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 2009-1-9:

	Team	Rating	W	L	Record	Op Rec	Op Op R
1	Florida	0.68698	13	1	0.92857	0.59076	0.54161
2	Texas	0.68670	12	1	0.92308	0.59376	0.54327
3	Utah	0.67042	13	0	1.00000	0.48990	0.52135
4	Oklahoma	0.66587	12	2	0.85714	0.60195	0.53851
5	USC	0.65440	12	1	0.92308	0.51233	0.52778
6	Alabama	0.64255	12	2	0.85714	0.53565	0.53487
7	Texas Tech	0.63209	11	2	0.84615	0.52136	0.52876
8	Boise State	0.63010	12	1	0.92308	0.48560	0.48162
9	Penn State	0.62784	11	2	0.84615	0.50187	0.53549
10	TCU	0.62657	11	2	0.84615	0.51948	0.51407
11	Georgia	0.62479	10	3	0.76923	0.58204	0.52310
12	Ohio State	0.61707	10	3	0.76923	0.56943	0.51255
13	Cincinnati	0.60799	11	3	0.78571	0.51325	0.52501
14	Virginia Tech	0.59972	10	4	0.71429	0.55551	0.52937
15	Oregon	0.59933	10	3	0.76923	0.49556	0.53319
16	Ball State	0.59853	12	1	0.92308	0.39149	0.48103
17	Pittsburgh	0.59727	9	4	0.69231	0.58467	0.51482
18	Missouri	0.59660	10	4	0.71429	0.54517	0.53036
19	Florida State	0.59328	9	4	0.69231	0.56172	0.52580
20	Oregon State	0.59282	9	4	0.69231	0.56607	0.52008
21	Mississippi	0.58904	9	4	0.69231	0.55393	0.52090
22	Michigan State	0.58854	9	4	0.69231	0.55079	0.52252
23	Nebraska	0.58842	9	4	0.69231	0.54318	0.52978
24	Oklahoma State	0.58489	9	4	0.69231	0.54189	0.52047
25	Georgia Tech	0.58292	9	4	0.69231	0.52382	0.53263
26	West Virginia	0.57984	9	4	0.69231	0.51660	0.53062
27	California	0.57945	9	4	0.69231	0.51578	0.53025
28	Brigham Young	0.57677	10	3	0.76923	0.44221	0.51887
29	Rice	0.57431	10	3	0.76923	0.45168	0.50202
30	Boston College	0.57091	9	5	0.64286	0.55021	0.51966
31	Wake Forest	0.56842	8	5	0.61538	0.54107	0.54880
32	Kansas	0.56816	8	5	0.61538	0.57837	0.51073
33	Iowa	0.56726	9	4	0.69231	0.49398	0.51549
34	North Carolina	0.56494	8	5	0.61538	0.55203	0.52742
35	Northwestern	0.56006	9	4	0.69231	0.45179	0.53608
36	Maryland	0.55696	8	5	0.61538	0.53033	0.52516
37	Louisiana State	0.55669	8	5	0.61538	0.52385	0.53082
38	Connecticut	0.55423	8	5	0.61538	0.51702	0.53029
39	Rutgers	0.55321	8	5	0.61538	0.52681	0.51744
40	Western Michigan	0.54921	9	4	0.69231	0.47433	0.48100
41	Tulsa	0.54876	10	3	0.76923	0.37134	0.50571
42	South Florida	0.54737	8	5	0.61538	0.51202	0.51472
43	Air Force	0.54440	8	5	0.61538	0.52308	0.49473
44	East Carolina	0.54418	9	5	0.64286	0.48509	0.50459
45	South Carolina	0.54294	7	6	0.53846	0.55703	0.53333
46	Vanderbilt	0.54248	7	6	0.53846	0.55086	0.53812
47	Miami (FL)	0.54061	7	6	0.53846	0.54837	0.53502
48	Clemson	0.53896	7	6	0.53846	0.55059	0.52783
49	Navy	0.53803	8	5	0.61538	0.49694	0.50176
50	Houston	0.53161	8	5	0.61538	0.48278	0.49666
51	Arizona	0.53010	8	5	0.61538	0.45513	0.51979
52	Kentucky	0.52750	7	6	0.53846	0.51857	0.52546
53	Colorado State	0.52683	7	6	0.53846	0.54181	0.50022
54	Central Michigan	0.52548	8	5	0.61538	0.46841	0.49264
55	Wisconsin	0.52498	7	6	0.53846	0.51815	0.51834
56	Notre Dame	0.51981	7	6	0.53846	0.46908	0.55191
57	Buffalo	0.51965	8	6	0.57143	0.50615	0.48137
58	North Carolina State	0.51745	6	7	0.46154	0.56182	0.52899
59	Louisiana Tech	0.51469	8	5	0.61538	0.43284	0.49586
60	Minnesota	0.51363	7	6	0.53846	0.48905	0.51338
61	Nevada	0.51349	7	6	0.53846	0.51047	0.49153
62	Troy	0.51336	8	5	0.61538	0.45158	0.47311
63	Virginia	0.51172	5	7	0.41667	0.59536	0.52314
64	Arkansas	0.51105	5	7	0.41667	0.60383	0.51265
65	Southern Miss	0.50340	7	6	0.53846	0.48683	0.48491
66	Colorado	0.50317	5	7	0.41667	0.56476	0.52807
67	Hawaii	0.50302	7	7	0.50000	0.51293	0.49615
68	Fresno State	0.50178	7	6	0.53846	0.46302	0.50386
69	Florida Atlantic	0.49528	7	6	0.53846	0.47189	0.47549
70	Tennessee	0.49457	5	7	0.41667	0.53182	0.53521
71	Illinois	0.49373	5	7	0.41667	0.56529	0.49922
72	Auburn	0.49316	5	7	0.41667	0.54194	0.52086
73	Stanford	0.48926	5	7	0.41667	0.54006	0.51106
74	Louisville	0.48467	5	7	0.41667	0.53332	0.50401
75	San José State	0.48139	6	6	0.50000	0.44647	0.49768
76	Arizona State	0.48036	5	7	0.41667	0.50684	0.51757
77	Baylor	0.47913	4	8	0.33333	0.57582	0.52823
78	UNLV	0.47752	5	7	0.41667	0.49786	0.51803
79	Bowling Green	0.47744	6	6	0.50000	0.43918	0.49313
80	Kansas State	0.47702	5	7	0.41667	0.49516	0.51924
81	Duke	0.47408	4	8	0.33333	0.56155	0.52735
82	UTEP	0.47173	5	7	0.41667	0.51358	0.48495
83	Purdue	0.47144	4	8	0.33333	0.57949	0.50151
84	Arkansas State	0.46984	6	6	0.50000	0.44953	0.46000
85	Northern Illinois	0.46823	6	7	0.46154	0.47821	0.46494
86	Memphis	0.46603	6	7	0.46154	0.44038	0.49618
87	Louisiana-Lafayette	0.46393	6	6	0.50000	0.41880	0.47299
88	Texas A&M	0.46364	4	8	0.33333	0.52282	0.53477
89	Mississippi State	0.46263	4	8	0.33333	0.54301	0.51155
90	New Mexico	0.45967	4	8	0.33333	0.55449	0.49119
91	UCLA	0.45958	4	8	0.33333	0.53365	0.51176
92	Temple	0.45866	5	7	0.41667	0.47550	0.48380
93	Marshall	0.45528	4	8	0.33333	0.56499	0.46752
94	Akron	0.45150	5	7	0.41667	0.45017	0.48766
95	Syracuse	0.45009	3	9	0.25000	0.60223	0.49805
96	Wyoming	0.44971	4	8	0.33333	0.51966	0.49613
97	Florida Int'l	0.44541	5	7	0.41667	0.44391	0.47564
98	Michigan	0.44239	3	9	0.25000	0.56517	0.51200
99	Middle Tennessee	0.44004	5	7	0.41667	0.42147	0.48198
100	Utah State	0.43711	3	9	0.25000	0.58226	0.47907
101	Indiana	0.43504	3	9	0.25000	0.56293	0.49220
102	Central Florida	0.43267	4	8	0.33333	0.47295	0.49171
103	Ohio	0.43011	4	8	0.33333	0.48394	0.47304
104	Alabama-Birmingham	0.42866	4	8	0.33333	0.47120	0.48145
105	Kent State	0.41558	4	8	0.33333	0.44991	0.46350
106	Louisiana-Monroe	0.41213	4	8	0.33333	0.42190	0.48117
107	Eastern Michigan	0.40980	3	9	0.25000	0.51111	0.46828
108	New Mexico State	0.40861	3	9	0.25000	0.48120	0.49464
109	Army	0.40264	3	9	0.25000	0.47379	0.48412
110	Toledo	0.40162	3	9	0.25000	0.48718	0.46767
111	San Diego State	0.39590	2	10	0.16667	0.52981	0.49124
112	Washington State	0.39587	2	11	0.15385	0.51420	0.51955
113	Iowa State	0.39349	2	10	0.16667	0.49638	0.51741
114	Tulane	0.38542	2	10	0.16667	0.51229	0.47731
115	Idaho	0.37955	2	10	0.16667	0.49081	0.48117
116	Western Kentucky	0.37809	2	10	0.16667	0.49612	0.47148
117	Miami (OH)	0.37234	2	10	0.16667	0.47196	0.47840
118	Southern Methodist	0.37077	1	11	0.08333	0.55652	0.47247
119	Washington	0.37029	0	12	0.00000	0.59814	0.51274
120	North Texas	0.34653	1	11	0.08333	0.50481	0.45144

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.