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 12-Jul-2026 08:55 PM, 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 0 998
2 Oregon 0 0 932
3 Ohio State 0 0 906
4 Mississippi 0 0 903
5 Georgia 0 0 901
6 Texas Tech 0 0 899
7 Brigham Young 0 0 894
8 Miami (FL) 0 0 893
9 Alabama 0 0 871
10 Notre Dame 0 0 870
11 Oklahoma 0 0 868
Texas 0 0 868
13 Texas A&M 0 0 865
14 Utah 0 0 863
15 Iowa 0 0 852
16 Tulane 0 0 845
Southern Cal 0 0 845
18 Illinois 0 0 843
19 Vanderbilt 0 0 840
20 Michigan 0 0 839
21 Arizona 0 0 837
22 Houston 0 0 833
TCU 0 0 833
24 North Texas 0 0 831
25 Washington 0 0 826
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L
- -
1 Montana St. 0 0 787
2 Montana 0 0 752
3 Illinois St. 0 0 731
4 Tarleton St. 0 0 723
5 Villanova 0 0 708
6 Lehigh 0 0 707
7 Stephen F.Austin 0 0 706
8 UC Davis 0 0 705
9 South Dakota 0 0 701
10 S. Dakota St. 0 0 698
11 Yale 0 0 690
12 Abilene Christian 0 0 684
North Dakota 0 0 684
14 Harvard 0 0 678
15 Youngstown St. 0 0 675
16 Tennessee Tech 0 0 673
17 Idaho St. 0 0 672
18 S. Illinois 0 0 664
19 N. Arizona 0 0 661
20 SE Louisiana 0 0 659
21 West Georgia 0 0 657
22 S. Utah 0 0 654
23 Lamar 0 0 650
24 Dartmouth 0 0 649
25 Rhode Island 0 0 647
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