Although the Georgia high school football season has wound down, there are still a small handful of states that will play this coming weekend, with several games impacting the national rankings. And while Colquitt County has firmly established itself as Georgia's premier program, the Packers are also a national championship contender as well.
Using data from MaxPreps, below are the top 25 teams in the South and the top 150 from all 50 states according to my ratings. Colquitt County is easily tops in the south and the highest rated team east of Texas, an impressive achievement for a relatively rural public school with no discernible natural advantage.
Note that for the Georgia teams these ratings vary slightly from the "official" ratings I normally run on Mondays. A few key differences include the factoring of out-of-state games, the exclusion of the home advantage in this set of ratings, and a difference in how the teams are scaled. Here, a rating of 100 is the rating required to win 75% of all games in an infinite round robin tournament against the top 150 teams.
It should be noted that although Colquitt County doesn't sit atop the ratings, comparisons between states are difficult because of the lack of connections between teams. Personally, I would argue any undefeated team rated over 100 would be a reasonable national champion selection. Aside from Colquitt County, that would currently include six other teams: Centennial in California, Bishop Gorman in Nevada, Male in Kentucky, Loyola Academy in Illinois, and both Lake Travis and Katy in Texas. However, this weekend Lake Travis and Katy square off for the UIL 6A-II championship while Centennial plays national power De La Salle in games that will eliminate at least one if not two teams from contention using that criteria.
In total, Georgia is well represented, with eight teams in the top 150, fifth most even though Georgia is only the eighth most populous state. Each of the four states ahead of Georgia is at least 15% larger, with California (ten teams) at 384%.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Texas easily leads the nation with 36 teams in the top 150, more than football strongholds Ohio, Illinois, and California combined. The Lone Star state enjoys several advantages over many others such as having the second largest population and nearly 1,200 high schools. That number includes 244 schools in their 6A classification, which has an almost identical enrollment cutoff (2,100) as Georgia's recently added AAAAAAA (2,092). Those factors, combined with arguably the deepest high school football tradition in the country, will always produce a couple of solid contenders at the national level.
Maxwell National High School Football Ratings
All data from MaxPreps.
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Southern US High School Football Ratings
Includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
National High School Football Ratings
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