Power Scores
Every high school gets a number
What goes in, why the numbers land where they do, and answers to the questions that come up most.
What is a power score?
In plain terms: a team’s Power Score blends who we expect them to be with what they’ve done on the field, and the balance tips toward on-field results as the season plays out. Every team is ranked within its own state.
How are our power scores calculated?
Before game results start coming in for the current season, the score leans on two factors:
- Talent. Not just how many players are ranked, but where they sit in the rankings. This is where our player rankings give us an edge that pure results-based rankings don’t have.
- Recent history. How the program has finished in previous seasons. Good teams tend to stay good.
As games are played, on-field results take over. By midseason, Power Scores fully incorporate the following:
- Winning, weighed by who you beat. Beating a strong opponent, or a bigger classification, counts far more than beating a weak one.
- How convincingly you win. A comfortable win counts more than a last-second escape, but only up to a point. Running up the score buys nothing extra, and a close loss to a powerhouse barely makes a dent.
- Strength of schedule is baked in. The quality of the teams you’ve played shapes your number, so a tough conference shows up in the math.
- Classification is factored in, so teams are measured in their real competitive context.
No scout is consulted, and no subjective evaluation goes into the formula. The score is the math, and only the math.
No algorithm is perfect, and we’re not pretending otherwise. Because the score leans on projection early and hands off to real results as games pile up, you can expect the rankings to sharpen week over week.
More games, more accuracy.
When do they update?
Power Scores recalculate every Sunday night, so you get a fresh view every Monday morning. The score reflects everything through last Friday, including the game that just flipped your district race.
Our Team Database makes it easy to pull up your team, see where they stand, and see who’s climbing.
Why does it matter?
For players and families, it’s context. For fans, it’s an argument starter. For everyone, it’s a way to follow the whole state instead of just one Friday night.
The goal: visibility for teams that earn it and better conversations about what’s actually happening on the field.
FAQs
Rankings update per-state every Sunday night, live by Monday morning.
No. Scout evaluations are never factored in. The rankings are generated entirely by the algorithm.
Record alone doesn’t capture who a team played or how good they were projected to be. A team that ran up an easy schedule can land under a team with one loss to a strong opponent. The score is built to reward quality of opposition, not just wins.
A team’s classification caps how high it can sit in the combined, cross-classification ranking. That keeps a small-school team from jumping the big-school field purely by beating its own level.
No. Power Scores rank teams. Player rankings and evaluations are handled separately by our scouting staff. But, a team’s ranked players and their spot in the rankings can influence it’s Power Score early in the season before this year’s results start flowing in.
Tell us. Scores and schedules are updated constantly, and reader reports are one of the fastest ways we catch an error.
On every scores page, you’ll see a Report Scores Issue button in the bottom left corner. Those reports are sent straight to our team for investigation