Square Gear Productions

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:

 TeamRatingWLRecordOp RecOp Op R
1Florida0.686981310.928570.590760.54161
2Texas0.686701210.923080.593760.54327
3Utah0.670421301.000000.489900.52135
4Oklahoma0.665871220.857140.601950.53851
5USC0.654401210.923080.512330.52778
6Alabama0.642551220.857140.535650.53487
7Texas Tech0.632091120.846150.521360.52876
8Boise State0.630101210.923080.485600.48162
9Penn State0.627841120.846150.501870.53549
10TCU0.626571120.846150.519480.51407
11Georgia0.624791030.769230.582040.52310
12Ohio State0.617071030.769230.569430.51255
13Cincinnati0.607991130.785710.513250.52501
14Virginia Tech0.599721040.714290.555510.52937
15Oregon0.599331030.769230.495560.53319
16Ball State0.598531210.923080.391490.48103
17Pittsburgh0.59727940.692310.584670.51482
18Missouri0.596601040.714290.545170.53036
19Florida State0.59328940.692310.561720.52580
20Oregon State0.59282940.692310.566070.52008
21Mississippi0.58904940.692310.553930.52090
22Michigan State0.58854940.692310.550790.52252
23Nebraska0.58842940.692310.543180.52978
24Oklahoma State0.58489940.692310.541890.52047
25Georgia Tech0.58292940.692310.523820.53263
26West Virginia0.57984940.692310.516600.53062
27California0.57945940.692310.515780.53025
28Brigham Young0.576771030.769230.442210.51887
29Rice0.574311030.769230.451680.50202
30Boston College0.57091950.642860.550210.51966
31Wake Forest0.56842850.615380.541070.54880
32Kansas0.56816850.615380.578370.51073
33Iowa0.56726940.692310.493980.51549
34North Carolina0.56494850.615380.552030.52742
35Northwestern0.56006940.692310.451790.53608
36Maryland0.55696850.615380.530330.52516
37Louisiana State0.55669850.615380.523850.53082
38Connecticut0.55423850.615380.517020.53029
39Rutgers0.55321850.615380.526810.51744
40Western Michigan0.54921940.692310.474330.48100
41Tulsa0.548761030.769230.371340.50571
42South Florida0.54737850.615380.512020.51472
43Air Force0.54440850.615380.523080.49473
44East Carolina0.54418950.642860.485090.50459
45South Carolina0.54294760.538460.557030.53333
46Vanderbilt0.54248760.538460.550860.53812
47Miami (FL)0.54061760.538460.548370.53502
48Clemson0.53896760.538460.550590.52783
49Navy0.53803850.615380.496940.50176
50Houston0.53161850.615380.482780.49666
51Arizona0.53010850.615380.455130.51979
52Kentucky0.52750760.538460.518570.52546
53Colorado State0.52683760.538460.541810.50022
54Central Michigan0.52548850.615380.468410.49264
55Wisconsin0.52498760.538460.518150.51834
56Notre Dame0.51981760.538460.469080.55191
57Buffalo0.51965860.571430.506150.48137
58North Carolina State0.51745670.461540.561820.52899
59Louisiana Tech0.51469850.615380.432840.49586
60Minnesota0.51363760.538460.489050.51338
61Nevada0.51349760.538460.510470.49153
62Troy0.51336850.615380.451580.47311
63Virginia0.51172570.416670.595360.52314
64Arkansas0.51105570.416670.603830.51265
65Southern Miss0.50340760.538460.486830.48491
66Colorado0.50317570.416670.564760.52807
67Hawaii0.50302770.500000.512930.49615
68Fresno State0.50178760.538460.463020.50386
69Florida Atlantic0.49528760.538460.471890.47549
70Tennessee0.49457570.416670.531820.53521
71Illinois0.49373570.416670.565290.49922
72Auburn0.49316570.416670.541940.52086
73Stanford0.48926570.416670.540060.51106
74Louisville0.48467570.416670.533320.50401
75San José State0.48139660.500000.446470.49768
76Arizona State0.48036570.416670.506840.51757
77Baylor0.47913480.333330.575820.52823
78UNLV0.47752570.416670.497860.51803
79Bowling Green0.47744660.500000.439180.49313
80Kansas State0.47702570.416670.495160.51924
81Duke0.47408480.333330.561550.52735
82UTEP0.47173570.416670.513580.48495
83Purdue0.47144480.333330.579490.50151
84Arkansas State0.46984660.500000.449530.46000
85Northern Illinois0.46823670.461540.478210.46494
86Memphis0.46603670.461540.440380.49618
87Louisiana-Lafayette0.46393660.500000.418800.47299
88Texas A&M0.46364480.333330.522820.53477
89Mississippi State0.46263480.333330.543010.51155
90New Mexico0.45967480.333330.554490.49119
91UCLA0.45958480.333330.533650.51176
92Temple0.45866570.416670.475500.48380
93Marshall0.45528480.333330.564990.46752
94Akron0.45150570.416670.450170.48766
95Syracuse0.45009390.250000.602230.49805
96Wyoming0.44971480.333330.519660.49613
97Florida Int'l0.44541570.416670.443910.47564
98Michigan0.44239390.250000.565170.51200
99Middle Tennessee0.44004570.416670.421470.48198
100Utah State0.43711390.250000.582260.47907
101Indiana0.43504390.250000.562930.49220
102Central Florida0.43267480.333330.472950.49171
103Ohio0.43011480.333330.483940.47304
104Alabama-Birmingham0.42866480.333330.471200.48145
105Kent State0.41558480.333330.449910.46350
106Louisiana-Monroe0.41213480.333330.421900.48117
107Eastern Michigan0.40980390.250000.511110.46828
108New Mexico State0.40861390.250000.481200.49464
109Army0.40264390.250000.473790.48412
110Toledo0.40162390.250000.487180.46767
111San Diego State0.395902100.166670.529810.49124
112Washington State0.395872110.153850.514200.51955
113Iowa State0.393492100.166670.496380.51741
114Tulane0.385422100.166670.512290.47731
115Idaho0.379552100.166670.490810.48117
116Western Kentucky0.378092100.166670.496120.47148
117Miami (OH)0.372342100.166670.471960.47840
118Southern Methodist0.370771110.083330.556520.47247
119Washington0.370290120.000000.598140.51274
120North Texas0.346531110.083330.504810.45144

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.