dayton in Springfield doing the opposite; and Delaware Valley moving from South 2 to South 1.

Other teams simply got moved to different geographic sections due to the Super Football Conference “Ivy Division” teams. Those are teams that are requested by the league to be in a developmental division, ineligible for the playoffs (and ineligible to play any playoff-eligible teams). In the past, the NJSIAA had counted them in balancing out geographic supersections within a group (North vs. South), but since they were not eligible, one supersection would have more teams than the other.

That resulted in schools like Perth Amboy and Franklin moving from South to North in Group 5, for example, and explains many of the “lateral” moves geographically within a Group.

Here are the full changes involving Big Central Schools:

Franklin: moves laterally from South 5 to North 5
Perth Amboy: moves laterally from South 5 to North 5
Phillipsburg: moves up from North 4 to North 5, due to the Competitive Balance Formula
Westfield: moves up from North 4 to North 5; though enrollment fell, removing “Ivy” schools likely changed the cutoff from Group 4 to Group 5
Carteret: moves up from North 3 to North 4; enrollment fell slightly, but likely pushed up by Shabazz moving up from North 2 to North 3 due to the Competitive Balance formula, as well as three Ivy removals in North 3. The Ramblers would have been the largest school in North 2, and instead are the smallest in North 3.
North Brunswick: moves down from South 5 to South 4; enrollment dropped by 153
Summit: moves up from North 3 to North 4; also one of the largest North 3 schools last year (same as Carteret, 874), enrollment dipped slightly, but likely moved for the same reasons as Carteret
Somerville: moves laterally from South 3 to North 3; likely due to Ivy removal, this also removes the lone remaining team in South 3, leaving that and South 4 as the only state supersections without any Big Central Conference representation
Hillside: moves laterally from South 2 to North 2; likely due to Ivy teams being removed
New Providence: moves up from North 1 to North 2; enrollment increased from 472 to 502
Voorhees: moves laterally from South 2 to North 2; likely due to Ivy teams being removed
Dayton: moves down from North 2 to North 1; enrollment dropped from 496 to 458
Middlesex: moves laterally from South 1 to North 1; likely due to Group 2 teams moving up due to Competitive Balance Formula
Delaware Valley: moves down from South 2 to North 1; enrollment dropped from 514 to 464

Here are the Groups and Supersections with Big Central Conference teams:

North Group 5: Bridgewater-Raritan, Elizabeth, Franklin, JP Stevens, Linden, Perth Amboy, Phillipsburg, Piscataway, Plainfield, Union, Westfield
South Group 5: East Brunswick, Edison, Hillsborough, Hunterdon Central, Monroe, New Brunswick, Old Bridge, Sayreville, South Brunswick
North Group 4: Carteret, Colonia, JFK, Montgomery, North Brunswick, North Hunterdon, Rahway, Ridge, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, Summit, Watchung Hills, Woodbridge
South Group 4: none
North Group 3: Cranford, North Plainfield, Somerville, South Plainfield
South Group 3: none
North Group 2: Bernards, Hillside, New Providence, Voorhees
South Group 2: Johnson, Governor Livingston, Metuchen, Roselle, South River
North Group 1: Belvidere, Brearley, Dayton, Dunellen, Middlesex, Roselle Park
South Group 1: Bound Brook, Delaware Valley, Highland Park, Manville, South Hunterdon
Non-Public A: St. Joseph-Metuchen
Non-Public B: St. Thomas Aquinas

See and download the NJSIAA’s Football Classifications for the 2026 and 2027 football seasons:

2026-2028 NJSIAA Football Classifications Download

August 19, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

St. Joseph-Metuchen, St. Thomas Aquinas retain multiplier status, as NJSIAA unveils 2026 list

To help non-publics find games against opponents who might not otherwise want to schedule them, the NJSIAA years ago began an incentive for public schools: the multiplier.

While it’s undergone various tweaks over the years, the intent was to reward public schools for playing tougher opponents, by giving them more points in the playoff qualification system than they would otherwise get.

The newest iteration gives teams extra OSI points for losses to certain schools deemed “multipliers.” While teams that play multipliers still get 100 percent of the opponent SI value for a win, they would get 80 percent for a win against a Category A school, 75 percent against Category B, and 70 percent against C and D schools.

For non-publics in Category A, B, and C, a loss to a non-multiplier would move them down to the D category. A second loss would mean loss of multiplier status entirely.

Category D teams lose that status with just one loss.

In the Big Central Conference, St. Joseph-Metuchen moves up from a Category D to a Category B multiplier, on the strength of an 8-2 campaign in 2026, which included an unbeaten regular season, with a win over North 2, Group 4 champion Phillipsburg in early October. Their only two losses were to Donovan Catholic in the regular season and Bergen Catholic in the Non-Public Group A first round.

St. Thomas Aquinas moves from a Category C to a Category D team. They will still be the same value (70%) as last year, but this year, one loss to a non-multiplier would eliminate them entirely, rather than two. The Trojans went 5-6 last season, with regular season losses to Catholic Memorial (MA), Paramus Catholic, Pope John and St. Joe’s-Metuchen (all multipliers), Sayreville (a non-multiplier), and a playoff loss to Immaculata.

The Spartans are not among this year’s multipliers.

Here are the Categories for the 2026 football season, as unveiled Wednesday afternoon by the NJSIAA in the 2026 Football Regulations, which are now published on its website and can be found here.

Category A (80%): Bergen Catholic, DePaul, Don Bosco Prep, St. Joseph-Montvale, St. Peter’s Prep
Category B (75%): Delbarton, Paramus Catholic, Red Bank Catholic, St. Joseph-Metuchen
Category C (70%): Pope John, St. Augustine, Seton Hall Prep
Category D (70%): Donovan Catholic, Holy Spirit, St. John Vianney, St. Thomas Aquinas

While the multiplier list still includes 16 teams, one dropped out, one new team is on the list, and there are some changes from last year:

St. Peter’s Prep started 2025 as a Category C multiplier, but moves up to Category A this season.
Pope John and St. Augustine both move down from Category B in 2025 to Category C this season.
Paramus Catholic and Red Bank Catholic both move up from Category C to Category B, while St. Joseph-Metuchen makes the jump to B from Category D.
St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Vianney and Holy Spirit drop from Category C to Category D for 2025.
Donovan Catholic was not a multiplier last season, but joins the list in Category D this season.
Paul VI was a multiplier last year, but is not on the list this year.

August 19, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

NJSIAA releases official 2026 starting Strength Index Numbers

With a little more than a week to go before the start of the 2026 high school football season in New Jersey, the NJSIAA has released – via its new arrangement with NJ.com that prompted the closure of Gridirion New Jersey in June – the official starting Strength Index numbers for the season.

These differ from the final SI numbers for 2025, where we published our own estimates at the end of the season, which can be found here. However, those are not the starting numbers for 2026. Rather, they will be “centered” toward the generally accepted midpoint of 60. (For example, the average final SI of all teams last year came out to 59.82.)

Here’s how the process works: Each team’s ranking gets “centered” by one-third around a mid-point of 60. Teams above 60 are reduced by one-third of the distance they are from the mid-point (i.e., a team rated 90, which is 30 points higher than 60, would be reduced by 10 and start the year as an 80), while the opposite would happen for teams below 60; their SI value would increase. This is to make the value less reliant on historical data, since – unlike power points – the SI carries over from the previous season.

While we also released our own projected starting SI numbers back in early July, the official numbers differ slightly. Some are only off by a hundredth or thousandth of a point, and may be due to rounding. Others could have results in incorrect consolation scores initially reported to Gridiron New Jersey, or games that may not have been added.

That said, below are the official NJSIAA starting Strength Index numbers for 2026, with teams listed in alphabetical order, in a downloadable PDF format. Central Jersey Sports Radio will post these numbers each week of the season, as they change based on each week’s result.

2026 Starting Strength Index Values Download

August 8, 2026 by Alec Crouthamel

New Jersey umpires see “a dream come true” in Yankees’ Old Timers’ Day Game

Ask any kid growing up in the Tri-State area about their childhood dream for when they’re older.

A good number of them will point to swinging the bat – or toeing the rubber – for the New York Yankees.

But another dream was accomplished in the Bronx on Saturday.

Four present or former NJSIAA umpires, Gary Giackette, Warren Bennett, Chris Parkhill, and Bill Killduff, donned the blue for the Yankees’ annual Old Timers’ Day game on Saturday. Bennett patrolled home plate, Killduff worked first base, Parkhill at second, and Giackette at third.

In an opportunity that the quartet all agreed was a “surreal” one, the afternoon was full of laughs and smiles as legends from many different eras of Yankees lore came together to put on a show.

The Bombers poked out a 3-2 victory over the Clippers, with plenty of highlight-reel plays from former Yankees of (relatively) young and old.

Many of these players brought familiarity to the four umpires, having seen plenty of star-studded talent come through the Garden State over the years. That includes Toms River-native Todd Frazier, who arguably won MVP honors with an RBI double and a wicked play at the hot corner.

In a full-circle moment, Giackette and Killduff had seen Frazier make eye-popping plays in the infield for many years. Both of them umpired Toms River East American’s 1998 Little League state final victory over Randolph in Sayreville, on the way to winning the Little League World Series over Japan in Williamsport.

Frazier starred at shortstop and on the mound that year, on the way to a powerhouse career at Rutgers and a ten-year stint in the MLB as a consistent fan favorite, including three months with the Yankees after a deadline trade from the Chicago White Sox.

The legends weren’t afraid to bring out the theatrics, either.

Former star catcher Jorge Posada, whose No. 20 jersey was retired four years after retiring, tried to jokingly call an ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) challenge in the first inning after Bennett called a breaking ball out of the zone.

His request was promptly denied by public address announcer Paul Olden. Another batter tried to do the same later in the three-inning showcase after a fastball up in the zone was called a strike, once again to no avail.

Maybe next year!

Umpires Gary Giackette, Warren Bennett, Chris Parkhill, and Bill Killduff wave to the crowd at the New York Yankees' Old Timers' Day Game (Photo: Alec Crouthamel). — *Umpires Gary Giackette, Warren Bennett, Chris Parkhill, and Bill Killduff wave to the crowd at the New York Yankees’ Old Timers’ Day Game (Photo: Alec Crouthamel).*

With their decades of umpiring experience, the four all have built up strong reputations across the state — Bennett is currently the first Vice President of the NJ State Federation of Umpires, and Giackette the secretary — while Kilduff retired two years ago after 50 years on the job.

And on Saturday in the Bronx, they got to do so in the big leagues.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Alec Crouthamel talk with umpires Gary Giackette, Warren Bennett, Chris Parkhill, and Bill Killduff before umpiring the New York Yankees Old Timers’ Day Game:

*Umpire Warren Bennett, calling balls and strikes at home with Bernie Williams at the plate (Photo: Alec Crouthamel).*

*Recently-retired Bill Killduff, calling an out at first base (Photo: Alec Crouthamel).*

*Chris Parkhill, chopping it up at second base (Photo: Alec Crouthamel).*

*Gary Giackette calling a ball foul at third base (Photo: Alec Crouthamel).*

July 8, 2026July 8, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Gameday with Marcus Borden: Summer 2026 Edition! (Part 2)

School’s out for summer, but the Central Jersey Sports Radio crew is in! There are just six more weeks until preseason camp begins, and there’s a ton to talk about, so let’s finish what we started with CJSR analyst Marcus Borden!

In Part One – which can be found here – Mike and Marcus begin with taking a look at the huge recent news that Gridiron New Jersey has been shut down by creator Jon Fass. The site was a resource for every high school coach around the state for playoff standings, records, and playoff history. They also talk the “new” snaking procedure being back in the playoff formula.

In Part Two – found below – Mike and Marcus move on to discuss all the coaching changes in the Big Central this year – 25 of 59 schools have new coaches in just the last two years – and take a quick look ahead to the upcoming season, with Borden set to begin his third season of “Camp Caravan” during the second week of August.

Click below to listen to Part Two of our Summer 2026 edition of “Gameday with Marcus Borden”:

July 7, 2026July 6, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Gameday with Marcus Borden: Summer 2026 Edition! (Part 1)

School’s out for summer, but the Central Jersey Sports Radio crew is in! There are just six more weeks until preseason camp begins, and there’s a ton to talk about, so let’s do it with CJSR analyst Marcus Borden!

Mike and Marcus begin with taking a look at the huge recent news that Gridiron New Jersey has been shut down by creator Jon Fass. The site was a resource for every high school coach around the state for playoff standings, records, and playoff history. They also talk the “new” snaking procedure being back in the playoff formula.

This episode is broken down into two parts. The second will drop on Thursday, with Mike and Marcus talking about all the coaching changes in the Big Central this year – 25 of 59 schools have new coaches in just the last two years – and take a quick look ahead to the upcoming season, with Borden set to begin his third season of “Camp Caravan” during the second week of August.

Click below to listen to Part One of our Summer 2026 edition of “Gameday with Marcus Borden”:

June 15, 2026June 14, 2026 by Mike Pavlichko

Photo Gallery: We stopped by the new home of the NJSIAA state baseball finals at Rutgers, and all seemed to be having a good time

Free parking, free admission, a day in the sun with seat-back chairs, or a chance to spread out on a blanket on the grassy hill in left field.

That pretty much summed up a beautiful (if not on the warm side) Sunday afternoon at Rutgers University’s Bainton Field in Piscataway, where the NJSIAA held its four public state championship games, just a few days after crowning the Non-Public champions on Wednesday night.

Back when this reporter was calling Rutgers baseball games on student radio station WRSU 88.7 FM in New Brunswick, the field – not yet named Bainton – was a lot different: natural grass, smaller bleachers, and an uncovered platform behind the plate on ground level for a press box.

But in recent years, the field was completely turfed, and a video board and lights were added for night baseball. And this past off-season, the bleachers were replaced and expanded, including several hundred seat-back chairs behind home plate. The press box was relocated to the top of the bleachers, with room for media, a broadcast booth, and stadium operations booth, along with additional wings on the side for press.

Those upgrades, and the central location – with easy access from Routes 287 and the Turnpike – made it a no-brainer for the NJSIAA to move the finals to Rutgers from Veterans’ Park in Hamilton, where the natural grass surface limited play after rain, parking was limited, and a curfew affected some late-running games.

Let’s call the move to Bainton a home run for the NJSIAA and the 12 teams that got to play for state championships there. (Scroll down for all the state finals results.)

Here’s a photo gallery from our visit to the opening game of the day, the Group 3 state final, in which Old Tappan beat Brick Memorial 5-0 to win its second state title in program history: