The September 9 rankings snapshot is still early, but it is no longer empty. With 207 rated games in the file, the model can separate two questions: who rates highly on the blended model, and who is most outperforming or underperforming a cold-start version that ignores last year.
The current top of the statewide table
Central High School, Phenix City leads the snapshot at 38.5 rating points, just ahead of Moody High School at 37.3. Because the rating is measured in expected points against an average Alabama team, a ten-point gap is large enough to matter in a single-game predictor but not enough to turn a playoff bracket into a certainty.
Where this season is moving the model
| Team | Division | Record | Blended rating | Cold-start rating | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dothan High School | 6A | 0-1 | 6.0 | -3.2 | +9.2 |
| G.W. Carver-Birmingham High School | 1A-4A | 0-1 | -27.7 | -18.8 | -8.8 |
| Central High School, Phenix City | 6A | 4-0 | 38.5 | 29.7 | +8.8 |
| Tallassee High School | 1A-4A | 1-1 | 11.2 | 2.8 | +8.3 |
| i3 Academy High School | 1A-4A | 1-2 | -26.9 | -18.7 | -8.3 |
| Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School | Private | 2-1 | 22.4 | 14.6 | +7.9 |
| Greene County High School | 1A-4A | 1-0 | 5.0 | 12.7 | -7.7 |
| Opelika High School | 6A | 1-2 | 13.7 | 6.4 | +7.3 |
| Smiths Station High School | 6A | 5-1 | 27.9 | 20.6 | +7.3 |
| Leeds High School | 1A-4A | 0-1 | -8.5 | -1.8 | -6.8 |
The last column is not a moral grade. It is the difference between a rating seeded by prior information and a rating that starts everyone even. Large positive numbers often mean a team still carries a strong prior; large negative numbers can mean the early 2026 scores are pulling the team away from last year's resume. The useful coaching question is whether upcoming opponents look like their record or like their underlying rating.
Data and methods
This article was computed from public/data/rankings.json and the public Python pipeline in this repository. It does not manually edit ratings. Teams under 4 games remain provisional in the live table.