- Fortunately for fans the outlook should soon become clearer as several top games are scheduled early in the season, including three of the top-15 matchups on opening weekend with seven more following before most of the state fully embraces region play in October. And just as last year, Colquitt County may have the best schedule to watch as they play in five of the eight highest rated match ups while facing down the toughest slate in the state.

- Although the top spots are normally reserved for teams from the largest classification, Cartersville (AAAA), Valdosta (AAAAAA), Buford (AAAAA), and Tucker (AAAAAA) are all in the top ten in the state with six more appearing in the state's top 20.

- I've changed the way competitive regions are measured. Previously the Competitive Rating was the rating required to win 80% of all games against the region’s teams in an infinite round robin competition. This season 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.

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 tie(s) (--.--%) 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.

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: 1.35

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.