What's funner than watching college football? Building models that kick your favorite team out of the Top 25 altogether. After 3 weeks of college football and a little programming in Ruby, let's see where each team stands at this point in the season.
Leading the pack this week is Clemson after an impressive win over Louisville
This Week's Top 25
| Rank | Team | Record | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clemson Tigers | 3-0 | 1149.77 |
| 2 | Michigan Wolverines | 3-0 | 1146.09 |
| 3 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 3-0 | 1145.98 |
| 4 | USC Trojans | 3-0 | 1145.53 |
| 5 | Oklahoma Sooners | 3-0 | 1144.81 |
| 6 | Iowa Hawkeyes | 3-0 | 1143.99 |
| 7 | Minnesota Golden Gophers | 3-0 | 1142.70 |
| 8 | Penn State Nittany Lions | 3-0 | 1140.88 |
| 9 | Oklahoma State Cowboys | 3-0 | 1140.45 |
| 10 | Wisconsin Badgers | 3-0 | 1138.51 |
| 11 | Mississippi State Bulldogs | 3-0 | 1133.36 |
| 12 | TCU Horned Frogs | 3-0 | 1133.33 |
| 13 | Kentucky Wildcats | 3-0 | 1133.12 |
| 14 | South Florida Bulls | 3-0 | 1133.12 |
| 15 | Colorado Buffaloes | 3-0 | 1132.90 |
| 16 | California Golden Bears | 3-0 | 1132.26 |
| 17 | Vanderbilt Commodores | 3-0 | 1132.11 |
| 18 | Georgia Bulldogs | 3-0 | 1131.25 |
| 19 | San Diego State Aztecs | 3-0 | 1130.30 |
| 20 | Oregon Ducks | 3-0 | 1129.65 |
| 21 | Wake Forest Demon Deacons | 3-0 | 1129.65 |
| 22 | Washington Huskies | 3-0 | 1127.79 |
| 23 | Washington State Cougars | 3-0 | 1127.78 |
| 24 | Toledo Rockets | 3-0 | 1126.00 |
| 25 | Duke Blue Devils | 3-0 | 1124.84 |
Next Five Up (In Order):
Utah (3-0), Virginia Tech (3-0), Memphis (2-0), Houston (2-0), Navy (2-0)
Notes:
All teams in the Top 25 have a record of 3-0. Expect this to change next week as undefeated teams continue to lose. The Top 5 match those teams in ranked in the top 5 of the AP Poll with the exception of Penn State, who are ranked 8th. All members of the AP Top 10 are in the rankings with the exception of Ohio State. Ohio State, however, is highest ranked team with a loss being ranked 36th in these rankings. Washington is surprisingly ranked in 23rd place, but this is most likely due to playing FCS Montana and Fresno State. Of the Group of 5 Conferences, South Florida is the team with the highest ranking being in 14th place. The San Diego State Aztecs and Toledo Rockets are also included in the Top 25.
Methodology:
All 130 FBS teams are included in this ranking and assigned a score of 1000 at the beginning of the season. All FCS teams are assigned a permanent score of 500 and are treated the same. Why? To simplify things and to punish FBS teams for scheduling cupcakes. Each game that is played will add or subtract a specified difference to a team whether they win or lose (and are an FBS team). The formula used to determine the difference is as follows:
Formula: difference = 1000 / (20 + (winner - loser) / 50)
If two evenly matched teams faced each other, the winner would gain 50 points and the loser would lose 50 points. In the case of upsets, the difference would be greater than 50, and in the case of expected victories, the difference would be less than 50. This rewards teams for quality wins and punishes teams for bad losses. This methodology does have some flaws, but almost every model has some sort of flaw so take these early results with a grain of salt.
Last Words:
If you have any questions, comments, or are curious where a specific team lies in the overall ranking of the 130, feel free to leave a comment below. I'll be doing this every Monday for the rest of the season.
