Last year, I introduced the first edition of the College Football SRS Ratings after five weeks.  And while it’s too early to put too much weight on these ratings, they help to at least begin framing the discussion of which are the most impressive teams in college football.  As a reminder, here is the methodology:

1) For each game not played at a neutral site, 3 points are given to the road team. After that adjustment, all wins and losses of between 7 and 24 points are recorded exactly as such. This means that a 24-10 road win goes down as +17 for the road team, -17 for the home team.

2) With one exception, wins of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7-point wins and losses of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7 point losses. So a 4-point home win goes down as +7 (and not a 1) and a 1-point home loss is a -7 (and not a -4). The one exception is that road losses of 3 or fewer (and home wins of 3 or fewer) are graded as ties. So a 21-20 home victory goes down as a 0 for both teams.

3) Wins/Losses of more than 24 points are scored as the average between the actual number and 24. This is to avoid giving undue credit to teams that run up the score. So a 75-point home win goes down as a 48-point win.

Once we have a rating for each team in each game, we then adjust each result for strength of schedule. This is an iterative process, where we adjust the ratings hundreds of times (to adjust for SOS, you have to adjust for the SOS of each opponent, and the SOS of each opponent’s opponent, and so on.) in Excel. Then we produce final ratings, where the SRS rating is the sum of the Margin of Victory and Strength of Schedule in every week.

After five weeks, what are the results? As usual, the table is fully searchable (type “-0” for example, to see a list of undefeated teams, SEC to see all SEC teams, or ACC-Coas if you really want to see how the ACC Coastal is doing). Right now, the number one team is Alabama.  Despite the Crimson Tide already having one loss, Bama has an average (adjusted) Margin of Victory of 17.6 points per game against an average opponent that is 39.9 points better than average (average includes all football teams at all levels, so all FBS teams will have a positive grade). Below are the ratings for all 128 FBS teams.

As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs.

• Okay, it’s no surprise to see Alabama or Oklahoma at the top. These blue bloods of college football both have played very well this year, and have great points for/points allowed ratios despite difficult schedules. But what about Michigan at #3? Yes, it’s very early, but the Wolverines have outscored opponents 122-14 over the last four games. The one loss came on the road in week 1 to Utah, who ranks #7 in these ratings, by just 7 points.

• How about Navy checking in at #5?? Navy has beaten East Carolina, Air Force, and UCONN by the combined scores of 106-50. No, it’s not reasonable to expect the Midshipmen to keep this up, but so far, it’s been a great year for Navy.

• Remember, the SRS only looks at points scored, points allowed, game location, and schedule strength. So how come Michigan is ahead of Utah? Well, Utah obviously recorded huge scores in the blowout win over Oregon and in the victory against Michigan. But the Utes beat #70 Utah State, at home, by just 10 points, while a 21-point victory against #119 Fresno State also lowers these ratings. Michigan’s blowouts are carrying the day right now, while Utah’s schedule strength is hurting them. But that will change as the Utes go through the Pac-12 gauntlet.

Finally, here are the single-game SRS ratings for each FBS team in week 5. Obviously the big wins by Alabama and Florida top the charts.

Leave your thoughts in the comments. And get used to these ratings becoming a Sunday tradition.