Dullard's college football top 25

[dullard]

As some of you may know I've ran my own college football ranking program for quite a few years. It was useful before the BCS computers were available, and now that they don't include points it again has some use. I include point margin for two major reasons. Imagine a team ranked #1 playing the team ranked #117. Also imagine they play equally and go into 10 overtimes. If you ignore point margin you have one of two things occur:
1) If the #1 team wins by two in the 10th overtime they stay #1. I honestly cannot imagine that a team going to 10 overtimes versus the last ranked team deserves to stay #1.
2) If the #1 team loses by two in the 10th overtime they plummet completely out of the BCS rankings. I think it is silly that there are two extremes depending on who converts after a touchdown in the 10th overtime.
That example was extreme, I know, but it still is possible. The second reason is evident from this years no-loss teams. It is quite possible to have 6 teams go unbeaten. If you don't include points, then the top two are automatically the two with the tougher schedule. It doesn't matter if those teams had lucky breaks to win and the 3rd ranked team dominated everyone they play - the only determination is the schedule that was picked years ago. There needs to be a better way to tell them apart - and score is the best method.

Note 1: The ranks currently using scores from 242 teams (A, 1AA, and division II teams that have played 2+ 1AA teams).
Note 2: Sometimes teams are ranked higher than a team that beat them. This MUST happen in any rating system. One example: two teams play each other twice and each with one win. In that case one team must be ranked lower than a team that beat them. More frequent example: team A beat B, B beat C, C beat A. So don't whine and complain if this happens to your favorite team.
Note 3: Because of Note 2, this ranking can only predict the winner roughly 80% of the time.
Note 4: The rating given is how much the team is expected to beat Army the current last place team on a neutral playing field.
Note 5: Schedule difficulty is the average rating of the teams played. Note how high the difficulty of USC is (far above all other teams) - that is why they are ranked up there. Don't worry, it will change.

Place/rating/schedule difficulty/team name
01 / 51.3 / 34.4 / Oklahoma
02 / 49.9 / 43.3 / Southern California
03 / 49.9 / 31.1 / Miami Florida
04 / 47.6 / 33.7 / Georgia
05 / 46.9 / 35.3 / Texas
06 / 46.8 / 38.5 / Alabama
07 / 46.7 / 31.8 / Kansas St.
08 / 46.4 / 37.9 / Notre Dame
09 / 45.6 / 31.1 / Ohio St.
10 / 45.2 / 29.9 / Virginia Tech
11 / 45.1 / 40.3 / Arkansas
12 / 44.5 / 39.2 / Florida St.
13 / 44.1 / 32.0 / Iowa
14 / 43.1 / 33.8 / Washington St.
15 / 42.9 / 35.3 / Oregon St.
16 / 42.8 / 25.8 / North Carolina St.
17 / 41.2 / 32.0 / LSU
18 / 41.1 / 35.2 / Colorado
19 / 40.9 / 26.0 / Boise St.
20 / 40.9 / 35.1 / Penn St.
21 / 40.6 / 32.7 / Oregon
22 / 40.3 / 37.9 / UCLA
23 / 39.6 / 35.0 / Iowa St.
24 / 39.3 / 28.3 / Maryland
25 / 39.2 / 37.5 / California

 

[Digobick]

Nice rankings. Interesting to see that USC is ranked so high. I'm guessing that's because of their tough schedule.

 

[dullard]

Right they had the toughest schedule by far, they won their games big, and the two losses were small. If they truely belong in the top 5, they will win out and then I think they deserve to be there. If not, they will lose and plummit from the top of the charts. I think this will be interesting to see.

I'm surprised by the lack of comments. Last year my ranking threads got a lot more posts. Especially since I had some 2 loss teams above unranked teams.

One odd thing this year is the lack of 1 loss teams. I don't think I've ever seen more unbeaten teams than 1 loss teams. That is why it is strange to see two loss teams above the unbeaten ones.

If you want to know where your favorite team is ranked, or next weeks predictions, just post here and I'll be glad to respond.

 

[bGIveNs33]

Well, I am a FSU fan... and we are ranked 12th. I promise you, we are not the 12th best team in the nation. Granted, our 3 losses were reasonable, Miami(should have won), ND(got killed) and Louisville(in the rain, up there)... but our wins aren't that impressive either. But overall... interesting ranking system.

 

[wyvrn]

I disagree with about 40% of it. Interesting system, but the much maligned BCS is better in my opinion. Of course I would prefer a playoff system which would eliminate the small margin of error any ranking system is going to produce. The famous quote "that's why they play the games" fits here.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: wyvrn
I disagree with about 40% of it. Interesting system, but the much maligned BCS is better in my opinion. Of course I would prefer a playoff system which would eliminate the small margin of error any ranking system is going to produce.

I actually disagree with a lot of it, but then again I don't want to put my personal beliefs into it to keep it unbiased. I'd love a playoff system more than anything. I hope that we have 7 unbeaten teams at the end of the year - hopefully that will help push it there.

I'd like to see all conferences have a championship game - half do and half don't. This would reduce the field to 8 decent teams. These teams then play a 3 game play-off. That will add only 2 games to the average season. Take out one conference game to make up for that.

 

[aphex]

Im glad to see my gators arent there, we suck ass this year, but FSU #12? Seems a tad too high, even though they had some close ones...

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: aphexII
Im glad to see my gators arent there, we suck ass this year, but FSU #12? Seems a tad too high, even though they had some close ones...

FSU #12 is a great example of my program's ratings in action.

Good estimates:
1) It says Miami should win by 5.3 points, and Miami won by 3. To move FSU down would move Miami down.
2) It says Notre Dame should win by 1.8 they actually won by 10. If FSU didn't turnover the ball 3 times in their own 20 yard line within a few minutes the game would be much closer like the code predicts.
3) It says Iowa State should lose by 4.9 and Iowa State lost by 7.
Each of the predictions above were good especially when points swing by 7 with just one dropped pass...

Correct winner, bad score esitmate:
4) It says Maryland should lose by 5.2, when they actually lost by 27. This game pushes FSU up a lot. (Although I don't count score margines above 21 since different coaches pull the 1st string at different times).

However there is one bad result.
5) It says Louiville should lose by 9.8. Unfortunately FSU lost instead by 6.

So this is an example where it got 80% of the winners right. The thing that pushes FSU up is the Maryland game. It also got the cupcake teams right, so the actual percentage is 88% correct, but any rating would say that Duke/Virginia would lose so I don't want to claim that as a success.

 

[Parrotheader]

Alabama's looking pretty good on yours then even though we have two losses. But both of those losses came to top 5 teams (#1 Oklahoma and #4 Georgia in your poll) by slim margins in both games. In fact, we had Oklahoma on the ropes at their place and just a couple big plays blew it for us. Oh well. I'm still proud of the way our guys have played so far this year.

 

[Tallgeese]

Originally posted by: Parrotheader
I'm still proud of the way our guys have played so far this year.

Amen to that brother! Will be interesting to see how they do down the home stretch.

I also agree that the lack of a playoff system for college football is a TRAVESTY! :|

 

[datalink7]

Oregon State = 15
Oregon = 21

 

[Pacfanweb]

Interesting take. I don't agree with it, but it is interesting.

USC couldn't beat anyone in the regular AP or BCS top 10, though.

NC State is better than at least 5 of the teams you have ranked in front of them.
I guess what no ranking system can account for is how well teams get up for their opponents each weak. They assume the team always performs at a certain level, and ranks them from there.
Yet, every week you see highly ranked teams barely beat teams they are huge favorites over. This is because the ranked teams don't always play up to par vs. lesser opponents. Yet if a good team does have a closer than anticipated game with a weaker team, they sometimes lose a spot or two in the polls, especially if they are not a "traditional" power.

The so-called "traditional" powers always get the benefit of the doubt in the regular polls, based on nothing more than a name. All teams like USC, Alabama, Penn State, etc. have to do at the first of the season is beat up a couple of cupcakes at the beginning of the season, and they are automatically ranked in the top 15. Sometimes it's deserved, sometimes it's not.

I agree that we need a playoff. I have come up with an easy way to have a playoff AND preserve the bowl system, but I doubt they'd listen to me.