Football Power Ratings 101

The changes the LHSAA made to the Power Ratings formula a few years back will have coaches and fans alike wondering why your calculations do not match GeauxPreps.

The top reason for mismatches is calculating the Opponent's Win points. Win Points are no longer just a straight-up number of Wins by teams you have played. Points are now based on the number of wins vs number of games played. This was done to make up for playing opponents who did not play a full 10-game schedule.  

See the summary below on how PR is calculated:

  • Result of Game: If you win, you get 10 Power Points. If you lose, you get none.
  • Division: If your opponent is in a higher division, you get 2 Power Points for each class higher
  • Opponent Wins: To calculate opponent's wins: divide the number of wins by the total games played, and multiply by 10.
  • Add these three components, and this is the PR for that specific game played.
  • Do this for all games played, add them all up, and then divide that total by the number of games you played.
  • You can compare your calculations with ours by looking at the Team Schedules Pages, there you will see how many points we calculated for each matchup.

Another major factor that causes mismatches, is Out of State opponents.  We strive to make sure that we have to most accurate Win/Loss record for each out-of-state opponent. Since schools enter the W/L records for their OOS opponents, and because we don't know how the schools get their records, we often are off on several matchups.

In addition, a team’s strength factor shall be determined by adding the sum of the opponent’s class to the sum of the opponent’s wins and dividing the result by the total number of games played. The strength factor is used when a tie exists between two or more teams and a head-to-head matchup does not exist.

GeauxPreps.com auto-generates its Power Ratings every four hours for football. If you think that you have seen an error or have any other questions, please contact hbower@geauxpreps.com.