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Post-Week 3 College Football Ratings: Part I

With three weeks in the books, it’s time to unveil some college football ratings. This is part one — I plan to post Part II on Sunday afternoon.

It’s still too early to create meaningful SRS ratings, but there’s a workaround solution. You may recall that back in the summer, I created implied college football SRS ratings based on the Las Vegas spreads for 247 games. Those spreads were stale, but thanks to RJ Bell, founder of Pregame.com, I was able to get the final pre-game lines for those 247 games. I used those lines to build implied pre-season SRS ratings for 83 FBS teams, shown below:

RkTmGMOVSOSSRSConf
1Alabama1022.5-2.420.1SEC
2Oregon1121.7-5.416.3P12
3Georgia10110.311.2SEC
4Texas A&M78.62.611.2SEC
5Ohio State1016.7-5.611B10
6LSU94.14.88.8SEC
7South Carolina109.6-18.6SEC
8Texas1110-1.68.4B12
9Florida St913.2-5.18.1ACC
10Florida96.61.58.1SEC
11Stanford108.1-0.47.7P12
12Oklahoma St99.3-2.17.2B12
13Oklahoma107.3-0.17.2B12
14Clemson98.4-2.55.9ACC
15Southern Cal1110-4.55.5P12
16Notre Dame128.3-2.85.5IND
17Michigan95.9-0.95B10
18Mississippi6-2.87.14.3SEC
19Nebraska54.3-0.34B10
20Wisconsin63.50.43.9B10
21TCU91.91.53.4B12
22Arizona St103.7-12.7P12
23Virginia Tech620.42.4ACC
24Michigan St73.9-21.9B10
25Oregon St104.9-3.21.7P12
26Miami FL83.1-1.61.6ACC
27Louisville913.7-12.21.5AAC
28Kansas St82.4-1.11.3B12
29Northwestern94.1-3.40.7B10
30UCLA111.9-1.90P12
31Arizona105-5.1-0.1P12
32North Carolina5-10.7-0.3ACC
33Penn State81.6-2.2-0.6B10
34Washington100.9-1.5-0.6P12
35Baylor6-4.83.7-1.1B12
36Boise St36.2-7.5-1.3MWC
37Georgia Tech6-4.63.1-1.4ACC
38Vanderbilt5-8.16.3-1.8SEC
39Missouri4-11.89.8-2SEC
40Brigham Young80.1-2.2-2IND
41Tennessee7-8.54.9-3.6SEC
42Cincinnati24.3-8.4-4.1AAC
43Mississippi St6-11.37.2-4.1SEC
44Texas Tech3-10.56.3-4.2B12
45West Virginia8-6.31.3-5B12
46Arkansas7-11.46.1-5.3SEC
47Auburn8-8.93.1-5.8SEC
48Maryland1-2-5-7ACC
49Syracuse4-10.63.6-7.1ACC
50Central Florida2-12.55-7.5AAC
51North Carolina St3-12.24.6-7.6ACC
52Pittsburgh4-124.4-7.6ACC
53Tulsa1-157.2-7.8CUSA
54Utah7-12.14.2-7.9P12
55Iowa6-10.32.2-8B10
56San Diego St2-14.56.4-8.1MWC
57Rutgers2-6.3-1.9-8.2AAC
58Iowa St7-11.22.1-9.2B12
59Minnesota6-7.8-1.4-9.2B10
60Virginia5-14.54.8-9.7ACC
61Purdue3-15.55.3-10.2B10
62Indiana1-2211-11B10
63Boston College3-18.56.5-12ACC
64South Florida3-13.81.6-12.2AAC
65Wake Forest2-19.57-12.5ACC
66Navy2-4.5-8-12.5IND
67Air Force1-185.5-12.5MWC
68Houston1-14.51.5-13AAC
69California9-17.84.7-13.1P12
70Connecticut2-16.83.2-13.5AAC
71Washington St8-17.33.4-13.9P12
72Kentucky6-21.67.7-13.9SEC
73Nevada3-16.82-14.8MWC
74Illinois4-17.52.6-14.9B10
75Colorado St2-180-18MWC
76Temple3-19.21-18.2AAC
77UNLV3-9.5-9.9-19.4MWC
78Memphis1-211.5-19.5AAC
79Southern Miss1-18.5-1.3-19.8CUSA
80Kansas3-25.55.6-19.9B12
81Colorado7-21.31.2-20.1P12
82Central Michigan1-1-19.4-20.4MAC
83Army1-9-12.5-21.5IND


Now, there are (incredibly) 125 teams at the FBS level in college football, and unfortunately, this doesn’t help us come up with ratings for the remaining 32 teams. However, in week one, half of those teams played one of the 83 teams for whom we have ratings (what this means is that the lines for these 21 games were posted after the 247 preseason lines were posted). This allows us to quickly generate ratings for these twenty-one teams, too. For example, Western Michigan was a 27.5 road underdog against Michigan State in week one. Since MSU was projected to be 1.9 points better than average, we can imply that WMU was projected to be 22.6 points worse than average. The table below shows these implied ratings:

TeamSpreadSOSSRSWk 1 Opp
Fresno St6.5-8.2-1.7Rutgers
Utah St0-7.9-7.9Utah
Northern Illinois-0.5-8-8.5Iowa
Bowling Green-1.5-7.8-9.3Tulsa
SMU-7-4.2-11.2Texas Tech
Louisiana-Monroe-19.57.2-12.3Oklahoma
Louisiana-Lafayette-7.5-5.3-12.8Arkansas
Rice-2411.2-12.8Texas A&M
Toledo-218.1-12.9Florida
Hawai`i-215.5-15.5Southern Cal
Ohio U.-171.5-15.5Louisville
Louisiana Tech-10-7.6-17.6North Carolina St
Western Kentucky-7-13.9-20.9Kentucky
Buffalo-3211-21Ohio State
Wyoming-26.54-22.5Nebraska
Western Michigan-24.51.9-22.6Michigan St
Texas St-San Marcos-4.5-19.8-24.3Southern Miss
Florida Int'l-18-7-25Maryland
Florida Atlantic-28.51.6-26.9Miami FL
New Mexico St-40.58.4-32.1Texas
Massachusetts-40.53.9-36.6Wisconsin

That leaves 21 teams. Here’s my next fix: we can use their projected point spreads in week two (or their projected point spreads in week one, if their week two opponent now has a rating) to come up with ratings for 18 of those teams:

TmMOVSOSSRSWk1/Wk2 Opp
East Carolina17.5-26.9-9.4Florida Atlantic
Ball St10.5-21.5-11Army
Duke7-19.5-12.5Memphis
Arkansas St-7.5-5.8-13.3Auburn
San José St-227.7-14.3Stanford
Middle Tennessee St-14.5-0.3-14.8North Carolina
Marshall17.5-33.9-16.4Miami OH
UTEP3.5-22.3-18.8New Mexico
Kent St-10-9.3-19.3Bowling Green
Troy1.5-22.7-21.2Alabama-Birmingham
Eastern Michigan-21-0.6-21.6Penn State
New Mexico0.5-22.8-22.3Texas-San Antonio
North Texas-7-15.5-22.5Ohio U.
Alabama-Birmingham-31.58.8-22.7LSU
Texas-San Antonio-307.2-22.8Oklahoma St.
Akron-21-7.5-28.5Central Florida
Miami OH-20-13.9-33.9Kentucky
Idaho-25-22.5-47.5Wyoming

That leaves just three teams that we can’t come up with ratings for: Georgia State, who played FCS Samford and FCS Chattanooga, Tulane, who played FCS Jacksonville State and South Alabama, and South Alabama, who played FCS Southern Utah and Tulane). Oh well.

So for our 122 teams for whom we have ratings, now what? We add in the actual results through week three. But we need to wait for all the week three games to finish, me to take up in the morning, and run a few errands before I can run those numbers.

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