One of the first rating systems I ever saw the source code for was one by Mr. David Wilson (UW-Milwaukee '65, '66, UW-Madison '67;Wilson Performance Ratings). I loved its simplicity, and I have adapted it for numerous sports over the years. David retired completely a couple years ago, and no longer produces his college football ratings -- but the source code is available, and so I'm happy to continue doing so.
Wilson's system does *not* produce predictions, point spreads, etc.; it only serves as a way to rate teams based on games played. All games are weighted evenly (although his code can be set up to count postseason games twice -- I'll do that here too), and game locations and points scored/allowed do not matter.
One thing I do differently: The Wilson system starts every team from scratch, every year (a 500 rating, by his choice). This means that until 6 or 7 games are played, the ratings have very little meaning. But instead, I "seed" the ratings with games from last year -- still noisy, but more reasonable. This way, the early part of the season has something that might be of value.
Inputs. The input files are:
Ratings. Last updated at 09-Jan-2024 08:17 AM, the output files are:
For input, I use the games file from Dr. Peter Wolfe (link on the front page).
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FBS Top 25 --- Division I FBS ---
W L
- -
1 Michigan 15 0 989
2 Washington 14 1 946
3 Georgia 13 1 928
4 Alabama 12 2 918
5 Florida St. 13 1 889
6 Oregon 12 2 882
Ohio State 11 2 882
Texas 12 2 882
9 Mississippi 11 2 881
10 Missouri 11 2 876
11 Penn State 10 3 858
12 Louisiana St. 10 3 848
13 Arizona 10 3 828
14 Notre Dame 10 3 826
15 Oklahoma 10 3 823
Tennessee 9 4 823
17 Iowa 10 4 816
18 Kansas St. 9 4 815
19 Louisville 10 4 811
20 Southern Cal 8 5 810
21 Clemson 9 4 806
Liberty 13 1 806
23 Utah 8 5 805
Oklahoma St. 10 4 805
25 Kansas 9 4 803
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L
- -
1 S. Dakota St. 15 0 823
2 Montana 13 2 750
3 South Dakota 10 3 746
4 N. Dakota St. 11 4 722
5 Montana St. 8 4 700
6 Idaho 9 4 697
Villanova 10 3 697
8 Sacramento St. 8 5 682
9 Albany (NY) 11 4 680
10 UC Davis 7 4 678
11 North Dakota 7 5 672
S. Illinois 8 5 672
13 Furman 10 3 671
14 Austin Peay 9 3 670
15 Youngstown St. 8 5 662
16 Mercer 9 4 660
N. Iowa 6 5 660
18 Delaware 9 4 654
19 Weber St. 6 5 653
20 N. Arizona 5 6 650
21 Harvard 8 2 649
22 Cent. Arkansas 7 4 647
23 Lafayette 9 3 643
24 Tenn.-Martin 8 3 642
25 Holy Cross 7 4 637
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