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 July 2026: Welcome to a new season! 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 01-Nov-2026 11:26 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 Miami (FL) 8 0 950
2 Utah 8 0 947
UCLA 8 0 947
4 Indiana 8 1 938
5 Kentucky 7 1 936
6 Texas 6 2 923
7 Georgia 7 1 921
8 Alabama 6 2 910
Mississippi 6 2 910
10 Wake Forest 7 1 894
Ohio State 6 2 894
12 Louisiana St. 6 2 892
13 Florida 5 3 891
14 Notre Dame 7 1 890
15 South Carolina 5 3 888
Iowa 6 2 888
17 Texas Tech 7 1 887
18 Brigham Young 7 1 885
19 Tennessee 6 2 876
20 Houston 6 2 875
21 Arizona 6 2 871
Mississippi St. 4 4 871
23 Oregon 5 3 869
24 Minnesota 5 3 866
25 Oklahoma 4 4 865
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L T
- - -
1 Montana St. 8 1 772
2 Stephen F.Austin 9 0 761
3 N. Arizona 7 2 760
4 Youngstown St. 7 2 757
5 S. Dakota St. 7 2 745
6 Tarleton St. 9 0 739
7 Tennessee Tech 8 1 724
8 Harvard 6 1 720
9 South Dakota 7 3 717
10 Lamar 7 2 712
Montana 6 3 712
12 Monmouth (NJ) 7 2 709
13 Austin Peay 7 2 704
14 Illinois St. 7 2 700
15 Campbell 7 2 695
16 Princeton 5 2 692
17 North Dakota 6 4 691
18 Weber St. 6 4 689
19 Abilene Christian 5 4 688
20 Idaho 4 5 687
21 Incarnate Word 5 4 682
22 E. Tennessee St. 6 3 681
Idaho St. 6 3 681
24 N. Iowa 4 4 677
25 Albany (NY) 6 3 676
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