Piedra Vista's Kael Farley runs for added yards away from Alamogordo's Bryson Bloom during the first half of a football game, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025 inside Hutchison Stadium at Farmington High. (Charles Cook/For The Tri-City Record)
Piedra Vista's Kael Farley runs for added yards away from Alamogordo's Bryson Bloom during the first half of a football game, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025 inside Hutchison Stadium at Farmington High. (Charles Cook/For The Tri-City Record)Charles Cook

ALBUQUERQUE — Cleveland High School sits atop the MaxPreps New Mexico preseason football rankings heading into the 2026 season, leading a top 10 dominated by Class 6A powerhouses.

The Storm opened at No. 1 with an 85.70 rating. Las Cruces follows at No. 2 (73.98 rating), while Hobbs (64.69), La Cueva (64.11), and Centennial (63.83) round out the top five.

A pair of Four Corners area teams made strong showings in the statewide top 15:

No. 9 Bloomfield: The Bobcats enter the season as the top-ranked Class 4A program with a 58.03 rating.

No. 14 Piedra Vista: The Panthers hold a 49.53 rating and are ranked fourth overall in Class 5A, trailing only Artesia, Rosell and Los Lunas.

MaxPreps rankings are designed to be objective and consistent. Before the season begins, every team is given a preseason position. That starting point comes from editorial input, informed by the prior season’s performance and returning student-athletes.

San Juan County FB Preseason Rankings

Class 6A – Farmington (11th out of 16)

Class 5A – Piedra Vista (4th out of 16)

Class 4A – Bloomfield (1st out of 16)

Class 3A – Kirtland Central (13th), Aztec (17th out of 17)

Class 2A – Navajo Prep (9th), Newcomb (19th), Shiprock (22nd of 24)Courtesy Maxpreps

Once enough games have been played, the preseason ranking is no longer a factor at all; the rating is then driven entirely by the team’s own results for that season and the strength of its schedule.

A preseason ranking never locks a team in or out of the postseason. It simply gives the season somewhere to begin, and the current season’s results take over from there.

According to Maxpreps.com, every high school football game in the country is part of a single connected network. The system is primarily data-driven from game results.

Editorial input is used to set each team’s preseason starting position before any games are played, drawing on the prior season and returning student-athletes.

That starting point helps steady the earliest-season ratings, but its influence shrinks with every game and drops off entirely well before postseason seedings.

There are no in-season votes or committees that adjust rankings once the season is underway.

A team’s strength is earned on the field. It comes from who a team played and how it did, not from the size or classification of the school.

Every team, from the smallest school to the largest, is measured on the same national scale. Classification is never used to raise or lower a rating.