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 original ratings would 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.
| 8 August: welcome to 2024! I've cleared out the standings, using the principle from the previous paragraph -- and need to double check that I've gotten all the conference alignment shifts correct. |
Inputs. The input files are:
Ratings. Last updated at 07-Dec-2025 08:40 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 T
- - -
1 Indiana 13 0 989
2 Georgia 12 1 931
Ohio State 12 1 931
4 Oregon 11 1 919
5 Mississippi 11 1 915
6 Texas Tech 12 1 909
7 Oklahoma 10 2 899
8 Texas A&M 11 1 893
9 Brigham Young 11 2 890
10 Texas 9 3 881
Alabama 10 3 881
12 Notre Dame 10 2 870
13 Vanderbilt 10 2 868
14 Utah 10 2 859
15 Southern Cal 9 3 857
16 Michigan 9 3 856
17 Miami (FL) 10 2 852
18 Tulane 11 2 849
19 Iowa 8 4 838
20 Illinois 8 4 836
21 Arizona 9 3 835
22 Arizona St. 8 4 831
Tennessee 8 4 831
24 Missouri 8 4 826
North Texas 11 2 826
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L T
- - -
1 Montana St. 11 2 762
2 N. Dakota St. 12 1 759
3 Montana 12 1 750
4 Tarleton St. 12 1 745
5 UC Davis 9 3 714
6 Illinois St. 10 4 713
7 Stephen F.Austin 11 2 709
8 South Dakota 10 4 704
Lehigh 12 1 704
10 Villanova 11 2 699
11 S. Dakota St. 9 5 694
12 Abilene Christian 9 5 689
13 Yale 9 3 685
North Dakota 8 6 685
15 Idaho St. 6 6 677
16 Tennessee Tech 11 2 675
Harvard 9 2 675
18 Youngstown St. 8 5 671
19 N. Arizona 7 5 665
20 West Georgia 8 3 663
21 S. Illinois 7 5 662
22 S. Utah 7 5 661
23 SE Louisiana 9 4 653
24 Sacramento St. 7 5 650
25 Lamar 8 5 649
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