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 2010-1-8:

	Team	Rating	W	L	Record	Op Rec	Op Op R
1	Alabama	0.70437	14	0	1.00000	0.57075	0.54237
2	Florida	0.67839	13	1	0.92857	0.55897	0.54763
3	Texas	0.66913	13	1	0.92857	0.55560	0.52322
4	Cincinnati	0.66355	12	1	0.92308	0.52646	0.54111
5	Boise State	0.65333	14	0	1.00000	0.45733	0.50268
6	TCU	0.64656	12	1	0.92308	0.51237	0.50424
7	Iowa	0.63989	11	2	0.84615	0.56330	0.51021
8	Ohio State	0.63911	11	2	0.84615	0.55100	0.52017
9	Oregon	0.62498	10	3	0.76923	0.58136	0.52436
10	Virginia Tech	0.62271	10	3	0.76923	0.56868	0.53023
11	Penn State	0.62149	11	2	0.84615	0.49990	0.51842
12	Brigham Young	0.62055	11	2	0.84615	0.48323	0.53227
13	Georgia Tech	0.61859	11	3	0.78571	0.52352	0.54654
14	Pittsburgh	0.61443	10	3	0.76923	0.55139	0.52267
15	Wisconsin	0.60568	10	3	0.76923	0.53886	0.50895
16	Louisiana State	0.60176	9	4	0.69231	0.56896	0.54401
17	Miami (FL)	0.59551	9	4	0.69231	0.56541	0.52880
18	West Virginia	0.59295	9	4	0.69231	0.55132	0.53521
19	Utah	0.59268	10	3	0.76923	0.47880	0.53001
20	Nebraska	0.59154	10	4	0.71429	0.53748	0.52285
21	Central Michigan	0.58822	12	2	0.85714	0.43365	0.47386
22	USC	0.58293	9	4	0.69231	0.51775	0.53873
23	Oklahoma State	0.58114	9	4	0.69231	0.53259	0.51851
24	Arkansas	0.57741	8	5	0.61538	0.58429	0.53254
25	Mississippi	0.57534	9	4	0.69231	0.49684	0.53688
26	Oklahoma	0.57033	8	5	0.61538	0.58535	0.51026
27	Clemson	0.57028	9	5	0.64286	0.55263	0.51535
28	Texas Tech	0.56967	9	4	0.69231	0.49138	0.52534
29	Connecticut	0.56895	8	5	0.61538	0.56069	0.53076
30	Georgia	0.56839	8	5	0.61538	0.55435	0.53543
31	Arizona	0.56774	8	5	0.61538	0.56901	0.51883
32	Auburn	0.56666	8	5	0.61538	0.55513	0.52948
33	Rutgers	0.56376	9	4	0.69231	0.48698	0.51198
34	Navy	0.56253	10	4	0.71429	0.48205	0.49125
35	Oregon State	0.56237	8	5	0.61538	0.55118	0.52055
36	North Carolina	0.55979	8	5	0.61538	0.54707	0.51693
37	Houston	0.55859	10	4	0.71429	0.46158	0.49991
38	East Carolina	0.55284	9	5	0.64286	0.51293	0.50274
39	Missouri	0.55215	8	5	0.61538	0.52244	0.51863
40	Troy	0.55192	9	4	0.69231	0.48401	0.47943
41	Florida State	0.55139	7	6	0.53846	0.59493	0.52078
42	South Florida	0.55030	8	5	0.61538	0.51755	0.51795
43	Stanford	0.55017	8	5	0.61538	0.49063	0.54450
44	South Carolina	0.54732	7	6	0.53846	0.57591	0.52759
45	Middle Tennessee	0.54584	10	3	0.76923	0.36848	0.49981
46	Boston College	0.54528	8	5	0.61538	0.50631	0.51413
47	California	0.54500	8	5	0.61538	0.49053	0.52907
48	Air Force	0.54301	8	5	0.61538	0.52054	0.49310
49	Tennessee	0.54223	7	6	0.53846	0.55480	0.53343
50	Fresno State	0.53913	8	5	0.61538	0.50286	0.49913
51	Central Florida	0.53747	8	5	0.61538	0.49722	0.49979
52	Kentucky	0.53413	7	6	0.53846	0.51378	0.55015
53	Northwestern	0.53104	8	5	0.61538	0.43974	0.53800
54	Nevada	0.53078	8	5	0.61538	0.47337	0.50358
55	UCLA	0.52914	7	6	0.53846	0.52465	0.52431
56	Mississippi State	0.52703	5	7	0.41667	0.65153	0.51290
57	Southern Methodist	0.52424	8	5	0.61538	0.47039	0.48695
58	Idaho	0.52198	8	5	0.61538	0.44872	0.50185
59	Wyoming	0.52110	7	6	0.53846	0.51906	0.50579
60	Temple	0.52059	9	4	0.69231	0.40065	0.46880
61	Notre Dame	0.52044	6	6	0.50000	0.53602	0.52531
62	Ohio	0.51997	9	5	0.64286	0.43705	0.47999
63	Minnesota	0.51835	6	7	0.46154	0.57337	0.52013
64	Iowa State	0.51379	7	6	0.53846	0.49420	0.50872
65	Marshall	0.51059	7	6	0.53846	0.50166	0.49164
66	Bowling Green	0.50946	7	6	0.53846	0.51627	0.47365
67	Michigan State	0.50853	6	7	0.46154	0.56830	0.49575
68	Texas A&M	0.50310	6	7	0.46154	0.50881	0.53895
69	Washington	0.50172	5	7	0.41667	0.55716	0.53133
70	Kansas State	0.49867	6	6	0.50000	0.49521	0.50079
71	Southern Miss	0.49411	7	6	0.53846	0.44848	0.49539
72	Purdue	0.48898	5	7	0.41667	0.53152	0.51877
73	Wake Forest	0.48454	5	7	0.41667	0.51981	0.51716
74	Kansas	0.48441	5	7	0.41667	0.53690	0.49965
75	UNLV	0.48176	5	7	0.41667	0.52927	0.49935
76	Syracuse	0.48077	4	8	0.33333	0.59284	0.51615
77	North Carolina State	0.48069	5	7	0.41667	0.50742	0.51798
78	Northern Illinois	0.47915	7	6	0.53846	0.42692	0.47206
79	Hawaii	0.47870	6	7	0.46154	0.47644	0.49813
80	Louisville	0.47795	4	8	0.33333	0.59338	0.50714
81	Baylor	0.47549	4	8	0.33333	0.58391	0.50922
82	Michigan	0.47546	5	7	0.41667	0.49882	0.51088
83	Louisiana-Lafayette	0.47293	6	6	0.50000	0.44457	0.47421
84	Louisiana-Monroe	0.47020	6	6	0.50000	0.43571	0.47488
85	Alabama-Birmingham	0.46548	5	7	0.41667	0.49000	0.48977
86	Arizona State	0.46153	4	8	0.33333	0.53141	0.51984
87	Duke	0.46143	5	7	0.41667	0.46216	0.50547
88	Buffalo	0.45695	5	7	0.41667	0.49295	0.46124
89	Tulsa	0.45347	5	7	0.41667	0.45220	0.49155
90	Louisiana Tech	0.45202	4	8	0.33333	0.53004	0.49270
91	Indiana	0.45122	4	8	0.33333	0.51859	0.50174
92	Florida Atlantic	0.45066	5	7	0.41667	0.45162	0.48369
93	Utah State	0.44966	4	8	0.33333	0.53462	0.48104
94	San Diego State	0.44652	4	8	0.33333	0.51058	0.49564
95	Illinois	0.44401	3	9	0.25000	0.57094	0.51108
96	Colorado	0.44348	3	9	0.25000	0.56372	0.51671
97	Virginia	0.44281	3	9	0.25000	0.56659	0.51184
98	Toledo	0.44249	5	7	0.41667	0.42132	0.48947
99	Kent State	0.43334	5	7	0.41667	0.40229	0.48106
100	Army	0.42945	5	7	0.41667	0.39328	0.47840
101	Colorado State	0.42464	3	9	0.25000	0.52553	0.49840
102	UTEP	0.42458	4	8	0.33333	0.43979	0.50061
103	Arkansas State	0.42386	4	8	0.33333	0.45739	0.48085
104	Western Michigan	0.41994	5	7	0.41667	0.36726	0.47590
105	Florida Int'l	0.41813	3	9	0.25000	0.53465	0.46973
106	Vanderbilt	0.41512	2	10	0.16667	0.55247	0.52621
107	Tulane	0.41203	3	9	0.25000	0.51615	0.46994
108	Akron	0.40337	3	9	0.25000	0.49295	0.46717
109	Maryland	0.40187	2	10	0.16667	0.53690	0.50204
110	San José State	0.39881	2	10	0.16667	0.54850	0.48125
111	New Mexico State	0.39619	3	10	0.23077	0.46440	0.49341
112	Rice	0.39358	2	10	0.16667	0.52251	0.49156
113	Memphis	0.39278	2	10	0.16667	0.54301	0.46867
114	Washington State	0.39125	1	11	0.08333	0.56571	0.52471
115	Miami (OH)	0.37660	1	11	0.08333	0.59631	0.45017
116	New Mexico	0.37472	1	11	0.08333	0.54113	0.49968
117	North Texas	0.36708	2	10	0.16667	0.47398	0.46061
118	Ball State	0.35866	2	10	0.16667	0.46677	0.44253
119	Western Kentucky	0.31670	0	12	0.00000	0.48303	0.46707
120	Eastern Michigan	0.30963	0	12	0.00000	0.48489	0.44400

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.