- However, the question of whether the region can go undefeated may be answered early when Valdosta plays Norcross in the Georgia Dome on Saturday. The Wildcats are a 6-point underdog to the Blue Devils in the only game the Region 1-AAAAAA team is not favored. Colquitt County also plays North Gwinnett in the same venue and Lowndes visits Roswell Friday to account for the region's three toughest outside games of the year right out of the gate. The good news (for Region 1-AAAAAA fans, anyway) is that if the region can go undefeated in Week 1, it stands slightly better than a 25% chance of finishing the regular season undefeated.

- Games involving Region 1-AAAAAA are not the only big games on tap, though. McEachern plays Tucker in another top rated matchup of the season. McEachern is favored by 2 in a rematch of one of last year’s quarterfinal games.

- Benedictine hosts Greater Atlanta Christian in what could very well be a preview of the Class AA state championship game. In fact, the preseason ratings show there is a 13.24% chance these two teams will face each other in the state championship, the highest of any regular season matchup. The Colquitt County-North Gwinnett game has an 8.00% chance of being a Class AAAAAA state championship preview.

Maxwell GHSA Football Ratings

As this season's games are played, the Maxwell Ratings will be based on a modified logistic regression of the current football season's results in combination with each team's historical performance. More recent games and games against similarly rated opponents carry more weight and the weight of each team's historical performance diminishes as the team's season progresses.

The current total weight of all team's historical performance is 100.00%.

For the current season, the ratings accurately account for the winner of 0 of 0 total games including 0 ties (--.--%) and accurately reflect approximately 68.3% of all game margins within --.-- points.

The ratings are scaled so that 100.00 is the rating required to win 91.5% of all games in an infinite round robin tournament against all teams in the highest classification. The schedule strength is the rating required to win 50% of all games in an infinite round robin tournament against a particular team's opponents.

All data is courtesy of the Georgia High School Football Historians Association.

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Visit the Maxwell Ratings for more ratings and information, including Maxwell's Georgia High School Football Archive.

Home Advantage: 1.22

By Class

All-Class

Classification rankings are shown in [brackets]. Each team links to its page at the Georgia High School Football Historians Association. Please submit errors or omissions through their forums.

Regions

Each region is shown with its “Competitive Rating”, which is the rating required to win 80% of all games against the region’s teams in an infinite round robin competition, and its “Average Rating”, which is the rating required to win 50% of all games against the region’s teams in an infinite round robin competition.

Least Likely Results

These are the least likely results of the season using the ratings above. These may change as the season progresses. Each row shows the game data, the difference in the teams after accounting for the home advantage, the expected winning percentage of the favored team, and the likelihood of the on-field result.

Highest Rated Matchups

These are the highest rated matchups of the season using the ratings above. The game rating is the rating required to win 50% of all games in an infinite round robin competition against the expected rating of the loser of the game, which favors games with highly rated and closely matched opponents. These may change as the season progresses. Each row shows the game rating, the game data, the difference in the teams after accounting for the home advantage, and the expected winning percentage of the favored team.