It's been a long high school football season - starting in the heat and seemingly constant sunshine of summer, heading through whatever passes for fall in New Jersey, into the cold weather for the playoffs. And with the 2025 season officially in the rear view mirror, here are the "Elite Performers of the Year," brought to you by Elite QB Football Training Academy!

With the opening round of the playoffs done for public schools - as well as regular season add-on games for those who didn't qualify, it's time for the "Elite Performers of the Week," brought to you by Elite QB Football Training Academy, for Week 9 of the New Jersey high school football season! Founded and run by Matt Bastardi, a former high school and college quarterback who has either played the position or coached it for over 40 years, Elite QB trains players at all position levels, with an emphasis on QBs.

With Friday night's Cutoff Weekend high school football games all in the books, Central Jersey Sports Radio is updating the unofficial NJSIAA playoff standings as we head into Saturday action. We'll have further analysis late morning into the afternoon Saturday, with our 2025 "Playoff Projection Show" scheduled for 6 pm where we give our bracket projections. The full tournament for the public schools will be unveiled on Sunday by the NJSIAA via Gridiron New Jersey.

Central Jersey Sports Radio has done its own unofficial calculations on the state's playoff standings, and a few teams moved around after Saturday's Week 7 action across the state. We'll have more in-depth analysis once we confirm our numbers with Gridiron New Jersey, which performs the official calculations for the NJSIAA. That typically is on Sundays, and then all the SI numbers lock in for Week 8, Cutoff Weekend.

With the NJSIAA's Cutoff Weekend for high school football next week in New Jersey, Central Jersey Sports Radio is taking a closer look at the race for the playoffs, including who's in the running for top seeds, who's in, who's jockeying for position, and who has some work to do just to get in, or stay in the hunt. We'll break down each supersection, with individual team analysis for all Big Central Conference schools.

While most high school football teams across New Jersey played Friday night, still more have to play Saturday. But with much of Week 6 in the books, here's a look at Central Jersey Sports Radio's projections on updated playoff standings. All our projections are unofficial and based on scores reported to Gridiron New Jersey - the official calculator of the NJSIAA's UPR formula - with additional scores gathered from various media sources.

It's once again for the "Elite Performers of the Week," brought to you by Elite QB Football Training Academy, for Week 5 of the high school football season! Founded and run by Matt Bastardi, a former high school and college quarterback who has either played the position or coached it for over 40 years, Elite QB trains players at all position levels, with an emphasis on QBs.

A loss by West Orange to Phillipsburg Friday hurt the Mountaineers more than Piscataway's loss to Sayreville, and that's pushed the Chiefs into one of the two top seeds in the North Group 5 playoff supersection. That was the big takeaway from Week 5 action, with two Big Central teams holding the top two spots there, as Bridgewater-Raritan is in position to be the top overall seed.

Senior runningback Denzel Amoafo rushed for two touchdowns while junior safety Nick Stark had an interception and a fumble recovery - two of four Panther takeaways - in a 35-7 win for No. 6 Bridgewater-Raritan over No. 7 Hunterdon Central Friday night. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Ben LaSala call all the play-by-play live from Basilone Field in Bridegwater, NJ, on September 19, 2025: 1st Half 2nd Half

At the end of the day, the sixth-ranked Bridgewater-Raritan football team is 4-0, but the effects of this one are still to be determined. The Panthers topped No. 7 Hunterdon Central 35-7 Friday night on the "Big Central Game of the Week" presented by Bellamy & Son Paving heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio, but senior quarterback Declan Kurdyla went down in the second quarter with some kind of knee injury, the severity of which was unknown immediately after the game.

Thanks to wins in its first three games, Bridgewater-Raritan appears to have clinched a playoff berth. Yes, that statement sounds ridiculous having not even played Week Three of the season yet, but that's how strong the Panthers' schedule is, being in the American Silver Division, with out-of-conference matchups like Morris Knolls (a sectional finalist last year), and Big Central crossovers like Westfield and Elizabeth.

As the high school football season in New Jersey rolls on, the games - and the stakes - get bigger, so let's talk about it all with Central Jersey Sports Radio analyst Marcus Borden! Mike and Marcus look back at the week gone by, including No. 1 Phillipsburg's continued success, Bernard's loss of Thomas Diemar to a season-ending injury, and Roselle's thrilling win over Metuchen on a wild TD catch by junior Raekwon Anderson.

It was another busy week - especially Friday - on Week 2 in the Big Central, with a few milestones being recorded. There was Phillipsburg's win over Hunterdon Central giving the Stateliners 750 program wins all time - though remember, not all came in New Jersey. They played a Pennsylvania schedule for a while. There was Ridge head coach Jeff Sutherland getting his first win as head coach at his alma mater in a road victory against Hillsborough.

Stability was the name of the game in the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten in the first two weeks of the season, Weeks Zero and One. The third week, Week Two, was another story. Big wins by Piscataway and Montgomery put both in the rankings this week, with the Chiefs returning after a one-week absence, and the Cougars making their debut this season.

Sam Dech had a historic night in the season opener for Phillipsburg back on Saturday, scoring on a 95-yard touchdown run in a 28-0 win at Westfield that set two program records: it was the longest touchdown run, and longest run in Stateliner history, a pretty remarkable achievement when you think of how long they've been playing football out on the state line.

Now that high school football is in full swing, things are really starting to heat up in the Big Central and around the state, so let's talk about it all with Central Jersey Sports Radio analyst Marcus Borden! Mike and Marcus look back at the week gone by, including Aidan Vesuvio-Bush and Somerville's win over Cranford, Bernards' two-day win at Hillside, and then look ahead to this week's matchups, which sees the fourth-ranked Mountaineers face Delaware Valley in a battle of 2-0 teams in the "Big Central Game of the Week" presented by Bellamy & Son Paving.

In our newest feature this season, the Week One "Speedster of the Week" presented by Higgins Speed Lab in South Brunswick honors the top runningbacks in the Big Central Conference every week. And the Week One winner is Matteo Tramutola of Voorhees! The senior runningback is part of a balanced attack for the Vikings, who have been putting up some big numbers - not just this season, but last year as well.

While a good chunk of the first five teams in the Bellamy & Son Paving football rankings won this weekend (only St. Thomas Aquinas lost, and to the No. 1 team in Massachusetts) teams seven through nine all dropped out while three teams that haven't lost yet made their first appearances. Through it all, the top six and the tenth team all held their positions, while Hunterdon Central, Bridgewater-Raritan and St.

The Hunterdon Central Football team had a sizable fourth-quarter lead at 29-6, and things were looking good for the Red Devils. Head coach Casey Ransone says his team played "three-and-a-half quarters" of solid football. It was the last half of the last quarter that almost tripped them up. But hey, there are no style points here. Ultimately, Central hung on for a 36-28 win at North Hunterdon Thursday in the season opener for both schools, piling up 442 yards of offense in quite the balanced attack: 224 on the ground and 214 through the air.

The 2025 edition of Marcus Borden's Big Central Camp Caravan took coach to eleven different schools to see 19 teams, including six during Week One of practices, and another 13 at five different scrimmages in Week Two. So, who were some of the best teams and players he saw? What were his overall thoughts? Central Jersey Sports Radio's Mike Pavlichko talked down on the field at Hillsborough High School after Saturday's scrimmage against Elizabeth.

The only division in the Big Central in which every team has qualified for the playoffs each of the last three seasons, the American Silver Division is no joke. Every game is a battle, and the crossovers aren't exactly easy either. And yet, no one won fewer than four games last year, while state Group 4 finalist Phillipsburg didn't even win the division.

At a big school like Hunterdon Central, every program should be flush with student-athletes, but at times, the draw of specialization in youth sports has chipped away at that, in schools large and small all across the country, let alone New Jersey. But one of the big plusses of being a head coach at a school for nearly a decade - and living in that community - is that you've now seen nearly a generation of players come through from a very young age.

The next to last stop of Week One on the 2025 Camp Caravan for Central Jersey Sports Radio analyst Marcus Borden took the coach to Flemington, where his visited Hunterdon Central Friday morning. With a slew of big names back, including QB Drew Cella, top returning runningback James Mongo, and more, this could be a big year for the Red Devils.

The American Silver Division of the Big Central Conference is a division in disguise, wearing fake glasses and a moustache. It's pretty much the Mid-State 38's Delaware Division (an offshoot of the Skyland Conference's Delaware) from 2019, which had Bridgewater-Raritan, Hillsborough, Hunterdon Central, Ridge and Philipsburg, with Franklin the only team from that group that plays elsewhere in the Big Central.

Unlike the bottom half, the top-half of the Central Jersey Group 4 NJSIAA baseball playoff bracket has been riddled with upsets. Montgomery - the 12-seed - knocked off fifth-seed New Brunswick 14-2 in the opening round, and four-seed Hightstown 5-4 Wednesday in the quarterfinals. Now, they'll meet a team that pulled an upset of its own to get to the semis.