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-Sep-2026 08:23 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
- -
1 Indiana 0 0 974
2 Oregon 0 0 907
3 Ohio State 0 0 885
Mississippi 0 0 885
5 Georgia 0 0 883
6 Miami (FL) 0 0 875
7 Texas Tech 0 0 871
8 Brigham Young 0 0 865
9 Alabama 0 0 853
10 Notre Dame 0 0 851
11 Oklahoma 0 0 850
12 Texas 0 0 849
13 Texas A&M 0 0 847
14 Utah 0 0 835
15 Iowa 0 0 828
Tulane 0 0 828
17 Virginia 1 0 826
18 Illinois 0 0 823
19 Vanderbilt 0 0 822
20 Southern Cal 1 0 818
21 Michigan 0 0 816
22 North Texas 0 0 812
23 Navy 0 0 808
24 Arizona 0 0 807
25 Houston 0 0 804
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L
- -
1 Montana St. 1 0 757
2 Montana 1 0 722
3 Tarleton St. 1 0 692
4 Illinois St. 1 0 690
5 Stephen F.Austin 1 0 686
6 Lehigh 1 0 685
7 UC Davis 1 0 682
8 South Dakota 1 0 669
9 Yale 0 0 668
10 Tennessee Tech 1 0 664
11 S. Dakota St. 1 0 659
12 Harvard 0 0 656
Villanova 0 1 656
14 Lamar 1 0 651
15 North Dakota 1 0 650
16 N. Arizona 1 0 647
Idaho St. 1 0 647
18 Abilene Christian 0 1 643
19 Youngstown St. 1 0 637
20 Rhode Island 1 0 636
21 S. Carolina St. 1 0 634
TX Rio Grande 1 0 634
23 Mercer 1 0 633
24 Dartmouth 0 0 631
25 S. Utah 0 1 628
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