American College Football - Rankings

This year's directory is dedicated to Harry Devold and Herman Matthews. Harry Devold produced ratings for 63 straight years. This year he has stopped doing ratings due to poor health. Herman Matthews, another long time rater, died on Friday, August 22, 2008.

Please send dwilson@engr.wisc.edu suggestions for new links or notification of outdated links. If you have your own rating system, or know of any others, please let me know.

• AP Top 25, USA Today/ESPN Top 25, CBS SportsLine Polls
• FCS Top 20 Fan Poll including Jag's and Father John's picks
• The NAIA Coaches Poll
• David Deuel's NCAA Div. I-A, I-AA, II & III Football Poll for Fans
• iTwentyFive college football poll with internet college football writers and some radio broadcasters
• FoxSports Top 25
• Unofficial BCS Fan Poll
• NFL Draft Dog's College Football Rankings

Power Ratings & Rankings Systems

• Alphabetical list of college football ranking systems with "More" links to other information found at those sites

Power Ratings & Rankings General Information

• Kenneth Massey's Ratings and Rankings
• College Football Ranking Comparison
  • Summary with BCS Systems by Kenneth Massey
  • With all Systems by Kenneth Massey; I-AA
  • Rank of rating systems by Eugene Potemkin
  • Consensus Rating and "Wisdom of the Masses"
• Using the College Football Predictions
• Mark Hopkins' Rating Systems Comparison (Jeff Bihl's Reply) and Why All Rating & Polling Methods Are Wrong
• Scores from Peter Wolfe et al. and James Howell; Other Statistics
• NCAA and NAIA Divisional and Conference Affiliations
• Bob Kirlin's Case Against Math Formula Rating Systems
  • How to Fake Having Your Own Math Formula Rating System
  • Critique of James Howell's Retro-Ratings
  • Critique of Kenneth Massey's Retro-Ratings
  • Mark Hopkin's Defense of Howell and Massey and Eric Sandage's Response to Bob Kirlin
  • Steve Wrathell's Why Computer Rankings are Better than Polls
• Playoff Proposals from CollegePlayoffs.com, Vincent Ellerby, Eric B. Shaw, Russ Thorson, Chad Crabtree, Project Playoffs, Jeb Puryear and Clay Yearsley; Why playoffs won't happen by Mike Holaday
• Bibliography; The Infography about Sports Rating Systems
• Bowl Championship Series (BCS)
  • DecideItOnTheField.com BCS boycott site
  • The National Championship Issue by Ed Gunther
  • The Odds of the BCS Getting It Right by Goldie Locks
  • "The BCS is broken, but there is hope" by Neil Gandal, a 2004 BCS retrospect
  • BCS Explained
  • BCS Exposed (and also explained).
  • BCS Rankings Calculations
    • CollegeBCS.com
    • I-AA BCS-like Gridiron Power Index by College Sporting News
  • News and Comments on the BCS
    • Ray Wait's The Secret Desire of the BCS Ranking
    • Steve Wrathell to Congress
• Football Rankulator helps you construct you own rating system $30
• CompRatings email discussion group, ezboard's Football Ratings Forum, Sports Ratings blog
• Combining the best ratings systems: Superlist and Free Superlist Subscription
• Defunct systems
  • Hopkins, Mark's: Description
  • Zenor, Michael's: BOMB & JWB Description and Critique

David L. Wilson, College Football
email: dwilson@engr.wisc.edu