You may be wondering how our computer rankings work? It is one of the biggest questions we get at MaxPreps. While we don't give away our full formula, I will do my best to break down how it works.
First, it is 100 percent results-based. There is no human making judgments on where a team lands. Prior season results, history of the program, players on the team, or any of that isn't considered in the formula.
The system utilizes the huge number of game results stored in the MaxPreps database. Generally, the more a team wins, the higher the ranking. However, the system takes into account quality wins (against other highly ranked opponents) and strength of schedule.
Let's look at some examples.
Team A is playing Team B.
Team A's rating is a 10 and Team B's rating is a 20.
On paper, Team B is supposed to win. But Team A loses a close game to Team B. In this scenario, Team A's rating is likely to rise and Team B's could drop.
We get questions all the time about why a rating drops with a win? Although Team A's rating won't surpass Team B, the rating now might look different as Team A should be more equal to Team B.
Now let's look at if this outcome was different. Team B beats Team A by 10. To the rating system, this is basically what should have happened. Team B, by rating, did what was expected. This also shows why running up the score is not needed to improve a rating. Team B did what they needed to do. Winning by 20 is equal to winning by 10 in the eyes of the formula.
With this being said, there are still a ton of other factors happening in the background that will likely impact both Team A and Team B.
Let's now involve Team C and Team D
How do they have an impact on Team A and Team B? Here is one way. Team C is the highest-rated team Team B has beat. Team D lost to Team A earlier in the season. Now, Team D just beat Team C. So Team B's quality win against Team C wasn't as strong as earlier thought; so Team B's rating could drop. The point is it's not just what happened between two teams on the field. A lot of factors at play.
This also leads to the importance of strength of schedule.
If you are playing teams that you should beat by a lot every game, your rating likely won't change much. You are doing what is expected. Let's say Team E and Team F are playing. Team E has a rating of 13. Team F has a rating of 14. These two teams are very equivalent. Team F beats Team E by 5. This is a very good win for Team F. If Team G is rated 5 and plays Team H who is rated a 10, and falls by 1, this is still good for Team's G overall rating.
