The rankings are always fascinating. I spent 15 minutes trying to understand what was going on here quantitatively. Here's an interesting exercise: take each of the top 15 teams, examine win/loss/tie records, examine top-25 teams played to date, and examine ranking. From these you can create a deviation from expectation on a number of axes. Here's an upshot of some of the more interesting results.
- Riverside was moved to #2 in 3A despite the fact that they have played against a lot more top-25 teams (10) than any other 3A programs. The Mauldin (4-A) loss that moved them into #2 typifies this.
- South Aiken has played 15% more top-25 teams than the average of the top 16 teams in 4A and is by far the lowest ranked 12-win team.
- North Augusta is ranked far below other 11-win teams; however, an excuse here could be that they have played fewer top-25 teams than average (4 versus 6.1.)
- Nation Ford is the only 10-win team that is unranked; however, they've played only 2 top-25 teams (average 6.1.)
- West Florence has played a single top-25 team.
What's the bottom line? In terms of ranking, it doesn't seem to pay to play a tough schedule. My guess is that it might be rather advantageous in the playoffs, however. We're close to seeing...
