🏈 Week 1 MHSAA Football Preview

👋 Hey everyone! We made it! It’s finally football season!

Week 1 of MHSAA football season is kicking off tonight and tomorrow for the 2026 season, and it feels long overdue! Let’s jump into where the top games will be this week!

But, before we do that make sure to subscribe below to get our newsletter straight to your inbox every week👇

There are plenty of games worth watching in Week 1, but how do we decide which ones are actually the best?

Good question. We built a metric for it.

Introducing the Goosepoop Game Score: a 1–100 rating designed to identify the best matchups in the state every week.

Each game’s score is the average of two factors:

Both are normalized within each week, so the score is always relative to the games being played. In other words, a 75 in Week 1 means the same thing as a 75 in Week 8.

Close game + really good teams = really high Game Score.

With that said, here are the Top 20 games in Michigan for Week 1, ranked by Goosepoop Game Score:

*NOTE WEEK 1 DATA IS BASED ON 2025 FINAL RATINGS

Breakdown:

Rockford vs. Saline takes the top spot this week with a 98.4 Game Score, followed by Romeo vs. Rochester Adams and Central Catholic vs. Portage Central.

There are a ton of close games throughout the top 20, with four matchups scoring a 98.4 in closeness. Week 1 should have plenty of good ones!

Want more? Head to our website to check out the projected spread, over/under and odds for every game, every week across Michigan. Check it out below👇

If you guys want to hear Doak and I dive into Week 1 of 2026 MHSAA Football in depth, check out our latest Goosecast👇

If you guys enjoy the content, make sure to subscribe! More podcasts are coming weekly!

Watch here: Goosecast Ep. 18 | Previewing MHSAA Football Week 1

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The Computer model isn’t going anywhere in 2026.

Every game gets a projected spread, win probability and over/under, giving us an early look at how Week 1 could shake out.

One important note: Week 1 projections are based entirely on final 2025 data. With no 2026 results to work with yet, the model is still using last season’s team ratings. As games are played, this year’s data will begin taking over and the projections will continue to adjust each week.

For now, consider Week 1 our best data-driven starting point for the new season, and here’s how week 1 is projected to play out:

Breakdown:

There are a lot of tight projections in Week 1. Grand Ledge vs. West Ottawa is basically a coin flip, while Lowell vs. East Grand Rapids and Clinton vs. Olivet both sit at just a one-point spread.

On the other end, Hudsonville is the biggest favorite of the group at -16.5 against Byron Center, with a 76% win probability.

If you’re looking for points, Dexter vs. Brighton has the highest projected total at 67.5, followed by Spring Lake vs. Grand Haven at 64 and Zeeland West vs. Cedar Springs at 63.5.

Again, these Week 1 numbers are based on final 2025 data, so there will definitely be some teams the model is too high or too low on. We’ll find out pretty quickly.

By now, you’ve probably noticed that all of Goosepoop’s content is completely free.

A big reason we’re able to keep it that way is because of Teamfi — the fundraising company my brothers and I started a little over 3 years ago.

Funny enough, Teamfi actually started through this very newsletter.

We built it to help teams and organizations fundraise in a way that’s faster, simpler, and way less painful than the traditional stuff. No platform fees, no product delivery, no chasing checks around. Just simple digital fundraisers that regularly raise several hundred dollars per player in under two weeks.

If your team, program, or organization is looking to raise money, we’d love to help.

Check it out here 👉 www.teamfi.works

New this season, we are picking the Top 10 games every week and putting our records up against both the fans and the Goosepoop model.

We’ll track everybody’s record throughout the season and see who actually knows ball when it’s all said and done.

Here are week 1’s picks:

Breakdown:

Week 1 already has some disagreement. Goose and Doak split on five of the ten games, while the fans and model disagree on three.

Plenty of chances to look stupid right out of the gate. This will be fun 🍿🍿

👋 That’s all for today guys! That’s all for today guys! Thanks for reading! Hopefully you have a little better idea of which games to watch.

The 2026 season is officially here, and we’re just getting started. Goosepoop will be back every week with rankings, projections, Game Scores, Pick’em results and plenty more.

Enjoy Week 1. Football is back, and we can’t wait to spend another season with you all!

See you next week! Make sure to subscribe below to get the next edition straight to your inbox👇

Love,
Goose & Doak