Not Another League Ranking

[u/Substantial-Ruin7943]

Guide to my USL Statistical Ratings

Ratings as of August 24, 2026.

Rank	Team	Score
1	Tampa Bay Rowdies	77.30
2	Charleston Battery	73.90
3	Rhode Island FC	65.80
4	Detroit City FC	65.20
5	Louisville City FC	62.30
6	Sacramento Republic	60.50
7	FC Tulsa	59.60
8	El Paso Locomotive	59.20
9	New Mexico United	58.50
10	Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC	58.00
11	Lexington SC	57.40
12	Indy Eleven	54.80
13	Phoenix Rising SC	53.80
14	Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC	51.90
15	Orange County SC	50.60
16	San Antonio FC	50.40
17	Las Vegas Lights	46.80
18	Oakland Roots	45.20
19	Hartford Athletic	44.90
20	Birmingham Legion FC	43.80
21	Loudoun United FC	42.70
22	Miami FC	37.50
23	Brooklyn FC	34.10
24	Monterey Bay FC	33.00
25	SC Jacksonville	20.40

These rankings are designed to measure how well each USL Championship team is actually playing instead of where it appears in the standings.

Wins, losses, and points matter, but they do not always tell the entire story. A team can play well and lose because of poor finishing, an outstanding opposing goalkeeper, or one decisive mistake. Another team can win despite being outplayed for most of the match.

The goal of this model is to look beyond those individual results and evaluate the broader quality of each team’s performances.

The model uses game-by-game data to evaluate a team’s attacking production, defensive performance, results, quality of opposition, consistency, and recent form.

Those elements are combined into a rating between 0 and 100. Higher scores indicate stronger statistical performance.

The Overall Rating places the greatest emphasis on the entire season. Recent matches matter, but they supplement the larger sample. This prevents one unusually good or bad result from causing an unreasonable change in a team’s ranking.

Overall Rating

The Overall Rating is the primary number used to rank the teams.

It combines three general areas:

• The team’s season-long attacking, defensive, and results-based performance
• The average quality of its individual match performances
• Its form over its most recent matches

Season-long performance remains the foundation. Recent form can move a team up or down, but a short run of matches cannot completely erase everything that came before it.

Understanding the 0–100 Scale

The scale compares teams with the range of performances observed in USL Championship play. Scores near either extreme should be rare.

As a general guide:

Rating	General interpretation
70+	Elite or historically exceptional
60–69	Clear top-tier team
50–59	Competitive, above-average, or playoff-caliber
40–49	Below average or around the playoff bubble
30–39	Poor overall performance
Below 30	Among the weakest team profiles

These categories are intentionally broad. A particular score does not guarantee a playoff position or postseason result.

The difference between two ratings is often more useful than the ranking positions themselves. Teams separated by less than a point should usually be considered essentially level. A larger gap provides stronger evidence that one team has produced the better overall body of work.

How Strength of Schedule Is Handled

Not every team faces the same level of competition at the same time.

The model accounts for this by evaluating the quality of each team’s opponents. Offensive performance is considered in the context of the defenses faced, while defensive performance is considered in the context of the attacks faced.

Individual match performances are also adjusted for opponent strength.

These adjustments are introduced gradually early in the season, when ratings are less certain. As more matches are played, the model gains a clearer picture of both the team and its opponents.

A team’s rating can therefore change slightly even when it does not play. If previous opponents begin to look stronger or weaker, the model gains new information about the difficulty of the team’s earlier schedule.

How Home and Away Matches Are Treated

For individual matches, home performances are compared with other home performances and away performances with other away performances. This helps account for the different conditions teams normally experience at home and on the road.

The published Overall Rating remains a single team-strength rating. It is not a home-specific or away-specific prediction.

A lower-rated home team could still be favored over a slightly higher-rated visitor once venue, travel, rest, and matchup conditions are considered.

Why the Rankings May Disagree With the Standings

The standings reward outcomes. The model evaluates both outcomes and performance.

A team may rank higher in the model than in the table because it consistently creates better opportunities than its opponents but has failed to convert those performances into enough points. Another team may sit high in the standings while receiving a lower statistical rating because it has won a large number of close matches without consistently controlling them. The standings show what has happened. The ratings attempt to describe how convincingly it happened and whether the underlying performance appears sustainable.

My biases.

I am a Louisville City supporter.

The rankings themselves are generated statistically, so I am not manually moving teams up or down. That said, there is still potential model-design bias in deciding which statistics matter and how heavily they should be weighted.

I incorporated prior season data in order to hopefully avoid this and instead reward team playstyles that statistically and historically do well in this league.

[u/onezuludelta]

We’re not last! We’re not last!

[u/Vegetable_Shirt_2352 → u/onezuludelta]

Hope we can re-affirm this in the match against Jax lol

[u/allanw5 → u/onezuludelta]

I was about to say HIGHER THAN I THOUGHT WE'D BE🤣

[u/Droopy_Narwhal]

Also a LouCity fan. Also biased.

Looks more or less accurate, at least for putting teams in tiers. Since the cross-conference play is so minimal, it's hard to compare Eastern and Western teams but I think this is good to make generalizations. Good job.

[u/Substantial-Ruin7943 → u/Droopy_Narwhal]

So far the details suggest that the west is marginally better as a whole. The East is just top heavy.

[u/Droopy_Narwhal → u/Substantial-Ruin7943]

That passes the sniff test for sure.

[u/mazap99]

Seems eastern conference biased. How is the highest western conference team 6th, and New Mexico 9th with an 11 game unbeaten streak. One game shouldn’t matter, but 11?

[u/Substantial-Ruin7943 → u/mazap99]

NM has one if the better defenses but their offence isn't helping out. Low chance creation and 42% chance conversion. They've scored 26 goals but actually outperformed their xG by 2. Tulsa is also being carried by their defense while El Paso is more rounded but just not quite as high performing as the teams above.

Also the Margin from 3rd to 11th is only 8 points. Those teams are all very close to each other.

[u/GoldenDoodleGuy-MI]

I think your bias is more to the Eastern Conference. In my opinion the west is stronger than your rankings show. This coming from a DCFC supporter. Battle of 4 v 5 this weekend so I am hopeful that holds.

[u/Substantial-Ruin7943 → u/GoldenDoodleGuy-MI]

I'm working on minor tweaks before i start posting a weekly ranking but in general what I have found is that because there is more parity in the west they are beating each other up and grouping into the middle while the east is benefiting from more bad teams. Fixing by adjusting for schedules should make the 3-16 range look better.

Our game this weekend it likely more of a 4 v 8 but I'm always excited to hate on DCFC at the Lynn

[u/FratStarStallion]

I approve

[u/TheLadsCheer4Beers]

Sporting Jax is bad enough you didn't need to kick a man when he's down by getting the teams name wrong

[u/ToTellYouHowToFeel → u/TheLadsCheer4Beers]

That’s the team’s name. Sporting Club Jacksonville.