Rankings

My impression of the rating system is that is fails to recognize the strength of schedule played of the UIL teams. There are some Division Two schools like Throckmorton, Gordon and Strawn that regularly play top Division One teams before district play and some Division Two schools which play almost exclusively private schools or even home school teams. Another thing I noticed are that most of the Panhandle UIL teams seldom play out of their area and two or three of those schools will have undefeated records until the playoffs where they get bombed. But the rating system still shows those Panhandle teams highly rated throughout the season even through the playoffs but they played against a lot of marginal competition. Definitely an apple vs oranges rating system.
 
Texlonghorn75 said:
My impression of the rating system is that is fails to recognize the strength of schedule played of the UIL teams. There are some Division Two schools like Throckmorton, Gordon and Strawn that regularly play top Division One teams before district play and some Division Two schools which play almost exclusively private schools or even home school teams. Another thing I noticed are that most of the Panhandle UIL teams seldom play out of their area and two or three of those schools will have undefeated records until the playoffs where they get bombed. But the rating system still shows those Panhandle teams highly rated throughout the season even through the playoffs but they played against a lot of marginal competition. Definitely an apple vs oranges rating system.
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I think that just comes down to the fact that there are so many teams in the system. There are too many teams that never play each other, or even play similar opponents.
 
Mike said:
He was, evidently, on the right track saying they were underrated. That was to be expected, though, because of their initial rating of 60. They've gained 229 points since the pre-season rankings. They also gained 59.95 points after last week alone, moving them up into 2nd place in TAIAO. This week's matchup will be a good test for them, taking on the Austin Royals (TAIAO #1).

That said, if he meant 100 places on the rankings (meaning to #27 overall), they're going to have some work to do!
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Fair question, everydownback. The answer is a combination of modest familiarity with St. Stephen’s (a large private school with a long 11-man football history) and experience seeing former 11-man teams struggle in their early 6-man contests as they figure out the game (doesn’t seem to have affected this team at all). Granted, weak competition could completely explain St. Stephen’s early run, but I suspect that this unknown team from a big school just might be loaded with athletic talent…which is why I said, and meant, that they just might be underrated by as much as a hundred places. Time will tell. In fact, tonight’s game may be that time. They face a solid 6-man team in the Austin Royals, mostly a one- to two-man homeschool team, but tough, gritty, and well coached—a legit top 40/50 team among all schools in all divisions.

With the reboot of this site, I lost my 20-year record of following sixmanfootball.com, mostly from the central Texas/Austin area. Generally, I think it is a rare year when a private school team is a legit top ten team among all public and private teams in the state, and I’m sticking to that bias again this year until proven wrong. There appear to be a couple of private Waco teams who might make that case this year—along with a few from Austin and a big school in Houston—but I remain a bit skeptical. However, the best of these schools are building programs that sooner or later will be on par with the storied six-man programs of the public schools. That’s only good for the game.
 
I have a thought rattling around in my head that I may not express very well. First, let me say that I love the rankings. I am almost like a kid on Christmas morning waiting on Sunday for the rankings to be posted for the previous week. But, I feel like there is too much "weight" placed on where a team begins the season in the rankings. For years I have seen some pretty good teams start the year ranked about 15 to 20, they play a decent schedule, beat a team or two that was ranked above them and make their way into the top ten. As most teams do, they lose their last game of the year in the playoffs. In the final ranking they are ranked behind a team that they beat earlier in the year, but was ranked ahead of them to begin the year. That just doesn't seem right.

You also could have a team ranked in the top ten to begin the season that, probably in hindsight, should have been ranked around 30 or a little less. They have a really tough schedule of top ten teams that are pretty merciless in beating them every week. But, because of their schedule and where they were ranked to begin the year, they do not drop like a rock through the rankings. Their district is not made up of top ten teams so they may float down to between 30 and 40 which would be about right. It will take the whole season to get there.
 
Blue Bird said:
I have a thought rattling around in my head that I may not express very well. First, let me say that I love the rankings. I am almost like a kid on Christmas morning waiting on Sunday for the rankings to be posted for the previous week. But, I feel like there is too much "weight" placed on where a team begins the season in the rankings. For years I have seen some pretty good teams start the year ranked about 15 to 20, they play a decent schedule, beat a team or two that was ranked above them and make their way into the top ten. As most teams do, they lose their last game of the year in the playoffs. In the final ranking they are ranked behind a team that they beat earlier in the year, but was ranked ahead of them to begin the year. That just doesn't seem right.

You also could have a team ranked in the top ten to begin the season that, probably in hindsight, should have been ranked around 30 or a little less. They have a really tough schedule of top ten teams that are pretty merciless in beating them every week. But, because of their schedule and where they were ranked to begin the year, they do not drop like a rock through the rankings. Their district is not made up of top ten teams so they may float down to between 30 and 40 which would be about right. It will take the whole season to get there.
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This is actually something I was going to try to look at at some point. I was considering putting say 1-25 on one level, 26-50 at a level, etc, etc. Either that or placing everyone on a level playing field and seeing how that ends up. This is probably something I'll play with at the end of the season and compare the real season finals with how they would have been in those other scenarios.

I know none of that helps with the current rankings but, honestly, the rankings are written in a coding language that I'm not familiar with so I have no idea what's actually happening in there. Once I have time this off-season to learn it, I'll be able to play and tweak here and there and see if there are ways to make it better.

All that said, I can't imagine there being very many different things, as far as the rankings are concerned, that @granger hasn't looked at before and it's clear he thought this way was better.

In short, I get what you're saying and I'm committed to trying anything I can to get the rankings as accurate as possible. At the same time, I'm not too optimistic about the possibility that I'll think of something that Granger hasn't already tried.
 
Mike said:
This is actually something I was going to try to look at at some point. I was considering putting say 1-25 on one level, 26-50 at a level, etc, etc. Either that or placing everyone on a level playing field and seeing how that ends up. This is probably something I'll play with at the end of the season and compare the real season finals with how they would have been in those other scenarios.

I know none of that helps with the current rankings but, honestly, the rankings are written in a coding language that I'm not familiar with so I have no idea what's actually happening in there. Once I have time this off-season to learn it, I'll be able to play and tweak here and there and see if there are ways to make it better.

All that said, I can't imagine there being very many different things, as far as the rankings are concerned, that @granger hasn't looked at before and it's clear he thought this way was better.

In short, I get what you're saying and I'm committed to trying anything I can to get the rankings as accurate as possible. At the same time, I'm not too optimistic about the possibility that I'll think of something that Granger hasn't already tried.
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I love the idea of weighted rankings but it may screw up the rankings initially. The reason is that each year there is a different number of what I call elite teams. Some years there's only one in each division, other years there may be 5-7 in one division and only two in another. Lately I've noticed that D-1 almost always has 5-6 and most are based in the West. On the flip side, often D-2 rarely has more than 3. Not saying "your team' or "my team' are inferior. Once the playoff begin good teams get 45ed. Elite teams will do that to you. My point is unless they meet in the regular season or don't play other top-level competition on their schedule the rankings can get out of whack. I don't claim to be an expert, but I can guarantee there aren't 25 elite teams in each division, not even combined divisions.
 
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I too am like a kid on Christmas morning waiting on the rankings to come out. And BTW last Sunday took too long. I waisted most of the day refreshing my screen waiting on the updated rankings. :) As far as how the rankings are calculated is beyond my knowledge. I'll just wait until they are posted, and complain. :p
 
Strawn beat Westbrook by 16 and but so did Motley County. So that comparison didn't shed any light on which team is better. #4 For Westbrook is a great player. Strawn had their hands full when #4 had the ball. Strawn plays FW Convenant Classical this week, the team Richland Springs beat 119-112 this past weekend. We will see how Strawn matches up to this private school in Fort Worth Friday night.
 
I have a system that will give kids a madden like rating based off of the six combine events that the NFL uses.

40 yd dash
Bench Press (150lbs instead of 225)
Vertical Jump
Broad Jump
20 yd Shuttle Run
3 Cone Drill

I just don't have any actual high school results, only the combine numbers from the NFL. I went back and took the data from everyone that performed all 6 combine stations all the way back to 1998 up to 2019. (3,452 players) I have an athletic rating and then a power rating. I combine them and take the average to get the OVR rating. If there was a way to get teams to have a combine and get me the data, that would settle a lot on ratings and rankings. It could be combined with the metrics already used for rankings. I know its a pipe dream because there are so many schools, but maybe someday we could do something with it. You could track growth and know exactly where your teams were at from year to year. I am a numbers nut and this stuff fascinates me.
 
phimutau said:
I have a system that will give kids a madden like rating based off of the six combine events that the NFL uses.

40 yd dash
Bench Press (150lbs instead of 225)
Vertical Jump
Broad Jump
20 yd Shuttle Run
3 Cone Drill

I just don't have any actual high school results, only the combine numbers from the NFL. I went back and took the data from everyone that performed all 6 combine stations all the way back to 1998 up to 2019. (3,452 players) I have an athletic rating and then a power rating. I combine them and take the average to get the OVR rating. If there was a way to get teams to have a combine and get me the data, that would settle a lot on ratings and rankings. It could be combined with the metrics already used for rankings. I know its a pipe dream because there are so many schools, but maybe someday we could do something with it. You could track growth and know exactly where your teams were at from year to year. I am a numbers nut and this stuff fascinates me.
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So you are saying highly rated high school football players on this madden like rating system would resolve some of the team rankings? I see it rating and ranking the individuals but not the teams. Even high level athletic football players can be sometime failures in the performance side of the sport. Westbrook has been an example of a team with several gifted football players that due to fumbles and pass interceptions has failed to win three competitive games. The intangibles are difficult to predict.
 
Coby12@LucasChristian said:
Lucas Christian's 73-24 win over Dallas Lutheran shows how competitive they will be in TAPPS.
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What about beating Dallas Lutheran says that Lucas will be competitive? Lutheran is way down and Lucas has played absolutely nobody this year. The best team they will play is maybe Dallas Lakehill and even then that doesn't say a whole lot.
 
everydownback said:
What about beating Dallas Lutheran says that Lucas will be competitive? Lutheran is way down and Lucas has played absolutely nobody this year. The best team they will play is maybe Dallas Lakehill and even then that doesn't say a whole lot.
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they are ranked 6th in tapps division 2. It's an opinion, I'll admit. But don't sleep on them.
 
Texlonghorn75 said:
So you are saying highly rated high school football players on this madden like rating system would resolve some of the team rankings? I see it rating and ranking the individuals but not the teams. Even high level athletic football players can be sometime failures in the performance side of the sport. Westbrook has been an example of a team with several gifted football players that due to fumbles and pass interceptions has failed to win three competitive games. The intangibles are difficult to predict.
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I don’t know how they do the rankings under the hood. I would assume they use returning numbers to get a baseline, then use past ratings to get a starting point then let the rank grow or shrink depending on the on field result each week. This “madden like rating” would let you know exactly where you were with athleticism and power. What your kids are able to do after that is anyone’s guess.

I play a college football strategy game at whatifsports and it, along with playing NCAA football and madden over the last 25+ years have given me the bug to want to rate my real life football.

I’m a nerd, but I know there are more out there that think just like me.
 
Don't sleep on TAPPS either, it is lot more competitive then you would believe. Texas Association of Paprika, Pepper and Salt. TAPPS has some elite players and teams, I know you feel like it sucks, but if you look at the state rankings, you will notice that Tapps is a good chunk of the top 50.
 
Coby12@LucasChristian said:
Don't sleep on TAPPS either, it is lot more competitive then you would believe. Texas Association of Paprika, Pepper and Salt. TAPPS has some elite players and teams, I know you feel like it sucks, but if you look at the state rankings, you will notice that Tapps is a good chunk of the top 50.
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That is because the state rankings are based on an algorithm. You can be a TAPPS team that is 5-0 but played nobody and you will be decent in the rankings. Compare that to a UIL school that is 2-3 but played a quality schedule and most people would take the UIL team to win in a heartbeat. Sure Bracken beat a down Rankin team, but Brackin probably played the game of their life. Sure covenant put 112 on Richland but still lost. TAPPS teams will not consistently have the toughness and physicality to compete with UIL because they will not be physical enough to run tight formations, instead, they run spread and try to sling the ball around which works in TAPPS, but very rarely do you see that success in UIL.
 

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