Grine's Bracketology: The Final 60

NMPreps reveals its projected No. 1 seeds in Classes 2A through 6A as Joshua Grine breaks down all 60 playoff positions ahead of the official NMAA brackets.

The regular season is in the books. The district championships have been decided. Now comes the part where everybody becomes a bracketologist.

Before the NMAA officially unveils the 2026 New Mexico High School Football State Championship brackets, NMPreps publisher Joshua Grine is putting his final projections on the table.

Five classifications. Twelve seeds apiece. Sixty playoff spots.

Grine’s Final Bracketology takes a deep dive into Classes 2A through 6A, weighing district finishes, head-to-head results, overall records, MaxPreps rankings and strength-of-schedule tiebreakers to project the complete 12-team field in each classification.

And we’re not just throwing teams into a bracket. Each projection includes the reasoning behind the seeds, potential first-round matchups, quarterfinal paths and the teams left on the outside looking in.

Grine’s Projected No. 1 Seeds

Classification	Projected No. 1 Seed
Class 6A	Cleveland Storm (10-0)
Class 5A	Roswell Coyotes (9-1)
Class 4A	Bloomfield Bobcats (9-1)
Class 3A	St. Michael’s Horsemen (9-0)
Class 2A	Texico Wolverines (8-1)

Five teams sitting atop the projections. But what happens behind them?

Who earns the four coveted first-round byes? Which teams draw a home playoff game? Who sneaks into the field at No. 12? And which teams are left wondering what might have been?

That’s where Grine’s Bracketology gets interesting.

The No. 1 seeds are free. The other 55 projected seeds, the breakdowns and the bracket paths are waiting.

READ MORE: Grine’s Final Bracketology

NMPreps projections are unofficial and do not represent the final NMAA playoff selections.