Years ago I started doing computer rankings (2000s time frame). The premise is pretty basic in that it rewards wins based on the opponents record, and punishes losses based on the opponents record (e.g. if you beat a 7-1 team then you get a lot of points while losing to a 1-7 team really hurts). It is recursive to take into account the opponents score once initially calculated.
There are some other basic things like home field advantage is factored in, score matters but has diminishing returns, as well as everyone is penalized for playing a 1AA team (never updated to code for FCS).
For many years this pegged the CFB CG and got the winner correct. Once it went to 4 teams it hasn't been as correct, but i still look at it to gleam some interesting things that it shows, especially early in the season where things aren't as linked.
Note: score is normalized to be 0-100 the only real use here is to show the difference between spots (Mich is closer to anOSU than Texas is to Mich)
| Rank | Team | Wins | Loss | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio State | 8 | 0 | 100 |
| 2 | Michigan | 8 | 0 | 99.09 |
| 3 | Texas | 7 | 1 | 97.39 |
| 4 | Florida St | 8 | 0 | 95.16 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | 7 | 1 | 94.3 |
| 6 | Alabama | 7 | 1 | 93.54 |
| 7 | Washington | 8 | 0 | 88.38 |
| 8 | James Madison | 8 | 0 | 87.62 |
| 9 | Liberty | 8 | 0 | 83.08 |
| 10 | Louisville | 7 | 1 | 82.71 |
| 11 | Penn State | 7 | 1 | 82.66 |
| 12 | Mississippi | 7 | 1 | 82.14 |
| 13 | Notre Dame | 7 | 2 | 81.14 |
| 14 | Troy | 6 | 2 | 80.41 |
| 15 | Oregon | 7 | 1 | 78.89 |
| 16 | Lsu | 6 | 2 | 78.42 |
| 17 | Missouri | 7 | 1 | 78.05 |
| 18 | Georgia | 8 | 0 | 77.89 |
| 19 | Kansas St | 6 | 2 | 77.2 |
| 20 | Kansas | 6 | 2 | 76.21 |
| 21 | Utah | 6 | 2 | 76.06 |
| 22 | Air Force | 8 | 0 | 75.53 |
| 23 | Oklahoma St | 6 | 2 | 73.85 |
| 24 | Southern Cal | 7 | 2 | 73.06 |
| 25 | Georgia Southern | 6 | 2 | 72.96 |
What i find most interesting is UGA hasn't played any one good, they are 18th right now which is insane. And just for note VT is 60th which is behind TCU, BGU, Auburn, and NW as the best 4-4 teams. Clemson is 61.
Some big outliers are also UCLA at 40, and UNC at 46.
Using the same rankings for conferences which gets a bit odd since ACC has winning records against everyone but the Big 12 (0-2) yet are the worst conference. The Big Ten has losing records against the ACC and PAC 12 but is ranked better due to teams like anOSU, Mich, PSU, Wisconsin, and Iowa winning OOC games and being ranked well
The mean is straight up mean while weighted gives more weight to the middle of the conferences. So if mean > weighted then the conference is top heavy, if weighted > mean then the middle of the pack is better. The Pac 12 is showing they have a deep conference and the middle Pac12 team is better than the middle SEC team.
| Conference | Mean | Weighted |
|---|---|---|
| Big 10 Conference | 64.74 | 63.04 |
| Southeastern Conference | 61.20 | 61.10 |
| Pacific 12 Conference | 61.15 | 61.33 |
| Big 12 Conference | 61.05 | 59.18 |
| Atlantic Coast Conference | 58.41 | 57.18 |
| Sun Belt Conference | 52.54 | 52.13 |
| Mountain West Conference | 45.34 | 45.33 |
| American Athletic Conference | 42.85 | 42.31 |
| Independents | 42.40 | 38.58 |
| Conference USA | 41.18 | 38.76 |
| Mid-American Conference | 37.10 | 36.55 |
Really this was just to show how UGA hasn't played no one. but there are lots of interesting other take aways.
Comments
Ooooh. Data.
I mean I have every score for every game since I want to say 2007 so yes data.
So the ACC is bad mmmmkay. Got it.
unfortunately, yeah. We are the worst P5 league with as much margin as the Big 10 is thr best.
Every other conference took a huge hit this week so the ACC isn't THAT far behind this week. The middle of the SEC really took a huge step forward as the Big Ten is now 4th in weighted.
Curious how Washington, (and the P12 in general) is so low?
Washington has only played Arizona and Oregon that have winning records. Stanford is the 3rd worse P5 right above Vandy and Pitt. They played two bad teams within one score.
In my model, if you don't beat teams with winning records who beat other teams with winning records you don't really get rewarded. Washington will jump a lot in the next few weeks with their schedule.
EDIT: adding this, if you ever wonder why something is off look at opponent W/L and 90% time it's that easy, they are playing losing teams (or winning teams when you see a 5-3 team in the top 10 ... happened a few years ago)
UGA has only beat two teams with winning records (KY and UF) both are 5 and 3 so barely winning. They are ranked 51st and 52nd in my poll. So UGA isn't getting a lot of points. KY has a terrible schedule and UF has a good loss and beating UT is good but that's it.
Washington is now 4th in the model after beating USC. They are a bit back from the top 3 teams but they have the most to gain by winning. Texas has an easy schedule with if lucky all 6-6 teams. OSU has MSU, Minnesota, and Michigan, where two of those dont help. And Alabama has Auburn, and KY who aren't going to help a lot, and Chattanooga which will cause them to lose points.
Washington is now #1