How We'd Rank Each Division's Top 8

Hi All!

Welcome back to Goosepoop, newsletter #53!

Today is our eleventh of fourteen weekly wrap-ups, where we digest all of the week’s high school football action.

In today’s note, we’ve got the following sections:

• Big Game Review - a brief review of last week’s top 5 games

• Tracking the Champs - game results from each of the State’s 2021 Champions

• Biggest Upsets - the largest upsets from around the State

• Model Check-In - how our model fared in picking Week 11 games

• Survivor Island - a count of the State’s unbeaten teams

• More than Meets the Eye - a look at the remaining teams with losing or .500 records

• Computer Ratings - Week 11 computer ratings for every division

• Next Week - where next week’s biggest games are

Scroll on to check them out!

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Big Game Review

Last week we featured 5 top games (like we do every week).

Below were the spreads on each:

And here’s how the actually ended up:

• Caledonia 14, Rockford 13

• Clarkston 49, Davison 40

• Cass Tech 25, Southfield A&T 14

• Warren DLS 37, Roseville 7

• GR FHC 33, Mona Shores 21

There were two upsets in this bunch - Caledonia / Rockford and Clarkston / Davison.

Caledonia’s upset over Rockford is about as small of an upset as you can have - our model had Rockford favored by half a point, and Caledonia won by just one.

Clarkston, on the other hand, staged a truly large upset - they were 9 point underdogs in our model, and had previously lost to the Cards by 7. That didn’t stop them: they defeated Davison by 9 themselves, swinging the spread by a cool 18 points.

Tracking the Champs

Let’s check in on how our 2021 State Champs did this past weekend:

You may recall that we entered the weekend with 7 of our 8 returning State Champs, and that we were projecting only one of the remaining 7 to fall off, with Pewamo-Westphalia favored to lose to New Lothrop.

This was almost exactly how it went down: Pewamo-Westphalia did indeed lose to New Lothrop. However, in an upset, Hudson was bested by Jackson Lumen Christi, 35-0. We had favored the Tigers by 8 over JLC, and this result caught our model totally off guard.

With these results in the books, we enter Week 12 with 5 of our sitting State Champs still on board. Find out on Thursday which of them are projected to lose.

Biggest Upsets

Of the 64 games last week, there were 16 upsets (per our model). Below were the 6 largest ones:

• Trenton over Carlson (11 point underdog)

• Clarkston over Davison (9 point underdog)

• Lumen Christi over Hudson (8 point underdog)

• Goodrich over Freeland (6 point underdog)

• Everest over Cardinal Mooney (5 point underdog)

• Millington over Standish-Sterling (5 point underdog)

The other 10 upsets were all in games with spreads under 4 points.

Model Check - In

How’d our model do this weekend?

• Predicted the correct result in 48 out of 64 games (like we said above, there were 16 upsets).

That’s 75% accuracy, which was our worst week all season (season to date we are averaging 83%).

This dip in performance was driven by the large amount of close games - as we note in the section above, 10 of the 16 upsets were in games with spreads of 4 points or under. Right now, our model struggles to predict the outcomes of these games, with only 50% accuracy.

Lastly, if you’d like to track the entirety of our model’s picks, a reader has set up a website to track ours & several others picks (thank you @LoxLoaded!)

• https://www.mihsfballpickem.com/

Survivor Island

Let’s check-in on the State’s 16 remaining unbeaten teams:

Division 1

• Belleville

• Macomb Dakota

• Dropping Out: Rockord (lost to Caledonia)

If both Belleville & Macomb Dakota win this week, they will play next week in the State Semi-Final

Division 2

• Dexter

• GR Forest Hills Central

If both Dexter & GR FHC win this week, they will play next week in the State Semi-Final

Division 3

• Mason

Division 4

• Whitehall

• GR South Christian

• Riverview

• Dropping Out: Tecumseh (lost to Riverview)

Whitehall & GR South Christian play this week in our game of the week.

Division 5

• Frankenmuth

• Gladwin

Division 6

• Clinton

• Negaunee

• Dropping Out: Madison Heights Bishop Foley (lost to Warren Mi. Collegiate)

Division 7

• TC St Francis

• Napoleon

• Dropping Out: Detroit Central (lost to Monroe SMCC)

Division 8

• Ottawa Lake Whiteford

• Ubly

• Dropping Out: Beal City (lost to Fowler)

More than Meets the Eye

Of our 64 remaining teams, 5 started the playoffs with losing records.

Here’s who they are:

Under the old system, none of these teams would have even played a game last week.

Find out which of them are projected to win again this week when our predictions drop on Thursday.

Computer Rankings

Division 1

With Rockford dropping out, Caledonia is back in the saddle as #1. We’ve got them rated as a 4 point favorite over #2 Belleville.

Division 2

Warren DLS continues to widen the gap between them and their opponents: the computer model thinks they’re about 14 points better than their closest competitor, GR Forest Hills Central.

Speaking of, GR FHC has once again traded places with Dexter. If that game happens next week, expect a nailbiter.

Division 3

Detroit MLK is #1, but look at how close the next 3 teams are: Muskegon, Zeeland West, and Brother Rice are all within 4 points.

As we said on GLSF’s podcast a few weeks ago, Division 3 may be the most competitive division. There are 6 teams within a touchdown of each other right now.

Division 4

D4 went mostly chalk last weekend, save for Goodrich’s upset over Freeland.

In what we would call the true D4 State Title game, #1 Whitehall will take on #2 South Christian this weekend.

Division 5

Again, not much to note here, except for one small change: GRCC is now rated as a 2 point favorite over Gladwin (previously it was only 0.5 - 1.0 points).

Will this game happen? First, the Cougars have to take on a surging Portland, whose rating has jumped quite a bit in the last few weeks.

Division 6

GR West Catholic dispatched with then #3 Constantine last week. This explains their impressive rating: we’ve got them as a touchdown favorite over #2 Negaunee.

Speaking of: Negaunee is now #2 in D6. They’ve jumped previous #2 Clinton, and are now rated 3 points better than the Red Wolves.

Division 7

One of the larger results from Week 11 was D7 #2 Hudson losing 35-0 to Jackson Lumen Christi. That result slides JLC up to #2.

Division 8

#1 and #2 remain unchanged, but, once again, take a look at Ubly. Their rating continues to improve, and we have them rated only 11 points behind the #1 spot.

The Bearcats will play #4 Fowler this week - if they win big, expect their rating to jump once more.

Next Week

As you might expect, with only 3 weeks left of play, all the games are starting to be HUGE. Here’s what’s in store:

Top 5 Games Overall

• D1 #2 Belleville vs. D1 #7 DCC

• D1 #3 Macomb Dakota vs. D1 #5 Cass Tech

• D1 #4 Clarkston vs. D1 #6 Rochester Adams

• D4 #1 Whitehall vs. D4 #2 South Christian

• D3 #2 Muskegon vs. D3 #3 Zeeland West

Top Game in Every Division

• D1: #3 Macomb Dakota vs. #5 Cass Tech

• D2: #2 GR FHC vs. D2 #4 East Lansing

• D3: #2 Muskegon vs. #3 Zeeland West

• D4: #1 Whitehall vs. #2 South Christian

• D5: #2 GR Catholic Central vs. #4 Portland

• D6: #2 Negaunee vs. #4 Gladstone

• D7: #1 Traverse City St Francis vs. #3 Ithaca

• D8: #3 Ubly vs. #4 Fowler

Games Between Undefeated Teams

• D4 #1 Whitehall vs. D4 #2 South Christian

And that’s all for Week 11, guys! Thanks again for taking the time to read this week’s wrap-up.

Don’t forget to subscribe below so you don’t miss out on our Week 12 preview, which is dropping on Thursday.