The Arizona Interscholastic Association has a ranking system unlike any other in the college or professional ranks, and it is all based off an unexplainable algorithm.

“What we try to say to coaches is to just ‘win baby’,” AIA Executive Director David Hines said.

The current Arizona MaxPreps system, which has been in use for near a declade, ranks teams according to their earned rating.

To put it as simply as possible, these ratings are based on a formula that is trying to balance schools based on win-loss records, the win-loss records of their opponents, the strength of schedule and the strength of opponent’s schedules. It is an almost never-ending computation of records and opponent records combined with the national rankings of MaxPreps.

It might take a math degree to try to figure out how all the math works out on the back-end, and even the director of the AIA is not sure how the numbers come out.

“You can’t explain the algorithm,” Hines said. “There is so much that goes into it and it is so expansive that it is very hard to understand it.”

Those comments are mirrored by most of the Arizona high school scene, but the message on how to handle the rankings has become clear just win.  

“The algorithm is what it is,” azcentral.com writer Richard Obert said in a late 2017 interview. “Nobody really knows how to explain it, but at the end of the day the 16 [for football] best teams are going to be on the field. And if you don’t show up no matter what round it is then you don’t belong. I think the best team is always going to survive.”

Accuracy is something the AIA prides itself on. A look back into the past few years and since 2008 in the 6A (formerly 5A and Division I) there has been at least a No. 4 seed or higher in the championship game. Also, eight out of those ten games featured a No. 1 seed in the championship game.

“What we try to tell coaches (who are frustrated with rankings) is that we understand, but to also look at the history and the accuracy of the rankings,” Hines said. “What we would like is to have the (true) top-16 teams in bracket play, and there it creates real competitive games.”

This algorithmic ranking system replaced the old “power point” system that would award teams 50 points for a win and an extra five points for every game their opponents won. Theoretically, in a 10-game football season the maximum points a team could earn would be 550 points.

However, while that system is easier to understand the popular opinion at the AIA is that the “rankings problem” usually resolves itself.

“If a football coach thinks his team deserved to be No. 1 when they ended up being No. 4, they still play in two home games and then two neutral-site games,” AIA sports information coordinator Seth Polansky said. “The only difference would be they line up on the road sideline in their road white jerseys rather than being on the home side in their darks (jerseys). I think it takes care of itself.”