New Jersey

9 regular season games starting 9/9 this year.

if you don't make the playoffs you get a 10th game that matches school size with record through the first 8 weeks(0 &8 vs 0 &8, 1 & 7 vs 1 & 7 etc) These games are played during the opening round of the playoffs. So every team has at least 10 games.

2 more rounds of playoffs follow intersperced around Thankgiving Day games. The Thanksgiving game is the 9th regular season game and in the past was the 10th game played

Are these games assigned by the state, or does each school have to go and find other equally bad teams of equal school size?

New jersey response

All the 10 th games are matched up and assigned by the NJSIAA. Officials are assigned by the local district of the NJFOA. Since only about 25% of the teams make the playoffs there are some 6-2 vs 6-2 games . Most of the games are against teams that are from different leagues and have never played each other, so they create interest.

Texas - 10 weeks plus playoffs.