Back in February the FHSAA voted 10-0 to use MaxPreps in the seeding for its football playoffs. They got rid of the old power rankings, and in all fairness, I think all power rankings are stupid. Now each region takes eight teams. Four district champions and four at-large, all seeded by MaxPreps rankings.

MaxPreps rankings are almost certainly built to predict who would win a game, and unfortunately the state of Florida is using them to award playoff spots. There’s a difference between the two. Additionally, MaxPreps does not publish its formula, which should be the biggest red flag. Editors also set a preseason starting point from the prior season and returning players. MaxPreps says it is gone after four games, but with no formula to check, we are taking their word for it.

A 2-8 team is tied with an 8-2 district champion

As of Oct. 31, Lake Mary (2-8) is tied in rating with Creekside (8-2, district champion). A week earlier, that same Lake Mary team, then 2-7, was ranked five spots in front of Creekside. Make it make sense.

Beat them head-to-head and still ranked behind

Another example is Oakleaf (5-5), who is ranked above Forest of Ocala (8-2) and lost the head-to-head to Forest. The kicker is they are in the same district and somehow Forest is ranked behind them. Forest beat them by 14. Both of Forest’s losses came at the hands of district champions, Buchholz and Vanguard.

The examples feel endless. Cardinal Mooney (9-1) beat Clearwater Central Catholic (8-2) 47-35, but is nine spots and 3.91 rating points behind CCC. Venice and Lakeland are both 9-1, and while Venice won at Lakeland, they’re still ranked lower. That could matter, as Lakeland and Venice are both projected for the Open Division.

Undefeated and out

This is a smaller gripe, but Carrollwood Day is 10-0 and is the first team out of the Open Division, by .12 points. Miami Central, 7-3, holds the final spot over them as of now. In 4A, 6-3 American Heritage is ranked in front of 10-0 Columbia. Five undefeated teams are ranked below teams with three or more losses.

MaxPreps will tell you the reason is that their ratings are built on opponents’ ratings, and American Heritage’s schedule is the second hardest in the state. In our 43-team sample, record and schedule explain 86% of the ratings, and schedule carries about 1.8 times the weight of record. Six extra wins are mostly offset by a 13-point schedule edge. That is an approximation, not their formula. They do not publish theirs.

The ratings move when nobody plays

MaxPreps updates twice a week and allegedly re-ranks every team from scratch, and a team can fall after a win. For example, Armwood beat Leto by 62 and dropped 18 spots. Pace defeated Pine Forest in overtime and dropped, while Pine Forest lost and rose 12 spots. Buchholz went from 33 to 24 on a bye week. Carol City gained 13 spots without a game. Margin of victory is capped at 21, so in theory a 62-point win shouldn’t cost you anything. It did though.

Ratings seem to swing 10 to 45 spots between updates, which is too much. The gap between the last team in and the first team out can be down to hundredths of a point, so these things matter. When the range is bigger than the cutoff, the cutoff becomes luck, which isn’t how football games should be settled.

The argument for the formula

Does this formula make sense? Maybe for tiebreaks, but using it to override head-to-head matchups is insane. We have a 2-8 football team seeded ahead of an 8-2 district champion.

What are our neighbors doing?

Georgia moved to a computer formula too, but it is the GHSA’s own, called PSR, and the math is public. It has the same head-to-head problems. North Paulding beat North Cobb and is still projected below it. AJC Varsity and Maxwell Ratings audited the published standings and found 401 of 413 teams with wrong final calculations, because athletic directors reported scores late. Outsiders could catch that because the formula is public. In Florida, nobody outside MaxPreps can explain a single move.

Scheduling is part of the game plan now

With this math, who you schedule matters more than who you beat. Lake Mary went 2-8, is ranked 13th in 6A and is projected as a 4 seed. Creekside, who went 8-2 and won their district, is projected as the 5. A school that can schedule the “stronger” opponents has a clear advantage to rise over one that cannot. The school that can’t gets ranked off wins that don’t count as much in MaxPreps’ formula.

Moving forward, there’s a big chance that access will decide who gets these games. Schools with better programs located closer together have a clear advantage. Schools in smaller districts that can find more highly ranked opponents to fill the non-district schedule now have the advantage. IMG, American Heritage and Chaminade-Madonna have the highest schedule ratings of the teams we looked at, and they are the schools that can book national and elite games. If two wins against a hard schedule can land you where eight wins against a normal one does, scheduling can be worth more than winning. That defeats the point of competing.

What would we change?

The FHSAA must have a publicly available formula that coaches can access. It’s the bare minimum the state organization can provide for its hardworking, underpaid coaches. Let them understand the process and be transparent instead of lazy. I’m looking at you, Craig Damon! Have a head-to-head policy that makes sense. If everything else is equal, head-to-head matters. It was already settled on the field! Freeze ratings between game days. This just makes sense. Give district champions a seeding floor. Winning your district should mean something. Add a human review for the last at-large spots, if possible. Again, you owe it to the coaches and players in this state to be as vigilant as possible.

What to do about it on Tuesday

Under this math, a close loss to an elite team can be worth more than a blowout of an average one. Schools that can book those games climb. Small and rural programs that cannot get them stay put no matter how many they win. If you set your own schedule, that is the lever. If you do not, you are ranked on someone else’s. I’ve already seen tweets about schools that have considered forfeiting games because it won’t hurt them in the long run. Is this what it’s coming to? Football should be settled on the field, and MaxPreps is a third party that doesn’t care about the best interest of players and coaches. They only care about ratings and clicks.

Brackets drop Friday, Nov. 6. We will check them against this.

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