Tag: Strength Index

by Mike Pavlichko

Unofficial SI values for out-of-state NJ football opponents in Week Two

Typically, out-of-state opponents make up many early-season games in New Jersey high school football, and then the number of games starts to dwindle as league and division seasons take a stranglehold on the schedule.

And that’s the case this week as we enter Week Two of the season in the Garden State.

There were 13 New Jersey teams playing out-of-state opponents last week, but only seven this week, including one in the Big Central. That’s Phillipsburg, which in addition to playing traditional rival Easton on Thanksgiving, added Pennsylvania schools Parkland, Emmaus, and Freedom this week to their schedule, playing them in the first three games of the year.

Next week, there will be just two: Pingry hosting John Carroll (MD) and Montclair-Kimberley at King School (CT).

The out-of-state SI is calculates by finding the opponent’s rating on MaxPreps. In the case of Freedom, their rating is a 40. We then go to the New Jersey rankings and find the two NJSIAA member schools closest to them, above and below: Nutley (40.24) and Oakcrest (39.98). Then we take the two Strength Index values of the schools (63.33 for Nutley, 61.87 for Oakcrest) and average them to get 62.60 as the SI value for Freedom.

That number won’t be used in the standings for OSI, nor will their new SI value after the game. Rather, Freedom’s SI using the same lookup procedure will be determined officially after MaxPreps updates its ratings this week, and that will be used in the UPR standings without change through Week 6. By NJSIAA rule, another update will be made for Week 7, then the SI locked in for Week 8 (Cutoff Weekend), when all NJ schools are locked in for qualification only. (All games through the end of the playoffs are calculated in the background in order to get an accurate starting number for 2027).

But for now, here are the SI numbers for this week’s out-of-state opponents, which will be used to determine the new SI numbers for next week. Phillipsburg, for example, is rated a 79.8 in the Strength Index, so they would be considered about 17 points better than Freedom.

  • Bergen Catholic: St. Joseph’s Prep (PA), 87.04
  • DePaul: Msgr. Farrell (NY), 79.77
  • Immaculata: Archbishop Stepinac (NY), 73.57
  • Paramus Catholic: Iona Prep (NY), 80.22
  • Phillipsburg: Freedom (PA), 62.60
  • Seton Hall Prep: Chaminade (NY), 75.51
  • St. Peter’s Prep: St. Anthony-Melville (NY), 70.71
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.

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 ValuesDownload
by Mike Pavlichko

Winslow’s second straight Group 4 title gives Eagles top Strength Index rating in NJ in 2025

A win in the Group 4 title game over Ramapo makes Winslow Twp. the top-rated New Jersey high school football, according to the Strength Index, a major part of the NJSIAA’s playoff formula.

In Central Jersey Sports Radio’s final unofficial calculations, the Eagles finished the year No. 1, with an SI value of 109.49 points. That’s 4.63 points higher than Don Bosco Prep, which was upset by St. Joseph-Montvale in the Non-Public Group B final, and finished at 104.86; the Green Knights finished at 100.79, seventh statewide.

Non-Public B champion DePaul finished 13th in the state, with a 93.64 rating.

Among the other public schools, Group 1 champ Glassboro came in fifth at 102.29. Group 2 winner Camden checked in at 104.52, in third. Group 3 winner Cedar Creek was at 97.97, finishing tenth, and Washington Township – the Group 5 champ – finished sixth with a 101.64 SI value.

South Jersey public schools swept the Group Finals in 2025.

Before the 2026 season begins, each team’s ranking will be “centered” by one-third around a mid-point of 60. Teams above 60 are reduced by one-third (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 the SI carries over from the previous season.

Here are the final, unofficial, Strength Index ratings for all NJSIAA schools, first by rank, then in alphabetical order, in PDF format.

2025 FINAL STRENGTH INDEX RATINGSDownload
2025 FINAL STRENGTH INDEX RATINGS (alphabetical)Download

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

More Big Central teams will start 2025 in league’s “middle class” than among the elite or struggling

Perhaps showing great parity in the league – or maybe just more teams improving than struggling – almost a full 40 percent of Big Central Conference Football teams reside in the middle third of the state when it comes to Strength Index values heading into the 2025 season.

Strength Index is how the NJSIAA measures the strength of a team, and the strength of a school’s opponents, with that weighing into 60 percent of the state’s UPR playoff formula, with the other 40 percent coming from power points.

Out of 337 teams playing football in the state in 2025, there were 18 BCC teams each in the bottom (teams ranked 1 through 113) and top thirds, (teams 226 through 337) with 23 in the middle third, which includes teams ranked from 114 through 225.

How does that compare with previous years? Last season 23 Big Central teams were in the top third, and 21 in the bottom third, with just 15 in the middle. That means there were more very good and very bad teams than those in the middle.

In 2023, there were 18 in the top third, 20 in the middle, and 21 in the bottom third, signalling a good deal of parity. This year’s numbers tend to show parity, as well.

Who made it out of the bottom third?

There were seven teams that started 2024 in the bottom third and moved up to the middle third. The biggest gains were made by North Hunterdon, Belvidere, South Plainfield and Manville, all of whom climbed more than 100 spots over the course of the year.

The County Seaters made the biggest jump, from No. 291 in the state to 150, a jump of 141 spots. Manville rose 139 places from 299 to 160; North Hunterdon rose 116 places to 164, and South Plainfield 101 spots to 197.

Also moving up to the middle third were Spotswood (+82 to 172), Metuchen (+65 to 180) and Governor Livingston (+29 to 209).

Fourteen teams that started in the bottom third last year remained there at the end. The biggest gainer among them was JFK, which rose 88 points in the statewide rankings, but missed the middle third by 15 spots, coming in at No. 240.

Middle third…

Of the teams that started 2024 in the middle third of the state, six of them – Johnson, South Hunterdon, Colonia, Delaware Valley, Middlesex, Roselle and Edison all stayed put.

Four teams moved up a third. Old Bridge (+113) climbed the most, from 201 to 88 in the state, followed by Rahway (+110, from 199 to 89), New Providence (+76, from 162 to 86) and Cranford (+59, from 135 to 76).

Four also went down, meaning the middle third gained three teams against the bottom. Voorhees,, Roselle Park, South Brunswick and Monroe all dropped into the bottom third last season.

What about the top??

The number of Big Central teams in the top third of the state also got smaller, contributing to the gain by the middle. Nine teams dropped down, while four came in, a net gain of five for the middle third. Sayreville, North Brunswick, Watchung Hills, Carteret, Bridgewater-Raritan, Linden and Union all fell, but stayed in the top 200, landing just 75 spots out of the top third.

And just like the bottom, 14 top-third teams remained in that group, including St. Thomas Aquinas, Phillipsburg, Ridge, Bernards, Westfield, Hillside, Piscataway, Summit, Woodbridge, St. Joseph-Metuchen, Somerville, Plainfield, Hillsborough and Elizabeth.

What does it all mean?

The results here are really more about last year than this year. Those that had better seasons in 2024 than 2023 generally went up, and those that saw a dropoff generally went down. Most seemed to center toward the middle.

by Mike Pavlichko

Gridiron New Jersey unveils official 2025 starting Strength Index Numbers

In record time – with six weeks to go before the start of high school football season August 28th – Gridiron New Jersey has come out with the state’s official Strength Index Numbers for 2025.

The Strength Index is what is used to calculate a team’s OSI, with that ranking being 60 percent of a team’s playoff qualification. Power point rankings make up the other 40 percent, and for the second straight year, “group points” are no longer a factor in that calculation.

New this year, the NJSIAA – after awarding the top two teams in each of ten public supersections, two in each group, the top seeds – each section of eight teams will be seeded geographically. The northern most teams will go in North 1 and Central sections, then be ranked accordingly; the rest will go in the North 2 and South sections.

Strength Index is a measure of a team’s strength, based on how it competed against its opponents. All games on a team’s schedule – even the post season – count toward Strength Index, and values go up and down each season.

If Team A with an SI of 60 plays Team B with an SI of 50, Team A is considered 10 points stronger. If Team A wins by 20, it outperformed expectations by 10. That numbers is divided by five, and Team A gets stronger by two points, becoming a 62, while Team B declines by two points and is now a 48.

Alternatively, if Team B won by 10 points, then it outperformed expectations by 20 points. Dividing by five, Team B would add four points to its SI to become a 54, while Team A loses four to become a 56, all suggesting that the teams are closer in strength than their original rankings.

The average of a team’s opponents determines OSI – the Opponent Strength Index – with full points given for a win, or half for a loss. A team that plays eight games, assuming all teams had the same SI of 80, and goes 4-4, would have an OSI of 60.

At the start of each year, in order to limit the influence of past year’s SI values, all teams are centered by one third of the way to 60, which is considered the “midpoint,” an average team. So, a team rated at 90 – which is 30 away from 60 – would be reduced by one-third of 30, or ten points making them a 50 to start the year.

A team rated 30, likewise, would increase by ten, to become a 40.

Below are the full Strength Index numbers in PDF format for all teams in the state of New Jersey, per Gridiron New Jersey – which performs the official calculations for the NJSIAA – as of July 17, 2025. Scroll further down for a list of all Big Central Teams.

Note: If the files below do not appear, you may need to click the Download button to see the PDF version of the file.

2025 STARTING STRENGTH INDEX (statewide for web)Download
2025 STARTING STRENGTH INDEX (BCC for web)Download
by Mike Pavlichko

Who was most improved in the Big Central Conference in 2024? A look at the numbers

One can easily look at the Big Central Conference football standings and compare this year to last to see who was much improved, and who dropped off, but the Strength Index will give you a little more nuance.

Since the NJSIAA’s SI values – which are used to calculate OSI for playoff calculation – compare how teams do against their opponents based not on wins and losses but on the score compared to each team’s rating, the system is a good way to see how teams fared.

After all, a team that might have won just two games one year and three the next might have made more of a jump overall if they got blown out in games the first year, but lost by a touchdown or less the next season.

The biggest jump this year in the Big Central was made by Somerville, both in wins and losses and Strength Index. The Pioneers were 5-5 last year, but finished 12-1 this season, winning the Central Jersey Group 3 title, their first sectional crown since 2017.

That’s a plus-7 in the win column. They also jumped a whopping 28.59 points in Strength Index from 67.01 in the preseason to 95.60 at the end of the year.

Rounding out the top five, the next four teams were Manville, Old Bridge, Rahway and Belvidere. Let’s look at them in order.

Manville was a plus-4 this year, going from 3-7 in Dave Markowitch’s first season to 7-3 this year, with a playoff berth. They gained 16.85 SI points, going from a preseason mark of 43.30 to 60.15 in Strength Index.

Old Bridge flip-flopped their record as well, going from 4-6 to 6-4, and it showed in the Strength Index as well. They Knights climbed 15.33 points from a 56.43 to a 71.76 rating.

Rahway also jumped, going from a 56.65 to a 71.74 Strength Index value. They also flip-flopped their record, from 3-7 to 7-3 from last season to 2024.

And Belvidere improved greatly as well. Just 3-7 last year under head coach Jordan Schreffler, they finished 8-2 this season, although they missed the playoffs with a relatively weak schedule. Still, they didn’t beat those teams last year, but did this year. And they improved from 46.63 to 61.62 in Strength Index, an increase of 14.99 points from last year.

Five other teams saw double digit jumps in SI value: Hillsborough (14.18), Phillipsburg (12.35), St. Thomas Aquinas (12.23), New Providence (11.62), North Hunterdon (11.39) and Cranford (11.19).

Overall, 30 of the 59 teams in the league went up, the other 29 went down. The three biggest drops were all by more than 20 points, including Brearley (-26.92), Dunellen (-27.11) and Roselle Park (27.51).

Here’s a look at the entire Big Central Conference, plus or minus in Strength Index for 2024, from the preseason to the end of the year:

In a longer term view, St. Thomas Aquinas has seen the biggest increase in its SI value since the Strength Index was first used in 2019. After using power points for so many years, the NJSIAA switched to the UPR system in 2018 (60% Born Power Index, 40% power points). The next year, the state adjusted the numbers and called it the Strength Index, using a similar formula to Born’s, but using OSI – a reverse form of the Born Power Index – for playoff calculation.

The Trojans have jumped 53.34 points, by far and away more than any other team since the 2019 preseason. They were 4-6 in 2018 in the final season under Joe Vigilante, and just 2-8 the year before that. Brian Meeney went 4-6, 4-1, and 8-3 in his first three seasons.

Tarig Holman took over after Meeney died suddenly in the spring of 2022, and the Trojans have gone a combined 27-6 since, winning 31 straight Big Central Conference games, a league record.

The next biggest gainers are Metuchen (+26.31), Highland Park (+25.46), Manville (+25.35), Belvidere (+24.22), Plainfield (+23.27) and New Providence (+21.63).

Overall, 17 teams rose by more than 10 points, and 27 overall out of 59 league schools have increased their SI since the 2019 preseason.

Here’s a look at the entire Big Central Conference, plus or minus in Strength Index, from the 2019 preseason to the end of 2024:

by Mike Pavlichko

Gridiron New Jersey releases official 2024 starting Strength Index Numbers

We’re less than a month out from the start of the 2024 high school football season, and Gridiron New Jersey is out with the state’s official 2024 Strength Index numbers.

The Strength Index is what is used to calculate a team’s OSI, with that ranking being 60 percent of a team’s playoff qualification.

Power point ranking makes up the other 40 percent, but OSI is likely to have even more of an impact this year, with recent changes to the power point system. The NJSIAA has removed the “group points” from the power point formula, meaning a win over a Group 5 school won’t garner more points than a win over a Group 1 school.

The change was made in other sports, too, however, the NJSIAA’s football regulations – including changes to the formula – have not officially been published by the association.

Strength Index is a measure of a team’s strength, based on how it competed against its opponents. All games on a team’s schedule – even the post season – count toward Strength Index, and values go up and down each season.

If Team A with an SI of 60 plays Team B with an SI of 50, Team A is considered 10 points stronger. If Team A wins by 20, it outperformed expectations by 10. That numbers is divided by five, and Team A gets stronger by two points, becoming a 62, while Team B declines by two points and is now a 48.

Alternatively, if Team B won by 10 points, then it outperformed expectations by 20 points. Dividing by five, Team B would add four points to its SI to become a 54, while Team A loses four to become a 56, all suggesting that the teams are closer in strength than their original rankings.

The average of a team’s opponents determines OSI – the Opponent Strength Index – with full points given for a win, or half for a loss. A team that plays eight games, assuming all teams had the same SI of 80, and goes 4-4, would have an OSI of 60.

At the start of each year, in order to limit the influence of past year’s SI values, all teams are centered by one third of the way to 60, which is considered the “midpoint,” an average team. So, a team rated at 90 – which is 30 away from 60 – would be reduced by one-third of 30, or ten points making them a 50 to start the year.

A team rated 30, likewise, would increase by ten, to become a 40.

Below are the full Strength Index numbers in PDF format for all teams in the state of New Jersey, per Gridiron New Jersey – which performs the official calculations for the NJSIAA – as of August 1, 2024. Scroll further down for a list of all Big Central Teams.

Note: If the files below do not appear, you may need to click the Download button to see the PDF version of the file.

Download
Download
by Mike Pavlichko

The complicated world of Strength Index and OSI: Why it’s important scores are reported correctly

For years, every team had a power points guru.

No, not someone who could do a slideshow presentation. Power points were – and still are – how the NJSIAA seeds the playoffs in all sports.

But in 2018, after stakeholders from all over the state worked to refine the playoff qualification system, the state added a second metric for football: the Born Power Index. Every team had a rating based on how well they did score-wise – not necessarily win or lose – when compared with the rankings of the two teams.

If one school was rated 14 points higher than another, they would be expected to win that game by a couple of touchdowns. Win by more, you’re considered better and your stock goes up. Don’t meet that expectation? Your rating goes down.

It was good, and probably is the best true determinant of strength of a team, without looking at the players and coaches and game plans themselves. But it rewarded teams for winning by larger margins, and was scrapped after a year.

It’s replacement has stuck around since 2019 – the Strength Index – a similar formula, but now the second metric for playoff seeding is OSI, the Opponent Strength Index. Essentially, the Strength Index values of your opponents are averaged, with teams getting the full value for an opponent they beat, half the value for a loss and 3/4 value for a tie.

But what happens when an incorrect score is reported to Gridiron New Jersey – which makes all the official calculations for the NJSIAA – as happens with surprising, and alarming frequency? Anecdotally, there’s at least one a week, sometimes more.

We saw that example two weeks ago, when Gridiron’s Jon Fass tweeted on October 8th: “In addition to accounting for @GoTigersTHS victory today, UPR standings have been updated to include a couple of scoring corrections as well.”

There have been times I’ve seen three different scores at three different media outlets.

So, one might assume things would be better this week. But no. Again, there was a score correction, but this one back on September ninth.

Gridiron didn’t mention the game, but “several teams” were affected. By our count, there were almost two dozen teams that changed by more than 0.01 in Strength Index.

(We use that threshold because there are often differences in how numbers display, or are truncated or rounded when published. For example, a 60.146 would round to 60.15 but be truncated at 60.14, and it’s unclear which Gridiron uses in the many steps of the mathematical process.)

How are so many teams affected?

Well, let’s say Team A plays Team B on September 9th. If those two SI values are wrong, then when Team A plays Team C on September 16th, and Team B plays Team D that same weekend, all four teams’ numbers will be wrong. It’s the NJSIAA math version of “going viral.”

And the mistake can spread to other conferences two if there’s a non-conference game in there, much like, oh, say, a global pandemic.

The game was in South Jersey, and affected the South Group 2 and South Group 2 supersection standings, mostly. Any other effects were minimal and didn’t affect standings.

Here’s a sampling of the more notable changes:

  • Allentown went from a 70.69 down to a 70.43.
  • Audubon dropped from a 52.18 to a 52.15.
  • Glassboro went from 71.15 to 71.06.
  • Haddon Heights went from a 721.31 to 72.21.
  • Haddonfield rose from 88.87 to 88.99.
  • Paulsboro went from 52.89 to 52.87.
  • Penns Grove dropped from 64.96 to 64.60.
  • Pennsville fell from 50.74 to 50.64.
  • Salem went from a 62.92 to a 62.83.
  • Sterling went up from 27.75 to 27.79.
  • Woodbury dropped from a 78.83 to a 79.31.
  • Woodstown went from a 74.75 to a 74.84.

St. Joseph-Hammonton also moved from a 40.23 to 39.83, in a change that could affect Carteret, which beat the Wildcats 42-12 in Week 1. They now will get 39.83 factored into their average when the playoffs are seeded, instead of 40.23. (SI values are locked this weekend. They’re still tracked throughout the rest of the year, but values won’t change for playoff calculation purposes after this weekend’s games, which makes the process much simpler for all involved.)

Carteret is still in the same spot in the standings, but there’s no guarantee that wouldn’t affect things this weekend.

And Lyndhurst, which may have been affected after playing Cresskill in Week 3, went from a 60.95 to a 60.88. That, of course, affected Park Ridge, which beat Lyndhurst by 19 this weekend, but also had its SI adjusted from 77.58 to 77.39.

All of this could affect countless other schools who may have played them even before the error, since SI values change with every game.

Yes, it’s a wacky world when it comes to Strength Index and OSI.

All the more reason coaches, assistants, managers – whoever reports scores to Gridiron New Jersey, or any other media outlet, for that matter – get them right the first time.

by Mike Pavlichko

How many points is a win worth this weekend? Here are unofficial Strength Index numbers through Week 1 of play

Some teams have played one game, many have played two. It’s still too early in the season to look at playoff standings, but we’ve got a look at the entire state’s Strength Index numbers through Week 1 of play.

Strength Index is what’s used to determine a team’s OSI – Opponent Strength Index – which is 60% of the UPR formula that seeds the state’s playoffs for public schools. A team gets the full SI value of an opponent for a win, half the value for a loss, and they’re averaged out over the season to get the final OSI value.

Strength Index changes with every game played. The winning team goes up or down by 1/5 of the difference between the SI of the two teams, and how they did comparatively.

For example, if Team A rated 80 plays Team B rated 73, the difference is 7 points.

  • If team A wins by 7, the difference is 0, and the values do not change
  • If Team A wins by 12, the difference is 5. Team A goes up 1 to 80, Team B goes down 1 to 72.
  • If Team B wins by 3, the difference is 10. Team B goes up 2 to 75, Team A goes down 2 to 78.

Below is a full list of Central Jersey Sports Radio’s unofficial calculations of the Strength Index for all New Jersey NJSIAA member teams. Note that out of state games are not counted for power points, nor are they considered for SI changes or OSI in playoff seeding.

2023 SI Numbers after Week 1 (for web)Download