The football team won the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II state sectional championship in 2006 and the North II Group I title in 2016. The sectional title win in 2006 was the first ever for Weequahic and the first for a Newark high school since 1975. Coach Altariq White was named state Coach of the Year and Amara Kamara was selected as the state Defensive Player of the Year. In 2016, in the first sectional title game played between two Newark high schools, the football team defeated Malcolm X Shabazz High School by a score of 18-8 to win the North II, Group I championship, the program's second sectional title in the playoff era. 2009 marked the return of the Thanksgiving Day game called the "Soul Bowl" between Weequahic and Shabazz High School, which had last been played in 1993 and had been in abeyance due to the two schools being placed in different athletic conferences. The 2011 game was the 29th between the two teams, ending in a 27-20 win for Weequahic, which won its fifth consecutive defeat of Shabazz. The intra-district football rivalry with Shabazz was ranked third on NJ.com's 2017 list "Ranking the 31 fiercest rivalries in N.J. HS football". Shabazz leads the series with an overall record of 35-28-6 through the 2017 season.