The Maxwell Ratings will rank Georgia's 417 teams throughout the 2014 season. The ratings are based entirely on historical performance and on field results and do not consider personnel changes on the roster or coaching staffs.
Interesting results after Week Five:
- Jones County jumped over 14 points in the ratings and rose from number 30 to number 8 in the Class AAAAA rankings after their surprising victory over perennial superpower Northside of Warner Robins this past week. The Greyhounds are now 4-0 under first year coach Justin Rogers. That’s impressive for a school that has only won four or more games in fewer than half of its 70 seasons. Also, when counting last year's final game, Jones County has now won 5 in a row. The school’s current longest winning streak is 8 games, set during their 1991 season. Maxwell estimates the school has a 50.2% chance of matching the streak and a 38.3% chance of extending it. At this point, the chance of an undefeated regular season sits at a respectable 29.9%. Their current best regular season record is 8-2, last achieved in 2001.
- Region rival Northside seemed less enthusiastic about the progress Jones County has made. The Eagles dropped nearly 8 points in the ratings after the defeat. Still, when considering their earlier victory over North Cobb, who handed last year’s Class AAAAAA runner-up North Gwinnett their only defeat of the season to date, and Northside’s consistent historical performance, the ratings view the Jones County loss as an upset, the seventh largest of the season so far. Of course it may look like less of an upset as the season progresses, but as of now Northside sits at third in Class AAAAA while Ware County takes over the top spot.
- In spite of Newton's best efforts against Lowndes, Region 1-AAAAAA pushed to 28-0 against outside opponents this past Friday. Lee County puts the unblemished record on the line in a home game against tiny Class A Mitchell County this Friday in the region's last regular season game against outside competition. According to Maxwell, Mitchell County, whose only victory has come against a winless fellow Class A team, is a 36-point underdog. Still, for those rooting against the 1-AAAAAA powerhouses and hoping to see Woody Harrelson play Mitchell County coach Larry Cornelius in a feel good Hollywood blockbuster based on the game, the ratings give the Panthers a 2.1% chance of pulling off the upset. Of course, for Class AAAAAA's South Georgia football fans, this also means a 97.9% chance the Trojans will walk off the field with the region's perfect record intact, forever etching its 2014 season into the record books. Then the region schedule begins…
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 27.44%.
For the current season, the ratings accurately account for the winner of 729 of 779 total games including 4 ties (93.84%) and accurately reflect approximately 68.3% of all game margins within 11.97 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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Maxwell GHSA Football Ratings
Home Advantage: 0.53
By Class
All-Class
Regions
Each region is shown with its “Competitive Rating”, which is the rating required to win 80% of all games against the region’s teams in an infinite round robin competition, and its “Average Rating”, which 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.
