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 09-Nov-2025 09:23 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 Ohio State 9 0 961
2 Indiana 10 0 959
3 Texas A&M 9 0 958
4 Georgia 8 1 926
5 Alabama 8 1 924
6 Mississippi 9 1 921
7 Texas Tech 9 1 915
8 Brigham Young 8 1 910
9 Texas 7 2 893
10 Oregon 8 1 892
11 Oklahoma 7 2 886
12 Vanderbilt 8 2 885
13 Notre Dame 7 2 883
14 Utah 7 2 880
15 Illinois 6 3 867
16 Southern Cal 7 2 866
17 Georgia Tech 8 1 862
18 Michigan 7 2 861
Miami (FL) 7 2 861
20 Arizona St. 6 3 859
21 Missouri 6 3 855
22 Houston 8 2 852
Louisiana St. 5 4 852
24 Tulane 7 2 851
Tennessee 6 3 851
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L T
- - -
1 N. Dakota St. 10 0 811
2 Montana 10 0 795
3 Harvard 8 0 763
4 Lehigh 10 0 755
5 Tarleton St. 9 1 744
6 Tennessee Tech 10 0 736
7 Montana St. 8 2 726
8 South Dakota 7 4 722
9 UC Davis 7 2 719
North Dakota 6 4 719
11 Illinois St. 7 3 718
12 S. Dakota St. 7 3 714
13 Lamar 8 2 704
14 Dartmouth 6 2 696
15 Youngstown St. 6 4 693
16 Stephen F.Austin 8 2 691
17 Abilene Christian 6 4 690
18 Yale 6 2 685
19 N. Arizona 6 4 682
20 S. Illinois 6 4 676
21 Idaho St. 4 6 671
22 West Georgia 7 3 669
Gardner-Webb 6 4 669
24 S. Utah 5 5 667
25 Villanova 7 2 663
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