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 21-Jan-2025 09:57 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 Ohio State 14 2 965
2 Oregon 13 1 962
3 Notre Dame 14 2 921
4 Penn State 13 3 910
5 Texas 13 3 899
6 Indiana 11 2 889
Georgia 11 3 889
8 Illinois 10 3 883
9 Michigan 8 5 875
10 Brigham Young 11 2 864
11 Tennessee 10 3 862
12 Boise St. 12 2 860
13 Louisiana St. 9 4 856
14 Mississippi 10 3 854
15 Iowa St. 11 3 853
16 Alabama 9 4 851
Southern Meth. 11 3 851
18 South Carolina 9 4 850
Missouri 10 3 850
20 Arizona St. 11 3 848
21 Southern Cal 7 6 838
22 Florida 8 5 836
Louisville 9 4 836
24 Kansas St. 9 4 835
25 Miami (FL) 10 3 833
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L
- -
1 N. Dakota St. 14 2 795
2 Montana St. 15 1 786
3 South Dakota 11 3 747
4 S. Dakota St. 12 3 745
5 UC Davis 11 3 717
6 Idaho 10 4 710
7 Mercer 11 3 685
8 Illinois St. 10 4 683
9 Missouri St. 8 4 681
Incarnate Word 11 3 681
11 Rhode Island 11 3 677
12 Villanova 10 4 673
13 Delaware 9 2 672
14 Tarleton St. 10 4 671
15 Harvard 8 2 665
16 Abilene Christian 9 5 662
17 Richmond 10 3 660
18 Montana 9 5 659
19 Tenn.-Martin 9 5 658
20 Dartmouth 8 2 655
21 New Hampshire 8 5 654
22 Yale 7 3 647
23 Jackson St. 12 2 646
24 S. Utah 7 5 643
25 SE Louisiana 7 5 642
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