Maxwell Week 8 Summary: New top team in Class A - Private???

Their challenger? Last season’s runner-up, Athens Academy.  The Spartans squeaked by in the ratings by about 2/3 of a point.

On the surface, the reasoning behind swap might be difficult to see.  Athens Academy topped a reasonably decent George Walton Academy team 35-28 while ELCA rolled to a 77-3 victory over a hapless Our Lady of Mercy team that has been outscored 348-44.  But for the most part the computer views those victories as about equally impressive given that Athens Academy was expected to win by about another touchdown more and ELCA did probably as much as could be asked for in 48 minutes with mercy rules in place.

Also, looking at the scores, ELCA doesn’t seem to have had much of a drop off from last season’s behemoth, arguably one of the best teams ever in the GHSA’s smallest classification where the Chargers outscored their opponents 728-72 (average of 52.00-5.14).  This year they're clipping along at a similar pace, 362-34 (51.71-4.86).  Meanwhile the Spartans have a respectable but not necessarily flashy edge over their opponents, 195-91 (32.50-15.17).  This is not even quite as impressive as last season’s margin, 528-147 (37.71-10.50).

Additionally in ELCA's favor is finding the most direct completed path between the two teams, which shows the Chargers ahead by 38 points over Athens Academy.

However, the difference in the ratings is obviously in the quality of opponents each team has faced.  Not only are is Athens Academy’s schedule strength rated six points tougher, but so far ELCA has played only two teams with a winning record, Trinity Christian (5-2) and Pace Academy (4-3) while Athens Academy has played four: Savannah Christian (5-1), Stephens County (5-2), Prince Avenue Christian (6-1), and George Walton Academy (6-1).  Notice the Spartans account for the only loss for three of their opponents.

This, combined with ELCA’s loss to Pace Academy in late August and Pace Academy’s 28-16 loss to Westminster this past weekend, tilts the ratings slightly in favor of Athens Academy.

But obviously the season is far from over, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Chargers tack on yet another state title at season’s end or if the Spartans can avenge last year’s 41-3 drubbing.  Of course, that assumes they can beat back the other challengers as well.

- It’s interesting to see the dominance of the top team in practically every classification.  With the exception of Class AAA and the aforementioned Class A - Private, every top team is rated at least a touchdown better than its closest competitor.  Leading the ratings overall is still Colquitt County, over two touchdowns better than Grayson, whom they already defeated 26-14 earlier in the season.

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 8.57%.

For the current season, the ratings accurately account for the winner of 1,237 of 1,322 total games including 0 tie(s) (93.57%) and accurately reflect approximately 68.3% of all game margins within 12.81 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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Home Advantage: 1.51

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.