East Tennessee high school football projections, week 6

Yet again, another solid week for the projection system – 26 wins and 5 losses (83.9%), 124-30 on the year (80.5%), 102-19 (84.3%) from Week 2 onward. Also, one week after the biggest upset of the season, that upset got one-upped – Soddy-Daisy was a 36 point underdog at Knoxville Catholic and won 17-7. No other upset comes close to that for the last two seasons.

As a reminder, you can keep track of the season via this spreadsheet:

Click over to your favorite team’s page for fully updated win projections throughout the season. Also, a new update: the Running Win Totals tab now also accounts for Region Wins throughout the season. I’ve reorganized the tab to show the projected standings in each region, though, of course, it only covers the 51 teams that this site covers.

Here’s this week’s games and their projected outcomes:

THURSDAY

• Greenback 37, Grace Christian 19

FRIDAY

• Maryville 35, Fulton 18
• Brentwood Academy 46, Knoxville Catholic 21
• Alcoa 41, Dobyns-Bennett 16
• Farragut 36, West 5
• Oak Ridge 42, Sevier County 0
• Jefferson County 30, William Blount 17
• Bearden 43, CAK 3
• Powell 32, Lenoir City 18
• Austin-East 29, Halls 18
• Coalfield 31, Marion County 27
• Gibbs 30, Morristown East 21
• Central 31, Clinton 4
• South-Doyle 42, Carter 4
• Harriman 35, Rockwood 22
• Morristown West 40, Cherokee 18
• Karns 30, Scott 28
• Gatlinburg-Pittman 38, Trinity Academy 21
• Anderson County 48, Heritage 14
• Cocke County 42, Pigeon Forge 16
• Oliver Springs 46, Claiborne 10
• Stone Memorial 38, Kingston 13
• Loudon 30, Northview 27
• Midway 32, Tellico Plains 23
• Wartburg 29, Sunbright 24
• Union County 38, Hancock County 13

Some notes on this week’s games…

• Grace Christian-Greenback is pretty fascinating. This is likely Greenback’s biggest remaining obstacle to a 10-0 season (Coalfield and Harriman may also be challenging), and their quality road win at Oliver Springs last week helps their odds. Grace Christian was on track to be about a ~10 point underdog in this before they got obliterated by an 0-4 Webb team.
• Maryville-Fulton is likely to be a better game than the score suggests. Fulton looks to be getting better every week, while Maryville’s got to figure out how to recover from their surprising loss to Alcoa. This will be only one of two games Fulton is currently projected to be an underdog in (Oak Ridge, week 11).
• Knoxville Catholic-Brentwood Academy would’ve potentially been the game of the week at this time last Thursday. Now, Catholic has to figure out how in the world they lost by two scores to a Soddy-Daisy team that lost at home to Lenoir City. Meanwhile, Brentwood Academy’s last four games: 43-3, 43-7, 49-0, 48-7.
• Dobyns-Bennett and Alcoa are playing, but it would be a surprise if this one’s too close. Two other top ten teams in the state have played D-B (Greeneville and Oak Ridge); they won by a combined score of 84-15.
• Farragut-West may end up being better than advertised, if only because West appears to have found their offense. Of course, no team other than Oak Ridge has kept it closer than 30 against Farragut this year. They’re at least on a similar level as the 2016 state championship team and may end up being better. That team trailed at halftime in four of their ten regular season games; this year’s edition has led by 13, 24, 28, 7, and 24 at halftimes so far.
• Other games of note: Harriman-Rockwood is the 99th edition of an old East Tennessee rivalry; Harriman has been a major surprise so far, while Rockwood has been surprising in a negative direction. Believe it or not, Anderson County-Heritage represents Heritage’s best remaining chance at a win (2.7%); Coalfield-Marion County is a close one; both Morristown East and Gibbs desperately need a win; Scott-Karns represents Karns’ best chance to grab a win in 2018; Northview-Loudon might get Loudon out of the defeated column, as they’re very small underdogs, but Northview’s win over Kingston improved their odds; Wartburg-Sunbright represents a great opportunity for Sunbright to turn their season around; lastly, Cocke County can move to 4-1 with a win over Pigeon Forge. They’ll be favored at Cherokee next week. A dream season appears to be in the making.

Now, for season-long updates. You can view the Running Win Totals on the spreadsheet above.

• Biggest overachievers versus preseason expectations: Harriman (+2.70 wins above expectation), Oliver Springs (+2.55), Cocke County (+2.49), Union County (+2.43), Powell (+2.24), Midway (+2.15).
• Biggest underachievers: Kingston (-3.57 wins below expectation), King’s Academy (-3.48), Loudon (-2.74), Pigeon Forge (-2.40), Rockwood (-2.34), Morristown East (-2.26), Campbell County (-2.02).
• About 3.56 undefeated teams expected this year. Only seven teams are still in contention: Greeneville (91.5% chance of 10-0), Alcoa (91.5%), Farragut (62.8%), Greenback (56.7%), Anderson County (49.8%), Fulton (3.7%), and Midway (0.1%). Keep going, Midway!
• Unfortunately, about 1.43 defeated teams are expected. Only five teams are still in contention: Heritage (95% chance of 0-10), King’s Academy (34.6%), Karns (10.5%), Loudon (2.3%), and Sunbright (0.2%).

That’s it for this week. Good luck to all teams involved, and have fun at the games this weekend.

East Tennessee high school football projections, week 5

Outside of one major upset that several people have yelled at me for calling an upset (it was an upset), this projection system went a solid 24-5 (82.8%) last week, bringing the season total to 98-25 (79.7%). After week one’s craziness where the projections only correctly predicted 22 of 33 games, it’s on a 76-14 (84.4%) tear over the last three weeks. I’m interested to see how long that holds.

As a reminder, you can keep track of the season via this spreadsheet:

Click over to your favorite team’s page for fully updated win projections throughout the season. Also, a new update: the Running Win Totals tab now also accounts for Region Wins throughout the season. I’ve reorganized the tab to show the projected standings in each region, though, of course, it only covers the 51 teams that this site covers.

Here’s this week’s games and their projected outcomes:

THURSDAY

• South-Doyle 28, Sevier County 14

FRIDAY

• Bearden 33, Science Hill 15
• Farragut 39, Jefferson County 3
• Greeneville 46, Pisgah (NC) 9
• Oak Ridge 27, West 10
• Knoxville Catholic 52, Soddy-Daisy 13
• Hardin Valley 30, Morristown West 19
• Ooltewah 39, William Blount 23
• Alcoa 75, Pigeon Forge 0
• Rhea County 27, Lenoir City 26.7*
• Chattanooga Christian 28, CAK 21
• David Crockett 32, Cocke County 23
• Greenback 36, Oliver Springs 21
• Grace Christian 33, Webb 19
• Fulton 51, Karns 2
• Halls 28, Carter 20
• Tennessee 35, Morristown East 19
• Anderson County 43, Howard 11
• Powell 31, Clinton 12
• Campbell County 32, Gibbs 21
• Central 29, Seymour 6
• Gatlinburg-Pittman 33, Scott 28
• Meigs County 43, Rockwood 8
• McMinn County 39, Heritage 14
• Signal Mountain 28, Loudon 26
• Kingston 32, Northview 20
• Mt. Juliet Christian 33, King’s Academy 18
• Union County 24, Sullivan East 22
• Harriman 47, Sunbright 10
• Coalfield 58, Oakdale 1
• Happy Valley 43, Cosby 4

Some notes on this week’s games…

• Obviously, I blew it on Alcoa. I personally thought the game would be closer than 29, simply because Alcoa-Maryville always appears to be close…but I also thought Maryville would win by 2-3 touchdowns. I do not make subjective adjustments to the ratings in any way, so I ran with the objective numbers that I figured would be more correct than my assumptions. Turns out that the early-season points boost Maryville got for beating Oakland might’ve been premature, and Alcoa absolutely wasn’t given enough credit in computer systems for obliterating their first three opponents. Anyway, Alcoa-Pigeon Forge is tomorrow night, and I already feel bad for what’s about to happen.
• Sevier County and South-Doyle isn’t the game of the week or anything, but it does represent a great opportunity for both schools: South-Doyle could use a rebound after their beatdown by Bearden last week, while Sevier County, even if it’s not a win, badly needs a good performance; they’ve been trending in the wrong direction ever since they led 21-0 Week One against Jefferson County.
• Had Science Hill-Bearden been held on August 13, I think most people would’ve expected a close Science Hill win. On September 13, Bearden is projected to win by 18. It took FOUR GAMES, but Bearden finally allowed double-digit first downs to an opponent…and then out-first-downed said opponent 23-12. Farragut-Bearden on October 11 is beginning to look like the best game left on the schedule at least in East Tennessee; only Oakland-Blackman projects to be a better game statewide.
• Oak Ridge-West has the most local buzz of any game this week, and it may be underrated by the sheet above: West, albeit against poor competition, has rebounded from an 0-2 start and looks to possibly be finding an offense, while Oak Ridge has to figure out how to return after a tough 20-14 loss at home to Farragut. I don’t even think this game hits the suggested 37 point total; West’s path to victory likely depends on holding OR to 14 or less in regulation, and it’s not that unreasonable to think they can.
• Rhea County-Lenoir City is the first projected tie of 2018. Of course, you can’t have ties in high school football, but the projected margin is Rhea County by 0.3 points. This actually represents a pretty huge opportunity for Lenoir City: Rhea County has been kind of disappointing so far, as what should’ve been a 3-0 start is now 2-1 with a tough road game coming up. A 1-3 start for Lenoir that peaked with a terrible loss at CAK last week could be redeemed by a win here, and it would get them back on the path to a playoff bid.
• Finally, two games that no one expected to be interested in a month ago, but here we are: Greenback-Oliver Springs and David Crockett-Cocke County. The first of these is almost entirely due to the stunning 3-0 start from Oliver Springs, their first since 2005. Greenback has played to expectation so far – AKA, blowing out three opponents and comfortably beating Loudon – but what looked like a cakewalk schedule a month ago has suddenly gotten tougher. If Greenback makes it through the next four games unscathed, a second straight 1A title feels like a formality. For the second game, Cocke County’s start is just as stunning: 3-0, but with two blowouts and a road win at Carter. Now, Cocke County is on its way to their first winning season since 1998, per athletic director A.C. Willis. (TSSAA suggests 1996, but I’m taking his word for it.) If they beat David Crockett, they’re looking at a strong likelihood of a 6-0 start.

Now, for season-long updates.

• Biggest overachievers versus preseason expectations: Bearden (+2.76 wins above expectation), Cocke County (+2.64), Oliver Springs (+2.46), Harriman (+2.37), Powell (+2.04).
• Underachievers: Webb (-3.06), Pigeon Forge (-2.95), King’s Academy (-2.80), Loudon (-2.10).
• Still looking at about four undefeated teams, most likely. The top contenders to go undefeated are Alcoa (97% chance of 10-0), Greeneville (89.3%), Anderson County (70.1%), Farragut (52.4%), and Greenback (46.8%). Second-tier contenders: Bearden (15.7%). Teams on the periphery: Fulton (2.9%), Oliver Springs (2.8%), Cocke County (1.4%).
• Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that we get an 0-10 team. Heritage is now 81% likely to go 0-10.

That’s it for this week. Good luck to all teams involved, and have fun at the games this weekend.

East Tennessee high school football projections, week 4

Last week was almost all chalk – a 27-2 record for this system’s projected favorites, with only a couple small upsets: Carter (+1.5) over Seymour and Brainerd (+2.5) over Loudon. Generally, this will happen when the vast majority of the games feature large favorites, but to see every team that was expected to win by a healthy amount take care of business was pleasing. This brings the projection system’s record to 74-20 (78.7%) on the season, which is a little ahead of my goal of 75%.

As a reminder, you can keep track of the season via this spreadsheet:

Click over to your favorite team’s page for fully updated win projections throughout the season.

Here’s this week’s games and their projected outcomes:

THURSDAY

• Anderson County 40, Clinton 13

FRIDAY

• Farragut 26, Oak Ridge 22
• Maryville 41, Alcoa 12
• Bearden 28, South-Doyle 15
• Greeneville 45, Science Hill 13
• Knoxville Catholic 45, Cleveland 20
• Hardin Valley 24, Central 17
• Fulton 33, Austin-East 14
• McCallie 43, Webb 16
• Dobyns-Bennett 39, Sevier County 11
• Campbell County 31, Morristown East 24
• David Crockett 28, Gibbs 17
• West 27, Halls 13
• Jefferson County 30, Carter 9
• Oneida 35, Harriman 23
• Gatlinburg-Pittman 37, Hampton 30
• Lenoir City 34, CAK 19
• William Blount 39, Heritage 20
• Sequoyah 33, Loudon 28
• Rockwood 28, Kingston 24
• Powell 42, Karns 9
• Seymour 28, Cherokee 23
• Oliver Springs 33, Northview 18
• Union County 28, Claiborne 27
• Coalfield 43, Sunbright 12
• Midway 45, Unaka 0
• Wartburg 40, Oakdale 16 (!)
• Cosby 25, North Greene 20

Some notes on this week’s games…

• Farragut-Oak Ridge is the game of the week, though Alcoa-Maryville will steal headlines. A win on either side, despite this not being a Region game, is quietly pretty huge: pre-Week 5 rating adjustments, Farragut would become 56% likely to go undefeated with a win. It’s even bigger for Oak Ridge: about 76% odds of 10-0 with a victory. The season-ender with Fulton still looms large for OR, as does Farragut’s Week 9 road game at Bearden, but the path is clearing for both.
• Alcoa-Maryville is probably a blowout in waiting, but that’s fine; it won’t change the fact that Alcoa currently is favored by at least 25 points in every Region game and that their worst realistic record heading into November is 8-2. Maryville is 92% likely to go 10-0, and this is the toughest remaining challenge on the schedule, besides questionably Fulton.
• South-Doyle and Bearden probably wasn’t in the top six or seven games for this week at the start of the season, but it’s the best of the undercard. S-D has run through their first three opponents with ease – an average score of 48-10 – while Bearden simply might have the best defense by a non-Maryville/Oakland team in 6A. It’s still yet to be seen if Bearden’s offense can produce points when needed, which makes this game pretty interesting to me. Also, it’s a game between two teams outperforming their preseason expectations massively; both were expected to go 6-4 or so, but S-D is now favored to start 7-1 and Bearden 6-1.
• On the flip side, Science Hill-Greeneville was expected to be a much better game a few weeks back. While Greeneville has wrecked everything in their path, SCHS has gone 1-2 in coin-flip games, getting upset by Elizabethton in Week One, upsetting Ooltewah in Week Two, and then receiving another upset from 0-2 Dobyns-Bennett in Week Three. They seem to possess the ability to make any game close, but until further notice, it’s hard to envision a Greeneville game being close.
• Hardin Valley-Central should be fun: a team with its back against the wall staring down a 1-3 start in Central trying to squeak out a win over an HVA team that just obliterated Heritage. (More on poor Heritage later.)
• Other lower-tier games with close expected finals: Morristown East-Campbell County (two 1-2 teams that could use a win), Gatlinburg-Pittman and Hampton (GP has been impossible to figure out week-to-week, while Hampton is trending sharply upward right now), Sequoyah-Loudon (two teams that have looked worse each week), Rockwood-Kingston (a rivalry of sorts), Cherokee-Seymour (Cherokee badly needs a win after three straight double-digit losses), Claiborne-Union County, and Cosby-North Greene.

You can access it above, but here’s the season-long win projections page for discussion.

Quick statistics to catch you up:

• Biggest risers versus their preseason expectations: Cocke County (+3.07 wins), Midway (+2.45), South-Doyle (+2.35), Bearden (+2.29), and Powell (+2.01). More on Cocke in a minute.
• Biggest underachievers: Kingston (-3.21), King’s Academy (-2.83), Webb (-2.67), Pigeon Forge (-2.65). Brutal year for local private schools and 3A-2 teams not named Alcoa.
• Still looking at about four undefeated teams, most likely. The top contenders to go undefeated are Maryville (91.9% chance of finishing 10-0), Greeneville (91%), Greenback (46.3%), Anderson County (44.5%), Farragut (33%), and Oak Ridge (31.4%). Other contenders on the fringe (1%-10%): South-Doyle (10.5%), Bearden (8%), Cocke County (3.6%), Alcoa (3.4%), and Oliver Springs (1.1%).
• There is only one team with a serious chance of going Defeated right now, and unfortunately, it’s pretty high: Heritage has a 38.9% chance of going 0-10. Karns (8.39%) and Cosby (16.7%) are on notice.

Lastly, I want to discuss a story that we’re going to watch develop this year. No one locally has covered it yet, so let me be the first: Cocke County is in great position to find their first winning season in 22 years. The Fighting Cocks (yes, their real name) are 3-0 on the season, with an expected final record of 7.67 wins and 2.33 losses, or 7-3/8-2. (Massey expects about 6.3 wins, for the record.) At the very least, they’re staring down just the second .500 regular season finish in 17 seasons. If all breaks as projected, they’re on track to have the best season at the school since the 1996 Fighting Cocks team that went 8-2 and lost to Greeneville in overtime in the first round of the 4A playoffs.

Yes, Cocke County started 3-0 last year, defeating the same three teams…but their schedule was quite a bit tougher last year, too. I have them projected as double-digit favorites in at four remaining games, with Morristown East the only one of those that could drop below a 10-point expected win. Even better, no game is out of their hands, as they aren’t more than an eight-point underdog in any game at the moment (Daniel Boone, week 9). This is more of a “keep it on your periphery” thing at the moment, and Cocke doesn’t even play this week. But: if week seven rolls around and Cocke County is sitting at 5-1 after beating Pigeon Forge and Cherokee, take note – this is potentially the best story in East Tennessee high school football in 2018.

Good luck to all teams this week, and remember to check back in next week.

East Tennessee high school football projections, week three

Welcome back for another week! Week two was much better for the projection system: a record of 25-7, one game above expectation, which brings it to 47-18 (.723) after two weeks, or about 1.75 games below expectation. Not too bad! As noted after week one, it’s not surprising to see a lot of bugs being worked out and a lot of uncertainty surrounding various teams. After a couple more weeks, the projections should be pretty steady.

This week, unfortunately, doesn’t promise many exciting games. Of the 29 games on the schedule, just six are expected to have an outcome within single digits; 18 of the 29 are 90% favorites (22.2 points) or better. The highest-rated Game Score this week is a game where the favorite is expected to win by 64 points. The closest game is between two teams with expected final records of 5-5. Don’t expect too many fireworks this week, though anything can happen.

Here’s this week’s games, in spreadsheet form:

A note: obviously, you cannot score negative digits in football games. If it were possible, Tennessee would’ve done it last season. So those numbers are rounded up to 0. What’s left of the negatives is added to the favorite’s score to fulfill the total expected points in the game. As usual, all projected scores are rounded to the nearest whole.

THURSDAY

• Maryville 64, McMinn County 0
• Gatlinburg-Pittman 30, Northview 26
• Cocke County 42, South Greene 18

FRIDAY

• Bearden 26, Jefferson County 10
• Farragut 44, Morristown West 7
• Fulton 32, Powell 17
• Oak Ridge 45, Campbell County 5
• Central 18, Sevier County 17
• Ensworth 39, Webb 13
• Cleveland 42, William Blount 18
• South-Doyle 33, Gibbs 15
• Greeneville 77, Union County 0
• Alcoa 64, Scott 0
• Coalfield 34, Harriman 29
• Notre Dame 40, CAK 14
• Hardin Valley 41, Heritage 11
• Morristown East 32, Cherokee 28
• Seymour 21, Carter 20
• Grace Christian 32, Boyd-Buchanan 12
• Austin-East 39, Kingston 9
• West 35, Karns 8
• Loudon 31, Brainerd 28
• Anderson County 51, Hixson 8
• Middle Tennessee Christian 36, The King’s Academy 14
• Greenback 54, Sunbright 2
• Oneida 47, Wartburg 7
• Midway 47, Oakdale 9
• Sullivan North 50, Cosby 0

SATURDAY

• Rockwood 39, Tellico Plains 12

Quick observations:

• This is…not the most competitive week I’ve ever seen. Thirteen! of the 29 games have teams projected to score 10 or fewer points. Hopefully, that’s not the case, because if it is, this is going to be a pretty dreadful week of football. That’s a shame for the first week of Region play.
• Also, some of these point spreads are going to be terribly difficult to cover. A lot of these 20+ point favorites should win (though the system expects about 0.56 losses from 90% or higher likelihood teams), but some of these will be closer than expected.
• Anyway, actual games. Central-Sevier County is easily the “best” and most interesting of these, with Central coming in at 0-2 in a coin-flip Region 5A-2 game against a Sevier County team that painfully blew a 21-0 lead in Week One but followed it up with a tidy 34-14 win over Heritage. Three games into a ten-game season, I hate to call anything a “must-win game,” but a third straight Central loss heading into a home duel with Hardin Valley where they’ll be small underdogs would make for a nightmare start. Central was a team I thought was clearly the best in 5A-2 heading into this season; we’ll see if they can find that potential.
• Another good game is Northview-Gatlinburg Pittman on Thursday. You might not confuse these two for world-beaters at this moment (the two teams are projected for 4-6 and 5-5), but it’s a huge battle for the latter two 3A-2 playoff bids. Alcoa should win the division and Austin-East should finish second, but all five teams (including Scott) are in serious contention for third and fourth. A win by either would be a big step in the right direction, especially with both coming off of bad Week Two performances.
• The other four close games, in order, are Harriman-Coalfield (both have smashed Wartburg, while Harriman upset Kingston and Coalfield fell to York Institute), Morristown East-Cherokee (both need a win in the worst way), Seymour-Carter (Seymour is coming off of a huge win over Clinton, while Carter fell at home to Cocke County), and Loudon-Brainerd (both teams have suffered two double-digit losses).
• Others: Bearden-Jefferson County actually could be really fun, but this seems like the best Bearden team in several years; Fulton-Powell is interesting because Fulton played about a C-plus game against Central and can’t afford the same against a Powell team that has looked seriously good through two games; South Doyle-Gibbs could be good.

And here’s the season-long projections, now with a new feature: plus-minus expected wins versus the preseason expectation.

Some quick statistics:

• Your biggest surprises after two weeks are Midway (+2.68 expected wins), Cocke County (+2.36), Jefferson County (+2.17), Bearden (+2.15), and Powell (+2.06). Midway went from a 4-6 projection to 7-3 and are 85% likely to start 5-0.
• On the flipside, the biggest disappointments to date: Kingston (-3.24 expected wins), Pigeon Forge (-2.70), Webb (-2.36), King’s Academy (-2.10), and Central (-2.09). If they’d like, the two 3A-2 teams that head this list can simply blame it on Alcoa.
• We’re now looking at an expectation of four undefeated teams, thanks to Maryville’s huge win over Oakland last Friday. Your most likely 10-0 teams this year: Maryville (93.82% chance of 10-0), Greeneville (91.73%), Anderson County (58.71%), Greenback (55.31%), Farragut (37.11%), and Oak Ridge (23.31%). Keep an eye on Bearden (6.44%), South-Doyle (5.04%), and Alcoa (2.89%).
• The most interesting regional race of the week is 1A-2, where Greenback will win the region and four (!) teams are projected from 3.28 to 3.86 region wins. One of Coalfield, Oliver Springs, Harriman, and Midway will have to miss the playoffs, and it won’t be very fair to any of them.

Good luck to all of the teams this week, and I look forward to seeing everyone back next Thursday.

East Tennessee high school football projections, week two

Welcome back! Last week was wild, and the second-worst week I’ve had with projections since I started last year. The combined metric system went just 22-11 (.667), which is just above the all-time low of 17-10 in Week 2 of last year. You’ll be stunned to hear that the least predictable weeks of football are almost always the ones earliest in the year.

Last week brought out two upsets that rank as two of the three biggest of the last year: Chuckey-Doak over Pigeon Forge (92.3% chance of a Pigeon Forge win) and Tennessee over Central (91.8%). Unsurprisingly, both dropped massively in season-long projections. Pigeon Forge went from an expected 5.35 win season to 2.89 because of their massive drop in power ratings; Central went from the clear 5A-2 favorite at 7.29 wins and 4.95 region wins to 5.22 and 4.14. Your sheet that you can access at any time has running win probabilities available now:

Some notes from these new season-long projections:

• Expect at least two, and most likely three undefeated teams in the area. Greeneville is an overwhelming 88% favorite to go 10-0, which makes sense as they defeated the best team on their schedule by 40 points and may escape the regular season without playing a team they’re less than 20 point favorites over. Long behind them are four teams with good shots at 10-0: Greenback (51.4%), Anderson County (50.4%), Farragut (48.7%), and Maryville (34.5%). Greenback has a two-week home battle with Grace Christian and Coalfield that will determine their undefeated run. Anderson County faces a quietly-maybe-decent William Blount team this weekend. Farragut just beat the best team on their schedule and is a win at Oak Ridge away from really getting serious. Maryville has to beat Oakland to do it, but it wouldn’t be a stunner.
• There’s a new 5A-2 favorite. Central was handily the favorite heading in, but the system now likes South-Doyle to win the region for the first time since 2014. Central still projects as the second-best team in the region, but six teams are projected at 2-4 or better and no team has a season-long expected record above 7-3.
• The Fulton/Oak Ridge battle in 5A-3 is too close to call. Okay, you can call it, but barely: Fulton’s win projection is 0.06 wins more than Oak Ridge, and they are expected to win 0.03 more region games than the Wildcats. But, again, it’s going to come down to the final game of the season.

Anyway, here’s this week’s projections, which you can find in the sheet attached above or in a separate HTML file below. As a reminder, all projected scores are rounded to the nearest whole number.

THURSDAY

• Fulton 34, Central 8

FRIDAY

• Oakland 30, Maryville 24
• Knoxville Catholic 34, Baylor 22
• Oak Ridge 31, Dobyns-Bennett 22
• Cleveland 26, Bearden 22
• Wayne (OH) 45, Austin-East 3
• Greeneville 51, Morristown West 4 (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
• Hardin Valley 20, West 19
• Farragut 49, McMinn County 2
• Asheville (NC) 33, Webb 18
• Jefferson County 25, Morristown East 19
• York Institute 32, Coalfield 28
• Anderson County 42, William Blount 22
• Sevier County 25, Heritage 22
• Lenoir City 30, Loudon 28
• South-Doyle 36, Cherokee 21
• Campbell County 32, David Crockett 18
• Gatlinburg-Pittman 30, Oneida 26
• Cocke County 29, Carter 28
• Greenback 40, CAK 16
• Kingston 29, Oliver Springs 23
• Sweetwater 26, Rockwood 23
• Halls 33, Karns 19
• Grainger 30, Pigeon Forge 18
• Grace Christian 38, King’s Academy 9
• Powell 43, Cumberland County 2
• Midway 32, Monterey 15
• Harriman 43, Wartburg 17
• Union County 33, Cosby 11
• Oakdale 27, Jellico 26

SATURDAY

• Alcoa 31, Knox Central (KY) 21
• Clinton 24, Seymour 13

Notes on a few different games:

• I think I had Fulton-Central projected as about a two-score game last week. That’s a steep fall.
• The best game of the week is clearly Oakland-Maryville, a matchup of two of the three best teams in the state. Maryville was impressive in their 31-10 dispatching of defending 5A champion Knoxville Catholic, but Oakland was almost as impressive in a 46-7 beatdown of Independence. The only other games you’re going to get between two of the five-ish best teams in the state in the regular season is Lausanne vs. Whitehaven on September 7 or Brentwood Academy vs. Knoxville Catholic on September 21. This is the best of what Tennessee high school football can offer. Maryville moves to an 80% chance of 10-0 with a win, and that will probably rise with new power ratings.
• Overshadowed by this one is Baylor-Knoxville Catholic, which is merely a matchup of a top 20 team headed on the road to a top ten team. The odds are on the side of a bounce-back win for Catholic, but Baylor’s pretty tough and dispatched Notre Dame 35-14.
• Alcoa-Knox Central (KY) on Saturday is a good one. It’s at Corbin, who Alcoa played last year and which I remembered will bring up bad memories for Alcoa fans. Alcoa beat Grace 49-0, while Knox Central beat Letcher County Central (on the level of a Gibbs or Loudon) 49-22. It sounds like both teams expect to score, so you might get a pretty fun game if you go.
• Dobyns-Bennett and Oak Ridge has a couple of interesting points to it. An Oak Ridge win marks their second straight non-region win over a top 50 team in the state, while a D-B win erases some of the sour feelings over their stomping at the hands of Greeneville
• Bearden-Cleveland is interesting, too. Bearden beat West 9-0 in a gross, awful game, but their defense was very impressive in the process. This is Cleveland’s first game of the season, which means they might pull out a lot of tricks. Bearden’s offense isn’t good, but Cleveland’s defense (30 points allowed per game) probably isn’t, either.
• Other games of interest: I don’t know why Austin-East and Wayne (OH) decided to play each other, but sure; both Hardin Valley and West could desperately use a win, as it can get both on the path towards a .500 or better season; Webb’s opening week loss to Evangelical Christian really puts them behind the 8-ball against a good Asheville team; both Jefferson County-Morristown East and York Institute-Coalfield are expected to be close; the battle of Loudon County between Loudon and Lenoir City is expected to go down to the wire; an Anderson County win over William Blount gets them to a 57% chance of 10-0, and that game has the highest total of the week at 64.7; the lowest total is Clinton-Seymour on Saturday at 36.8.

Good luck to all teams involved this week, and we’ll check back in next Thursday.

East Tennessee high school football season-long projections, 2018

Welcome back from your offseason vacation! I’ve decided to bring these projections back for another year. Last year went well – the system nailed about 74.4% of game picks, which was almost exactly at the expected goal of 75%.

These season-long projections now cover 51 area teams, a bump from 35 last year. Congratulations to the following teams now getting coverage: Coalfield, Cocke County, Cosby, Grainger, Greenback, Greeneville, Harriman, Jefferson County, Kingston, Midway, Oakdale, Oliver Springs, Rockwood, Sunbright, Wartburg, and Union County. The reason for expanded coverage from my side is that previously, I’ve gone off of whatever the Knoxville News-Sentinel deemed as “area” teams. If we’re being honest, it doesn’t make much sense to consider Morristown West and East “area” teams if you aren’t including Greenback, Harriman, etc.

Team coverage has expanded to every county in the Knoxville metropolitan area plus Greeneville; the Green(e) Devils are right on the metropolitan line and they have a serious argument to being the best team in the state east of Murfreesboro. It would be wrong to leave them out.

This year, there’s going to be a few tweaks to encourage better results and, hopefully, more accurate projections for fans and neutral observers alike. These include:

• Team ratings adjusted to competition from multiple sources, updated weekly. I had this last year, but updating it was a monster. I’m now able to make it much easier on myself with a couple tweaks I’ve added on my end. The sources are the same: Cal Preps (AKA Max Preps) and Sonny Moore’s power ratings.
• Boosted home field advantage. While it’s hard to say that home-field advantage in high school football matters as much as it does in college, it still matters. Sonny Moore’s two-point home-field boost has been my metric forever, but after researching the actual home team win rate in high school football, it’s closer to about a +2.5 point boost. It’s small, but it will make the difference in a few close games.
• Every win percentage projection comes from Bill Connelly’s S&P+ projection system. I won’t say how long it took me to do this, but I’ve painstakingly gathered all data necessary to make the actual likelihood of a win line up mathematically with what it should be. This should lead to fewer errors and a more accurate range of win likelihood.

Along with all of this, I’ve added some new and fun features to the projections.

• Individual team sheets. Want to know your team’s likelihood of going undefeated? Their expected record? The most likely outcomes for the rest of the season? I’ve got a page for your team, ready to go. All 51 teams have every game in their schedule loaded into the database, which generates the expected outcome and likelihood of a win. If you’ve got a team you want to see this for, feel free to email me at will7615@gmail.com.
• Game Score. This is a new version of a metric I’ve used on other stuff, which measures, in theory, how exciting a game will be. It takes the Power Score – the expected ratings of the two teams playing – and adds a bonus for expected close games and detracts points for expected blowouts. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than anything previous. A work in progress!
• Projected region wins. This is also on every team sheet, but it’s an easy way to follow your team’s expected record in Games That Actually Matter.

So, yes, it’s much better than my rough draft of last year. This is East Tennessee high school football projections 2.0, or something.

Here’s the first unveiling: all 51 teams, ranked by expected region wins, sorted by region.

1A through 4A, including 2-AA:

5A and 6A:

And, for each team, your living document. Regrettably, I couldn’t figure out the best way to break each team’s page out into an individual document that wouldn’t take me a full day or two to complete. So here’s a compromise: below is all 51 team pages plus an interactive win totals page you can follow throughout the year. Here’s a link if you’d like it as a web page instead.

Some things that jump out at me from these totals:

• We’re going to have a couple undefeated teams this year. Neither Greenback (2017 state champions, undefeated regular season in 2016) or Greeneville (2017 state champions, 48-5 last four seasons) would exactly be a surprise. But: I’ll admit I’m pretty surprised that Anderson County has such a good shot. It’s a combination of weaker competition than usual (no team the Mavericks will face ranks higher than 80th statewide) and, yes, the fact they went undefeated against a similarly forgettable schedule last year. However, this is a team that preceded their shocking 12-0 run with consecutive 3-7 seasons. Can they do it again? They’ve got a great shot, and if nothing else, they’re massive favorites to win Region 4A-2 running away. No team came closer to beating Greeneville last year than Anderson County. Speaking of Greeneville, their odds of going undefeated rise from 58% to 80% with a win over Dobyns-Bennett in Week 1.
• We might also have a defeated (0-10) team. The odds are much lower on this, but of all the teams listed, Heritage has the best shot – they’re projected favorites in just one game this year (William Blount in Week 4) and that might change by game time. I’d be surprised if they didn’t at least win one game, but it wouldn’t be that stunning.
• The elites stay elite. I don’t see anything too surprising in the regional standings – Maryville, Farragut, Fulton, Greeneville, Alcoa, and Greenback are all projected to win their regions. However, a couple of them should be pushed: Farragut will get stiff competition from both Dobyns-Bennett (2017 region winners) and Science Hill (gets both Farragut and D-B at home). Both Fulton and Oak Ridge’s most likely region record is 5-1, which means the season finale between the two at Oak Ridge has a good chance at deciding the region winner.
• Best region race: 5A-2. Central is very likely to win the region, which shouldn’t surprise many; they were probably the best team in the region last year and made it to the 5A semifinals before losing. It’s the race for second through fifth which should be fascinating. Four teams have a great shot at the playoffs and are projected within (about) a region win of each other. Sevier County has a brutal four-game run (Central, at Dobyns-Bennett, at South-Doyle, Oak Ridge) that should tell us a lot about their playoff hopes after a second-round run last year. Halls closes with road games at Sevier and Seymour. Not to be one-upped, Gibbs closes with three straight road games, including visits to Halls and Central. The favorite for #2, South-Doyle, gets three of the bottom four teams in the region at home…which means they have to play Central, Halls, and Gibbs away from home. It’s going to be fun to watch.
• Runner-up: 3A-2. Again, Alcoa will win this easily. Past that, there’s four (and possibly five, if Northview overachieves) teams for three spots. Austin-East should be safe, but their non-region schedule is brutal. Kingston (Roane County), Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg-Pittman will battle it out for the final two spots. Kingston plays Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg-Pittman for their final two games, which likely will end up deciding who makes the playoffs and who stays home. As I mentioned, don’t rule out Northview, who’s made the playoffs the last two years and has rapidly become a threat.

As expected, this should be another fun, interesting, and enjoyable season of East Tennessee football. I’m looking forward to it. If you’ve got any questions are comments, please email will7615@gmail.com.