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 27-Sep-2026 12:00 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 T
- - -
1 Indiana 4 0 969
2 Georgia 4 0 955
3 Texas 4 0 951
4 Notre Dame 4 0 934
5 Iowa 4 0 906
6 Alabama 4 0 901
Mississippi 3 1 901
8 Brigham Young 3 0 899
9 Oregon 3 1 898
Texas Tech 4 0 898
11 Utah 4 0 895
12 Miami (FL) 4 0 890
13 Ohio State 3 1 887
14 Florida 4 0 884
15 Michigan 3 1 874
16 Oklahoma 2 2 867
17 Vanderbilt 3 1 865
18 Mississippi St. 4 0 858
19 Southern Cal 4 1 853
20 Duke 4 0 851
Wisconsin 3 1 851
22 Minnesota 3 1 844
23 Kentucky 3 1 843
24 Arizona 3 1 842
25 Pittsburgh 4 0 841
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FCS Top 25 --- Division I FCS ---
W L T
- - -
1 Montana St. 5 0 802
2 Idaho St. 4 0 745
3 Lehigh 5 0 735
4 Stephen F.Austin 5 0 729
5 Montana 4 1 722
6 Yale 1 1 713
7 S. Carolina St. 5 0 710
8 Tennessee Tech 4 0 702
9 Tarleton St. 4 0 697
10 Harvard 2 0 695
11 Colgate 4 1 693
12 Youngstown St. 3 2 692
13 Illinois St. 4 1 691
14 South Dakota 3 2 687
15 North Dakota 4 1 682
16 Richmond 4 1 677
17 Cornell 1 1 675
18 N. Arizona 3 2 672
UC Davis 3 2 672
20 Austin Peay 4 1 671
21 Villanova 2 3 668
22 S. Dakota St. 4 1 665
23 Lamar 3 1 656
24 Pennsylvania 1 1 655
25 Monmouth (NJ) 3 2 652
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