Memphis runs 81 programs. Jackson runs 11. Memphis has 61 state titles. Jackson has 4. Head-to-head, Jackson wins 55 percent of boys games and 56 percent of girls. That gap is what this report is about.
The Three Tennessees report showed West Tennessee trailing East and Middle in ELO-adjusted outcomes. What it didn't show was what's happening inside West TN — specifically, why a mid-sized city with 11 programs is consistently beating the largest metro in the region.
I kept coming back to the Memphis-Jackson matchup while building this data. Memphis has seven times as many programs as Jackson and 15 times the state title count. But over 544 boys games and 589 girls games, Jackson wins both series. Strip Memphis's 10 private programs from the record and it gets worse — Memphis public programs are running 38 percent against Jackson boys.
The Outer West Tennessee story is simpler and more striking. Twenty-three programs scattered across Carroll, Gibson, Weakley, Obion, Hardin, and McNairy counties. Zero boys state titles in program history. One girls title ever — Westview in 2025-26, which just happened. But they hold Memphis below 45 percent on the boys side. The size of the state doesn't map cleanly to who wins games in West Tennessee.1
Memphis Metro has 81 programs — more than all of East Tennessee's Knoxville metro and Tri-Cities combined. Ten are private schools that compete in TSSAA's DII divisions: Christian Brothers, MUS, St. George's, Briarcrest, Lausanne, Evangelical Christian, and four smaller programs. The average SEI of 43.6 is the highest of the three sub-regions, reflecting Shelby County's wide economic range from Germantown and Collierville at the top to inner-city Memphis programs at the bottom.
Jackson's 11 programs cover Madison and Chester counties. Two are formally private (USJ and Trinity Christian), but Jackson Christian competes in DII-A and Sacred Heart has no class assignment — in practice, four of the 11 programs operate in private-school divisions. The SEI average of 35.9 is lower than Memphis's, but average SEI has not been predictive here. Jackson's H2H record over Memphis and Outer West TN is the highest of the three sub-regions in both boys and girls.
Outer West Tennessee is 26 programs across a wide geographic band: Dyersburg in the north, Savannah in the south, Adamsville and Selmer in the southeast, plus the Lauderdale and northern Tipton County programs (Halls, Ripley, Henning, Covington) that sit closer to Dyersburg than Memphis. No private schools. Average SEI of 30.0. The only state title from this sub-region in the dataset is Westview girls in 2025-26 — which just happened as this report was being built.
The boys matrix has one number that demands explanation: Jackson vs Memphis at 55.1 percent on 461 games. Jackson is not a soccer factory by any obvious metric. The city has 70,000 people, one DI football program at Jackson State, and programs split between public schools and a small cluster of private academies. Against a metro with 81 programs and a 25-year title run, they're winning more than they lose.
Memphis vs Outer is 44.8 percent boys — Memphis is below .500 against programs from counties like Gibson, Carroll, and Obion. The Outer West TN schools are winning those matchups without any private programs and with SEI averages well below Memphis. What Outer West TN has is concentrated playing time: in a region without many programs, every available opponent matters and teams play each other repeatedly across districts and regions.
Switch to Combined view. Memphis's overall record against Jackson is 43.1 percent on 1,133 games — below .500 in both boys and girls combined. Against Outer it's 47.9 percent. Memphis is the only sub-region in this dataset where the largest metro loses the combined record to both of its smaller neighbors.
There's no recent trend line moving in Memphis's favor against Jackson. Some seasons Memphis boys are above 50 percent, some well below, but there's no structural progression. The gap that shows up in the 15-year cumulative record — Jackson winning 55.1 percent of boys games — holds across most individual seasons, not just a few outlier years.
Memphis vs Outer on the boys side has been more volatile season to season. Some years Memphis is comfortably above 50 percent, other years below. The cumulative number (44.8 percent for Memphis) is being driven by seasons where Outer West TN programs — Dyersburg, Crockett County, Westview — are running above their expected rate.
Memphis boys top end is statewide-competitive. Christian Brothers at rank 6 overall, Collierville at rank 17, Houston at rank 18, Briarcrest at rank 20, Bartlett at rank 21. Five programs between rank 6 and rank 21. The issue is depth — after Lausanne at rank 32, Memphis boys fall off fast, and the gap between the private-school top end and the public base is wider here than in any other sub-region in Tennessee.
Jackson boys are led by South Gibson (rank 30 statewide), a public high school in Medina. That's not a marquee name, but it's inside the statewide top 30. Madison Mustangs (rank 48) and Chester County (rank 73) follow. Jackson Christian drops to rank 230 in boys. Jackson's H2H edge against Memphis is being carried by public programs, not the private schools that win the DII-A girls titles.
Memphis girls top end is the strongest in West Tennessee and among the strongest in the state: Houston rank 3, Collierville rank 6, St. George's rank 8, Evangelical Christian rank 11, Memphis East rank 23. Five programs in the top 23 statewide. The state title count confirms it — 32 girls titles spanning DII-A, DII-AA, AAA, and A-AA classifications.
Ten private programs in the Memphis sub-region — Christian Brothers, MUS, St. George's, Briarcrest, Lausanne, Evangelical Christian, Westminster, St. Benedict, Tipton Rosemark, and First Assembly — compete in TSSAA's DII classifications. Removing them from the cross-sub record changes the Memphis-Jackson matchup significantly.
Boys: with privates, Memphis wins 42.2 percent against Jackson. Without privates, 38.4 percent on 375 games. Memphis public programs are running well below .500 against a Jackson sub-region that has two formal private schools and nine programs that compete entirely in public-school classes. The private programs aren't closing the gap against Jackson — they're just making it less bad.
Girls: the private school effect is more pronounced. Memphis WITH privates against Jackson is 43.9 percent. Without privates, 41.2 percent. The drop is smaller than boys, but St. George's and Evangelical Christian account for most of Memphis's DII-A girls titles. Remove those two programs and Memphis's girls record against Jackson moves toward what the boys public-only number looks like.
Houston Mustangs are the single most decorated program in West Tennessee and one of the most decorated in the state — 7 boys state titles, 9 girls state titles, including the 2024-25 girls championship over Bearden. Every Houston title is from Shelby County's public school system, which makes it the exception inside a Memphis title record that runs mostly through private DII programs.
Christian Brothers has 9 boys titles, with the most recent in 2020-21. Their girls program has never won a state title — all of Memphis's DII-AA girls titles went elsewhere. That asymmetry is part of the Memphis pattern: the elite private programs are not equally dominant across both genders.
Jackson has zero boys titles in program history. USJ's 4 girls titles (2010-11, 2011-12, 2021-22, 2022-23) are all DII-A, meaning they beat private school opponents from across the state in a small-school class. Against public-school programs in the regular season and cross-sub matchups, Jackson's boys win 55.1 percent against Memphis. That gap between H2H performance and state title count is the Jackson story.
Tennessee Soccer Stats is an independent project. All records are drawn from publicly available TSSAA game reports. ELO ratings are calculated using the TSSE system — see About for methodology.