Buford is a reigning state champion that is 2-0 and favored to win its remaining eight regular-season games, but the Wolves will struggle just to earn a top-eight seed in the playoffs according to Maxwell Ratings projections.
Buford stands No. 19 in the GHSA’s Class 7A Post Season Rankings, which were updated Tuesday.
That by itself is not alarming, as the football season is only 3 weeks old.
Murray County, for example, is No. 1 in Class 3A with a 2-0 record and a favorable opponents’ winning percentage so far, but Maxwell projects that Murray, which has not won more than two games since 2020, will miss the 32-team playoffs.
Maxwell also projects Blessed Trinity will go from its current No. 10 rating to No. 2 in Class 5A, and Troup will go from No. 8 to No. 1 in Class 4A.
The prognosis for Buford is not so good, however. Maxwell projects the Wolves’ win total to be 9.8, meaning the Wolves are more likely to finish 10-0 than 9-1.
But even as a 10-0 team, Buford’s final PSR seeding will struggle to advance, according to Maxwell, which projects them to finish No. 8 in the standings.
That’s partly because nonregion opponents Gainesville and Grayson will have final winning percentages that bely their actual abilities. Gainesville and Grayson are a combined 1-4, though both are still considered two of Georgia’s most talented teams. Both of Gainesville’s losses were to teams in the consensus Top 50 nationally.
Buford also could be penalized for playing strong out-of-state opponents Mallard Creek of North Carolina and Miami Central of Florida. The winning percentages of non-GHSA teams do not count in the PSR. Mallard Creek and Central are nationally known programs that are 4-1 combined and expected to perform similarly to their combined 17-6 record last season.
In addition to Buford, the Top 10 teams from the AJC Varsity/GHSF Daily Composite Rankings that will be the most underseeded, according to Maxwell’s projections, are Milton, Gainesville, Marist, Ola, Douglass, Columbia, Carver of Columbus, Swainsboro, Clinch County, Emanuel County Institute, Greater Atlanta Christian and Savannah Christian. Each is projected to finish at least six positions below its Maxwell ranking of team strength.
The PSR’s formula is team winning percentage plus opponents’ winning percentage plus opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage.
Below are the GHSA’s PSR standings. They show each team’s PSR standing, its projected PSR finish and its Maxwell Rating of actual strength. These standings do not include private-school teams in classes 4A, 3A and 2A and do not acknowledge ties, making them slightly different than the GHSA’s published standings.
Credit: AJC Sports
Credit: AJC Sports
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