Methodology

Rating model

Each team gets one number, its rating, in goals relative to an average team in its pool (gender × grad year). We find the ratings that best explain every game's goal margin: for each game, home rating − away rating ≈ margin, solved by weighted least squares (a Massey-style method).

• Margin cap: margins are capped at 10 goals so running up the score doesn't help.
• Recency: a game's weight halves every 180 days, so recent form counts most.
• Prior toward average: every team starts with a small pull toward 0, which matters most for teams with few games.
• Confidence range (±): the 95% uncertainty of each rating, based on how well the model fits and how many (and how connected) the team's games are.
• Strength of schedule (SOS): the average rating of the team's opponents.
• Provisional: teams with fewer than 10 games are flagged.
• State rankings are filtered from the single national fit, so a rating means the same thing in every state.
• Grad years 2036–2037 are shown in tiers (Top 10, 11–25, 26–50) instead of exact ranks, because very young teams play few, noisy games.

Sponsors and partners

Sponsors and partners never affect rankings. Sponsorships and affiliate links help keep Lax Ranks free, but ratings come only from game results.

Data

Final scores from leagues and tournaments that share results with us. This preview uses example data only; every team, club and game is fictional.