By: Ron Reagin

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

You don’t have to look hard online to find PSR projection lists and the arguments that come with them.

I’ve been following several people who run projections every week, and they’ve been extremely close all season.

As more scores go into the GHSA Post Season Ranking (PSR) formula each week, everybody’s model gets better. I even started tracking down scores and running projections myself, just to compare.

What I found cleared it up for me. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. The main complaint about any ranking system has almost always been about a team that got left out of the playoffs in favor of another one.

If the goal is getting the best 32 teams into the GHSA postseason, then the PSR is working damn near perfect. What’s left is seeding and matchups, and that comes down to thousandths of a point.

Part one: The right 32. Projections built separately, ours included, all put the same 32 teams in the Class 7A field this weekend. Not 30 of 32. All 32. The order shifts a little from list to list, but the field doesn’t.

The only real fight is at the cutline, where Paulding County holds the last spot at .49072, just ahead of Dacula at .48207. That’s exactly the kind of call the system is built to make, and so far it’s making it.

Part two: Nailing the order. Once the field is set, seeding is where the thousandths matter. A few things move the order more than anything else.

Schedule. Strength of schedule makes up 65 percent of the formula. A win over an out-of-state team counts as nine-tenths of a win and adds little to it, so every game you play counts in November for seeding.

You can see it in the standings. Valdosta and Newton are both 8-0, and Newton’s winning percentage is actually higher, because one of Valdosta’s wins came against an out-of-state team.

But Valdosta’s opponents have won about 72 percent of their games, compared with about 57 percent for Newton’s. That’s why Valdosta is No. 1 by the widest gap in the top 10.

Brookwood is 7-1 and sits just ahead of 9-0 Carrollton, because Brookwood’s opponents have won about 65 percent of their games and Carrollton’s about 50.

Colquitt County is 5-3 and ranks 10th, ahead of several teams with only one or two losses, because its opponents have won about 70 percent. South Forsyth is 6-2 but only 22nd, because its opponents have won about 41 percent.

Part three: Strength of region. Playing in a tough region lifts everybody’s numbers. Region 1 is the only region in 7A with every one of its teams in the field, all five.

Region 5 has the most in, six of its eight, and Region 7 has five of seven.

Region 4 comes closest to matching Region 1, with everyone in but Rockdale County. At the other end, Region 8 has only Buford.

Part four: Upsets and late-season results. One upset ripples through every team that played the winner and the loser, and every team that played those teams.

Valdosta and Lowndes meet Oct. 30, and that result alone will reshuffle seeds well beyond Region 1.

Part five: The bottom line. So when you see two lists that don’t match, don’t panic. The projections have been close to perfect at the part that matters most, getting the right 32 teams in. After that, seeding may come down to thousandths of a point, and that’s where the debates will focus.

The matchup projections at this point, ours included, are for entertainment and online discussion. Once all the regular season games have been played and entered in the PSR formula, the top 32 teams will settle the rest on the field this year.