General

• If you win:
• X points for winning the game based on opponent Class
• Y points times number of opponent wins based on opponent s opponents Class
• If you lose:
• Y/3 points times number of opponent wins based on opponent s opponents Class
• The margin of victory/defeat is NOT part of the equation.
• This calculation happens for every game, then averaged out to the QRF number you see online.
• Once the average QRF is determined, it is compared to the average QRF of every other team in the State, and put into ranking order.

The same as above, with no bonus for winning the game (because you didnt). The value of Y is split in half between winning and losing points.

• Because the QRF is an AVERAGE of games played, it is not a CUMULATIVE number.  Take this example:
  • A student takes 7 tests and has earned a total of 350 points.  His/her average score is 50.
  • The student takes an 8th test and earned only 10 points (similar to beating a poor opponent) to bring the cumulative total to 360.  Now the students average per test is 45 (360/8).
• Usually this is masked in the QRF because you are still earning points from previous opponents, but there are times where the new average will still be lower than the previous day.
• This is essentially because your strength of schedule has been lowered after playing a poor team.  But dont think you are getting slighted, most likely this has either already happened or will happen to the other teams you are competing against.

• Because using it FOR SEEDING makes it better!  In the end, all the QRF is, is a point value for how well a team has performed during the year.  Very similar results provide very similar values, they do not create absolute differences.
• Formulas like this provide a broad scope way of evaluating every team.  But seeding teams needs to provide a much more narrow scope, usually comparing one team vs. another.  So being able to apply what normal humans would to make the seeds make more sense is really a no-brainer.

No.  There is a minimum number of Section games required in order to use Section Winning Percentage in the Tiebreaker Margin, but the QRF calculates based on all of your Minnesota games played regardless of the opponent.

This is false.  Going with the student test analogy again....if one student in your class takes 20 tests and another student takes 25, does either one have an advantage in getting a better grade?  The answer is - it depends on how they do on the tests, not how many tests they take.  We have the minimum in place so teams are playing a similar number of games, not so they play the same number of games.  As stated earlier the QRF is an AVERAGE, not a CUMULATIVE so there is not a disadvantage to playing fewer games than another team.

• This was a joint decision between the MSHSL and Minnesota-Scores.net.  From our perspective, it is proprietary information.  From the MSHSL side, they (I believe) want coaches and schools to focus less on how to manipulate the system in place and more on playing the games and develop kids.
• Also, most Sections had been using their own formulas already, many of them with different parameters thinking theirs was the "best".  If the parameters were to be public, they would certainly be different than what the Section deemed best and could be seen as "wrong" when in fact, they are just different.

• This one comes in a lot.  "Should I schedule a good AA team I know I am going to lose to or a bad A team I know I am going to beat”. The answer is easy, it doesn t matter.       Your team is who they are and the QRF will find you either way – if you are a middle of the road team you are going to beat some good teams you shouldn t and lose to teams you shouldn t.  Teams that play better teams and lose generally have about the same QRF as teams that play poorer teams and win.  The QRF will find you either way  you go.
• Best answer is this.  You will the best QRF you can have if you play the best teams you can beat and beat them.

Two different answers. Because football has so few games, it was requested to include it in the calculation.

Football - games against a non-MN opponent count in the calculation. To do this we track up to the first 8 games (because most states play more than 8 regular season games) of every out of state team a MN team plays so we know how many wins they accumulate during the season. These out of state teams are also assigned to a "MN Class" so they can give equivalent point value to the size of their school.

All other sports - games against a non-MN opponent are ignored in the calculation. It isn t possible for us to track all of the opponents and all of their games. This may sound like a big deal, but it really isn t. Most other sports play between 16 and 26 games, so having 1 or 2 not count isn t statistically a big deal. Also, teams are not required to play the same number of games, so whether a team plays 23 MN and 3 non-MN or just plays 23 MN teams, the QRF treats them the same. Since the final QRF is an average and not cumulative, it all works.

As for the seeding, we do recognize these games were played and want to put some importance on playing them (otherwise they are just a scrimmage) so they ARE included if the Tiebreaker Margin is used for Overall Percentage.

Forfeits are ignored for all sports. The QRF (and seeding) is an attempt to apply on the field results into a point value and possibly a seed. Any game that is forfeited is ignored in the calculation AND in the Tiebreaker Margin for Conference/Overall/Section Percentages.

• Head to Head
• Conference/District Winning Percentage (not inc. forfeits)
• Overall Winning Percentage (not inc. forfeits)
• Section Winning Percentage (not inc. forfeits) (min. 25% of games played)
• QRF
• Coin Flip

The last date games count for seeding is solely determined by the Section, we are usually informed by the Tournament Manager.  The time we seed is by 10 AM the following morning.  So if the Section tells us the last day games count is on a Saturday, you will get your seeds by 10 AM the following morning.

The reason for the lag is that unfortunately we get several scores reported to us backwards every night, so we need to give everyone enough time to verify the score posted is correct before we calculate.  Changing the seeds after we have already published it not only makes us look bad, but it is a major headache for all the schools involved.  We want to make sure what we are providing are the final seeds if at all possible.

Our policy is to not use other media outlets (like the hub or maxpreps) because those are 3rd party groups (media) and usually not a representative of the school posting a score.  The AP is the exception, since their job is to report scores to the media.

Schools are required to post thier scores to the MSHSL site, and it is our philosophy that that should be good enough for us.  90% of our scores come from the AP feed or the MSHSL site, with the other 10% coming from the "Submit a Score" "Report Score" links on our site and by texting in to 218-422-MINN (6466).

We dont require people to log in as a specific representative for a team to submit scores, so we encourage ANYONE to send in the scores.  The philosophy is, if you were at a game and can see the scoreboard (or listened to it on the radio), its not that hard to know what s what and send it in. However, because we allow ANYONE to send in scores, we can t let everyone in the state have direct access to the database.  So when you "Submit a Score", the email get sent into a pool of all scores submitted.  It is received, verified for validity (don t submit a Football score of 176-3 for instance), then we will put it in the database to go live to the general public.   So why isnt it posted immediately?  Because that Inbox isnt monitored 24/7/365.  Its monitored more like 4 or 5 hours a day and generally during peak times for scores to come in.

So we can contact you if there is a conflicting score.  That s it.   Your trust and confidentiality is important to us, so dont worry about us selling your email address.  We hate SPAM as much as you do, so you have our guarantee that we will never release that information to anyone.....ever!

Usually because there isnt enough data to make it relevant.  Its based completely on results, so the more results the better the rankings.  You can expect the first QRF to show about 30% of the way through a particular season.   When in doubt, take a look at the top of the QRF Rankings page.  It should have a date showing the first time it will be calculated.