Instructions

Teams Tab

The Teams Tab displays all major college football teams in ranking order, according to the selected algorithm, on the Rankings Date displayed near the bottom of the screen.

In calculating its rankings, OSCAR uses data from games played up to and including the Rankings Date. It is completely unaware of the results of games played after the Rankings Date.

Use the buttons near the bottom of the screen to change the Rankings Date - you can go from today all the way back to 1869, the year the first ever college football games were played. To download all the latest results and jump to today's date, tap the Update Button.

The selector at the top of the screen enables you to toggle between displaying team rating, strength of schedule (average rating of the current season's opponents so far - adjusted for home field advantage), conference affiliation and result of last game played.

You can choose teams to add to the Matchup Tab (see below) by selecting them in the rankings table.

The Conferences Tab displays the various conferences in ranking order. The rating of a conference is calculated as simply the average of the ratings of the teams in that conference.

Teams not affiliated with any conference are bundled together in ficticious "Independent" conferences.

The Matchup Tab enables you to generate realistic predictions for future games. You can also go back in time and generate predictions for historical matchups that never happened!

To choose the two matchup teams, either select them from the rankings table in the Teams Tab, or tap the Choose Matchup Teams Button at the top of the screen.

To flip the home and away teams, tap the Flip Home/Away Teams Button at the top of the screen - or to choose a neutral venue, turn the Neutral Field Switch to the ON position.

The Animation Tab enables you to get a feel for how the team rankings are changing from week to week. As you change the Rankings Date, the teams move around smoothly on the screen - you can easily see who?s on the way up and who?s on the way down.

The Strength of Schedule Graph gives you an interesting snapshot of all the teams - the higher up on the screen a team is, the stronger it is - and the further to the right it is, the stronger its schedule is.

For instance, the "BCS Buster" teams of recent years are easy to spot - they appear toward the top of the graph but a little to the left, since they usually play a weaker schedule than the traditional college football powerhouses.