The Maxwell Playoff Projections released Wednesday show where, and how often, each football team in the classification will place out of 1,000,000 playoff simulations.
Cedar Grove, ranked at the top of the 3A poll since the preseason, will open its season at Class 7A No. 7 Milton (2-0) on Friday after COVID-19 delayed the start of football in DeKalb County until October. The Saints are coming off their second consecutive state championship and will have this one pre-region game before entering 5-3A play against Carver-Atlanta next week.
Even without playing a game yet in 2020, Cedar Grove is favorite in the latest Maxwell Playoff Projections to win the state championship nearly half the time (446,638 times) out of 1 million simulations of the season. The Projections have Cedar Grove beating Crisp County in the semifinals and then Peach County in the finals of the most-possible bracket scenario.
Below is the top-10 and what the Week 4 Projections say about the teams possible placement in the simulated playoffs. The first number listed is the depth that team will go in rounds. The second number is the amount of times that team will advance to that round from the quarterfinals through a championship victory.
Here’s how the Top 10 programs break down
1. (1) Cedar Grove (0-0): Depth/Rnd: 4.22 Qtr: 888,909 Semi: 790,427 Finals: 581,846 Champ: 446,638
2. (2) Crisp County (3-0): 3.87 856,379 640,664 377,723 221,811
3. (3) Oconee County (3-0): 2.74 614,378 290,019 124,870 55,104
4. (4) Peach County (1-1): 3.45 746,961 485,112 252,900 101,407
5. (5) Greater Atlanta Christian (2-0): 2.76 551,960 326,903 160,245 54,084
6. (6) Pierce County (3-0): 3.13 717,337 333,926 158,013 48,297
7. (8) White County (4-0): 2.67 411,868 225,973 96,679 24,734
8. (NR) Westminster (Atlanta) (1-0): 1.87 321,395 126,812 41,171 9,620
9. (9) Rockmart (2-1): 2.60 450,141 169,093 61,556 12,697
10. (7) Sandy Creek (1-2): 1.73 285,640 103,853 31,607 6,853
