The Maxwell Ratings will rank the Georgia High School Association's 422 teams throughout the 2018 season. The ratings are based entirely on historical performance and on field results and do not consider personnel changes on the player roster or coaching staff.
Interesting results:
- Maybe it’s me, but my excitement for college football this season is somewhat flat. Sure, I love watching the Bulldogs dismantle our traditional conference foes South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Auburn, but it’s also week after week of watching Alabama steamroll opponent after opponent on its way to a seemingly inevitable national championship. To be clear, there are other possibilities, ones which I’m sure many of us are hoping will unfold (i.e., a Georgia victory in the SEC title game), but it’s undeniable that anything other than a Tide repeat title is an underdog scenario.
For the most part, it’s been the same in the higher GHSA classifications where the top teams have been remarkably consistent.
For example, in Class AAAAAAA, Colquitt County has already defeated a fourth of the remaining playoff teams (McEachern 41-7, Grayson 26-14, Tift County 45-7, and Lowndes 40-6). That’s an average of 38-8.5 over some of the best teams in the state with none even coming close.
In Class AAAAAA, all of powerhouse Region 1 advanced to the second round, crushing Region 4 in a clean Round One sweep with a 51.5-20 average. But perhaps more impressive is that the leader of the South Georgia pack, Lee County, has previously routed the three other remaining Region 1 teams by an average of 41.67-7 in the regular season.
Overall, Colquitt County has a 73.0% chance to win it all while Lee County stands on an even more impressive 82.9% chance. Between the top two classes, only Grayson has a greater than a 10% chance, sitting at 12.3% in Class AAAAAAA.
Lower classifications, however, provide more uncertainty.
In Class AAAAA, Rome is the top rated team but Warner Robins is actually the overall favorite for the title (34.4% versus 38.6%) due to a remaining draw that is about three points easier.
In AAAA, Mary Persons is the favorite (43.3%), but don't discount Blessed Trinity (31.7%) or Cartersville (16.2%).
Cedar Grove is the strong favorite in Class AAA with a 42.0% chance, but if they're unexpectedly eliminated the race gets tight between Calhoun (19.8%), Peach County (19.3%), and Monroe Area (12.0%).
Rockmart (32.0%) and Dublin (31.0%) make Class AA a virtual toss up while Irwin County stands tall in Class A - Public at 52.2% but Pelham (24.2%) and Clinch County (18.8%) are ready if the Indians should falter.
Class A - Private is perhaps the most interesting, where here again the highest rated team is not the bracket favorite. Athens Academy (36.4%) rates about a point higher than Eagle’s Landing Christian (37.2%) but the Chargers enjoy a slightly easier draw. Prince Avenue Christian (16.4%) stands a reasonable chance as well.
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 0.08%.
For the current season, the ratings accurately account for the winner of 2,025 of 2,175 total games including 0 tie(s) (93.10%) and accurately reflect approximately 68.3% of all game margins within 13.85 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.
The Maxwell Ratings are a regular feature of Georgia High School Football Daily, a free e-mail newsletter. To join the mailing list, click here.
Home Advantage: 1.08
By Class
All-Class
Classification rankings are shown in [brackets]. Each team links to its page at the Georgia High School Football Historians Association.
Regions
Each region is shown with its “Competitive Rating”, which is the Competitive Rating is the rating required for a new team to that region to have a chance of going undefeated in a round robin schedule among region teams equal to the chance of being selected region champion if picked at random. For example, there are four teams in 1-AAAAAAA, so the chance of a new team being region champion if picked at random is 1 / (4 + 1) = 20%. Therefore the Competitive Rating is the rating required to go undefeated in a round robin tournament among region teams 20% of the time. This rating favors regions with larger numbers of highly rated teams. The “Average Rating” 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.
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