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Week 2 is in the books and our model has every score in the county. Here's where all 25 MCPS programs stand, how far each one moved off last week's board, and what next week looks like.
Movement throughout is measured against last week's board. A team can win and still slide if the wins around it were louder.
The Top 10
Photo: @moderatelymoco
Full Movement Chart: All 25 Teams
Photo: @moderatelymoco
Why Damascus Fell With a 42-7 Win
Damascus won by 35 and dropped three spots. That looks broken until you read the schedule.
Damascus is 2-0 against the No. 18 and No. 16 teams. Churchill is 2-0 against No. 4 and No. 5. B-CC beat No. 9 Blair by 14. Damascus barely moved, 81.9 to 81.1, and two teams with better wins went past them.
Our rankings weigh who you beat, not only by how much. That is the whole point of the thing, and it will keep working this way until Damascus plays somebody ranked. They get No. 15 Clarksburg on Friday.
Biggest Risers
B-CC, up 6 to No. 4. W 50-36 at Blair. The biggest rating jump on the board, up 17.4 points. Losing by one to No. 2 Churchill costs almost nothing, and no other 1-1 team has a win like Blair.
Poolesville, up 6 to No. 19. W 46-0 at Rockville. Their rating actually went down slightly. They climbed six spots because six teams below them fell further.
Blake, up 5 to No. 7. W 25-13 vs Whitman. Their schedule did most of this. A 29-14 loss to No. 5 Northwest plus a win over No. 14 Whitman is a stronger two weeks than anyone they passed.
Biggest Fallers
Wootton, down 8 to No. 16. L 7-42 at Damascus. The largest rating drop of the week, down 13.7 points. That 47-0 over Rockville is worth less every time Rockville loses, and eight teams went past them.
Rockville, down 6 to No. 25. L 0-46 vs Poolesville. Down 20.6 points, the steepest fall on the board. Two shutout losses and still no points scored in 2026.
Seneca Valley, down 4 to No. 10. L 0-14 at Sherwood. Nothing about Seneca Valley actually changed. Their rating moved one tenth of a point. Four teams passed them.
The Story of the Week: Poolesville Was Last, and Then They Weren't
A week ago Poolesville was the worst team in the county by our math. Winters Mill shut them out 57-0 in the opener, they hadn't scored a point, and our board had them 25th out of 25.
Then they went to Rockville and won 46-0.
We had that one wrong and we weren't close. The model made Rockville a 70% favorite by a touchdown, and the final margin missed by 39 points. Only one call we made all week went worse.
The two teams swapped places exactly. Poolesville went from 25th to 19th. Rockville went from 19th to 25th.
Some of that is Rockville, who have now been shut out in back to back weeks, 47-0 at Wootton and 46-0 at home, and still haven't scored a point in 2026. A team that loses that way is going to fall no matter who beats them.
But Poolesville threw one of six shutouts in the county on Thursday night, and they did it seven days after being on the wrong end of one. Paint Branch made the same turn, from 0-28 against QO to 59-0 over Einstein, so it isn't unique. It is still the kind of week that tells you the preseason number was a guess.
The real test is Friday. Poolesville travels to Wheaton, who just put 56 on Springbrook and climbed to 13th. If Poolesville is actually a different team than the one Winters Mill beat, that's where we'll find out.
Best Win of the Week
QO takes it. The 68-0 win over No. 11 WJ was 47 points better than our model called it, the biggest gap between forecast and result of any win over a top-half team.
How Our Model Did
Our Week 2 picks went 9-4, a 69% hit rate. That puts us at 20-6 on the season, 77%.
That number is worth splitting up, because a hit rate is easy to inflate. On the 8 games we called at 75% or better this season, the ones anyone could have picked, we went 8-0. On the 18 that actually needed the model, we went 12-6.
Best call. We had Churchill at only 51% and they won 28-13.
Worst miss. We had Rockville at 70% and Poolesville won 46-0.
Photo: @moderatelymoco
Most Underrated Team
Damascus. We have them 6th, and across 2 games they've beaten our projected margin by an average of 29 points. That's the largest gap of any team outside the top five, which is another way of saying we probably have them too low.
Games to Watch: Week 3
Week 3 is split across Thursday September 17 and Friday September 18.
B-CC at Northwest. The model likes B-CC by 1. (top-10 matchup, projected close game, upset watch)
Einstein at Northwood. The model likes Northwood by 2. (projected close game, upset watch)
Paint Branch at Blair. The model calls it a coin flip and leans Paint Branch. (top-10 matchup, projected close game, upset watch)
RM at Magruder. The model calls it a coin flip and leans RM. (projected close game, upset watch)
Seneca Valley at Gaithersburg. The model likes Seneca Valley by 3. (projected close game, upset watch)
Full Prediction Board: Week 3
Our model's pick for every game.
Photo: @moderatelymoco
Week 2 By the Numbers
6 shutouts in 13 games.
Not one game was decided by a single score.
13 of the 25 ranked teams moved three or more spots off their position last week.
How These Rankings Work
Capital Sideline's power rankings are generated using an internal model that weighs team results, scoring performance, opponent strength, recent form, and schedule difficulty. Rankings are updated weekly as new scores are reported.
