Matthew Welch's College Football Ratings

This is my system for rating college football teams. The goal of this system is to objectively rank the performance thus far of the Division 1-A football teams. It uses only their records from the current season, so early on the ratings are pretty erratic, but as the season progresses they settle down and become more accurate. By mid-season there is enough data to make a fair comparison of teams and at the end of the season this system produces a good assessment of how the teams have done.

At no point are these ratings meant to predict the outcome of future games. And mid season results are not intended to predict where the teams will end up. It simply rates every team's performance so far.

The only data I use is wins and losses from the current season. It doesn't count last year's record or any other historical information. I subscribe to the "a win is a win is a win" philosophy so my formula doesn't count score differences, just wins and losses.

The rating is composed of two parts. One is the team's win percent. The other is a strength of schedule factor counting opponents' average win percent and opponents' opponents' average win percent. You can read more about my philosophy and formula if you want.

A copy of these ratings in a text file is available to download. And please feel free to look over my raw data to make sure I haven't made any errors in my data collection. If I have please contact me.

I am working on making previous results and data available. I will try to keep adding more years, working my way backwards.

Latest Ratings

Ratings including games through 2008-10-5:

	Team	Rating	W	L	Record	Op Rec	Op Op R
1	Alabama	0.70290	6	0	1.00000	0.55556	0.55315
2	Missouri	0.69956	5	0	1.00000	0.50000	0.59867
3	Vanderbilt	0.69537	5	0	1.00000	0.50667	0.57944
4	Texas	0.68119	5	0	1.00000	0.42000	0.62356
5	Oklahoma	0.67207	5	0	1.00000	0.46667	0.54956
6	Penn State	0.66414	6	0	1.00000	0.37222	0.62019
7	Utah	0.66167	6	0	1.00000	0.40000	0.58500
8	Boise State	0.66009	4	0	1.00000	0.46667	0.51361
9	Virginia Tech	0.65364	5	1	0.83333	0.57222	0.55537
10	Northwestern	0.65281	5	0	1.00000	0.35333	0.60511
11	Ball State	0.64201	6	0	1.00000	0.37222	0.55380
12	Wake Forest	0.64093	3	1	0.75000	0.59167	0.58111
13	Oklahoma State	0.63696	5	0	1.00000	0.35333	0.55756
14	Michigan State	0.63494	5	1	0.83333	0.50556	0.56593
15	USC	0.63370	3	1	0.75000	0.57500	0.57611
16	Ohio State	0.63318	5	1	0.83333	0.52500	0.54120
17	Pittsburgh	0.63119	4	1	0.80000	0.46667	0.62689
18	Georgia	0.62881	4	1	0.80000	0.59333	0.49311
19	Georgia Tech	0.62615	4	1	0.80000	0.54667	0.53178
20	Texas Tech	0.62481	5	0	1.00000	0.39333	0.48111
21	California	0.62259	4	1	0.80000	0.53333	0.53444
22	Tulsa	0.62222	5	0	1.00000	0.29333	0.57333
23	Louisiana State	0.62111	4	0	1.00000	0.29167	0.57167
24	Kentucky	0.61874	4	1	0.80000	0.50667	0.54956
25	Connecticut	0.61654	5	1	0.83333	0.45556	0.56074
26	North Carolina	0.61385	4	1	0.80000	0.51333	0.52822
27	Notre Dame	0.61319	4	1	0.80000	0.46667	0.57289
28	Brigham Young	0.61207	5	0	1.00000	0.24667	0.58956
29	South Florida	0.61037	5	1	0.83333	0.50556	0.49222
30	Minnesota	0.60917	5	1	0.83333	0.42222	0.57194
31	Florida	0.60507	4	1	0.80000	0.42000	0.59522
32	Florida State	0.60144	4	1	0.80000	0.47000	0.53433
33	Nebraska	0.60111	3	2	0.60000	0.75333	0.45000
34	TCU	0.59975	5	1	0.83333	0.44444	0.52148
35	Cincinnati	0.59741	4	1	0.80000	0.50000	0.49222
36	Kansas	0.58893	4	1	0.80000	0.48667	0.48011
37	Navy	0.58781	4	2	0.66667	0.57500	0.52176
38	South Carolina	0.57855	4	2	0.66667	0.51667	0.55231
39	Duke	0.57811	3	2	0.60000	0.63333	0.50100
40	Western Michigan	0.57648	5	1	0.83333	0.32778	0.56833
41	Boston College	0.57644	4	1	0.80000	0.40000	0.52933
42	Oregon	0.57145	4	2	0.66667	0.41944	0.62824
43	Colorado	0.57000	3	2	0.60000	0.66000	0.45000
44	Arizona	0.56089	4	1	0.80000	0.25333	0.62933
45	Illinois	0.56037	3	2	0.60000	0.62000	0.46111
46	Auburn	0.56028	4	2	0.66667	0.53333	0.48083
47	Wisconsin	0.55907	3	2	0.60000	0.56667	0.51056
48	Colorado State	0.55644	3	2	0.60000	0.52000	0.54933
49	Nevada	0.55215	3	2	0.60000	0.59333	0.46311
50	Maryland	0.55204	4	2	0.66667	0.47222	0.51722
51	East Carolina	0.55104	3	2	0.60000	0.51333	0.53978
52	Mississippi	0.54886	3	3	0.50000	0.66944	0.47713
53	Air Force	0.54596	3	2	0.60000	0.54000	0.49789
54	Clemson	0.53741	3	2	0.60000	0.52000	0.49222
55	Oregon State	0.53619	2	3	0.40000	0.73000	0.47856
56	Central Michigan	0.53400	3	2	0.60000	0.41333	0.58867
57	Rice	0.53259	3	3	0.50000	0.61111	0.48667
58	Troy	0.53042	2	2	0.50000	0.63333	0.45792
59	Louisville	0.52796	2	2	0.50000	0.63333	0.45056
60	West Virginia	0.52667	3	2	0.60000	0.44000	0.54000
61	Louisiana Tech	0.52556	2	2	0.50000	0.57500	0.50167
62	Stanford	0.52488	3	3	0.50000	0.50556	0.56907
63	UNLV	0.52296	3	3	0.50000	0.53333	0.53556
64	Michigan	0.52133	2	3	0.40000	0.64000	0.52400
65	Iowa	0.52105	3	3	0.50000	0.62222	0.44093
66	New Mexico	0.51901	3	3	0.50000	0.64444	0.41259
67	San José State	0.51593	3	2	0.60000	0.40000	0.54778
68	Fresno State	0.51467	3	2	0.60000	0.36000	0.58400
69	Kansas State	0.51467	3	2	0.60000	0.44000	0.50400
70	Virginia	0.51241	2	3	0.40000	0.63000	0.50722
71	New Mexico State	0.51148	2	2	0.50000	0.45000	0.58444
72	Buffalo	0.50874	2	3	0.40000	0.62667	0.49956
73	Bowling Green	0.50778	2	3	0.40000	0.66000	0.46333
74	Indiana	0.50704	2	3	0.40000	0.66000	0.46111
75	Akron	0.50438	3	3	0.50000	0.49444	0.51870
76	Baylor	0.50389	2	3	0.40000	0.61000	0.50167
77	Marshall	0.50265	3	3	0.50000	0.53333	0.47463
78	Arkansas	0.50193	2	3	0.40000	0.66000	0.44578
79	Arizona State	0.49770	2	3	0.40000	0.58000	0.51311
80	Miami (FL)	0.49622	2	3	0.40000	0.62000	0.46867
81	Purdue	0.49589	2	3	0.40000	0.67333	0.41433
82	Arkansas State	0.49563	3	2	0.60000	0.40000	0.48689
83	Houston	0.49511	2	3	0.40000	0.62000	0.46533
84	Middle Tennessee	0.49504	2	3	0.40000	0.55333	0.53178
85	Florida Int'l	0.48496	2	3	0.40000	0.46667	0.58822
86	Western Kentucky	0.48488	2	4	0.33333	0.60556	0.51574
87	Memphis	0.48287	3	3	0.50000	0.42778	0.52083
88	North Carolina State	0.48086	2	4	0.33333	0.63333	0.47593
89	UTEP	0.48067	2	3	0.40000	0.54000	0.50200
90	Texas A&M	0.47363	2	3	0.40000	0.54000	0.48089
91	Tennessee	0.46874	2	3	0.40000	0.48667	0.51956
92	Hawaii	0.46733	2	3	0.40000	0.54000	0.46200
93	Southern Miss	0.46444	2	3	0.40000	0.51333	0.48000
94	Central Florida	0.46119	2	3	0.40000	0.50000	0.48356
95	UCLA	0.46052	2	3	0.40000	0.59333	0.38822
96	Iowa State	0.45837	2	3	0.40000	0.45333	0.52178
97	Temple	0.45568	2	4	0.33333	0.57778	0.45593
98	Northern Illinois	0.45356	2	3	0.40000	0.54000	0.42067
99	Wyoming	0.45043	2	4	0.33333	0.49444	0.52352
100	Syracuse	0.44578	1	4	0.20000	0.72000	0.41733
101	Eastern Michigan	0.44469	2	4	0.33333	0.46667	0.53407
102	Florida Atlantic	0.44304	1	4	0.20000	0.64667	0.48244
103	Tulane	0.44185	2	3	0.40000	0.43333	0.49222
104	Mississippi State	0.44089	1	4	0.20000	0.65333	0.46933
105	Louisiana-Lafayette	0.43600	2	3	0.40000	0.39333	0.51467
106	Miami (OH)	0.43052	1	4	0.20000	0.56667	0.52489
107	Utah State	0.42811	1	4	0.20000	0.66667	0.41767
108	Rutgers	0.41700	1	4	0.20000	0.59333	0.45767
109	Washington State	0.41534	1	5	0.16667	0.59444	0.48491
110	Ohio	0.41188	1	5	0.16667	0.65000	0.41898
111	Toledo	0.40348	1	4	0.20000	0.62667	0.38378
112	Southern Methodist	0.40086	1	5	0.16667	0.57222	0.46370
113	San Diego State	0.39333	1	4	0.20000	0.54000	0.44000
114	Washington	0.39056	0	5	0.00000	0.79333	0.37833
115	Kent State	0.38407	1	5	0.16667	0.56667	0.41889
116	Alabama-Birmingham	0.37988	1	5	0.16667	0.51111	0.46185
117	North Texas	0.37352	0	5	0.00000	0.70000	0.42056
118	Idaho	0.37302	1	5	0.16667	0.48889	0.46352
119	Louisiana-Monroe	0.37244	1	4	0.20000	0.43333	0.48400
120	Army	0.35859	1	4	0.20000	0.38667	0.48911

Kenneth Massey (whose rating system is used as part of the BCS formula) keeps a side by side comparison of ranking systems, including mine. David L. Wilson also has a directory of ratings.

Thanks to Peter R. Wolfe for collecting and posting the results of all the college football games.

Here's the standard disclaimer: These ratings are not meant to predict the winners of future games, just rate teams' performances so far. It is certainly not meant to predict the spread or scores of a game. I know of no correlation whatsoever between my rating and scores of individual games, especially since I don't even count scores in my formula. I do not recommend or condone using these ratings for the purpose of gambling. Sports betting is evil. Blah blah blah.