ryanratings: 2010 Season—Week 4 Ratings (through 9/25/2010)

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

2010 Season—Week 4 Ratings (through 9/25/2010)

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Stanford	1.000
2	Florida	0.999
3	Nebraska	0.990
4	Ohio St.	0.984
5	Nevada	0.981
6	LSU	0.979
7	Alabama	0.965
8	Kansas St.	0.951
9	TCU	0.951
10	Oregon	0.942
11	Arizona	0.939
12	Missouri	0.937
13	North Carolina St.	0.931
14	Oklahoma St.	0.928
15	Auburn	0.927
16	Oklahoma	0.919
17	Southern California	0.917
18	Boise St.	0.908
19	Utah	0.904
20	Michigan St.	0.892
21	Michigan	0.881
22	Northwestern	0.880
23	Indiana	0.851
24	Wisconsin	0.840
25	UCLA	0.817
26	Texas A&M	0.815
27	South Carolina	0.775
28	Iowa	0.763
29	California	0.742
30	West Virginia	0.727
31	Penn St.	0.724
32	Miami (FL)	0.722
33	Arkansas	0.720
34	Air Force	0.719
35	Florida St.	0.706
36	Mississippi St.	0.700
37	San Diego St.	0.694
38	Texas	0.689
39	Clemson	0.686
40	Temple	0.671
41	Vanderbilt	0.662
42	UCF	0.652
43	Houston	0.648
44	Notre Dame	0.635
45	Toledo	0.632
46	Illinois	0.627
47	Colorado	0.625
48	Virginia	0.618
49	Army	0.604
50	Virginia Tech	0.602
51	Hawaii	0.600
52	Texas Tech	0.596
53	Arizona St.	0.591
54	Central Mich.	0.582
55	Baylor	0.582
56	Fresno St.	0.572
57	Tennessee	0.571
58	Maryland	0.569
59	Iowa St.	0.553
60	Oregon St.	0.549
61	SMU	0.547
62	Connecticut	0.545
63	Miami (OH)	0.542
64	Kentucky	0.532
65	Navy	0.522
66	South Fla.	0.520
67	Idaho	0.519
68	East Carolina	0.518
69	Cincinnati	0.516
70	Southern Miss.	0.516
71	Troy	0.504
72	Georgia	0.493
73	Wake Forest	0.486
74	Georgia Tech	0.472
75	Pittsburgh	0.470
76	Tulsa	0.466
77	Boston College	0.459
78	Western Mich.	0.448
79	Washington	0.446
80	Mississippi	0.439
81	North Carolina	0.413
82	BYU	0.393
83	UTEP	0.389
84	San Jose St.	0.377
85	Purdue	0.376
86	UNLV	0.376
87	Syracuse	0.357
88	Utah St.	0.357
89	Northern Ill.	0.343
90	Ohio	0.336
91	Kent St.	0.330
92	Bowling Green	0.326
93	Colorado St.	0.322
94	Rutgers	0.322
95	Wyoming	0.319
96	Marshall	0.317
97	Duke	0.304
98	Kansas	0.294
99	Louisville	0.289
100	Buffalo	0.283
101	Louisiana Tech	0.280
102	Washington St.	0.280
103	UAB	0.252
104	Arkansas St.	0.245
105	Fla. Atlantic	0.238
106	Rice	0.220
107	Memphis	0.215
108	Middle Tenn. St.	0.214
109	Tulane	0.208
110	Minnesota	0.195
111	North Texas	0.194
112	Ball St.	0.168
113	La.-Lafayette	0.154
114	La.-Monroe	0.151
115	Eastern Mich.	0.140
116	Western Ky.	0.033
117	Akron	0.027
118	FIU	0.022
119	New Mexico	0.005
120	New Mexico St.	0.000

How it works

For each team, two raw ratings are calculated; one dependent only upon wins and losses (the "W/L rating"), and the other dependent upon margin of victory (the "MOV rating"). The W/L rating for each team is simply the number of games won divided by the number of games played. The MOV rating is more complicated. I assume that a team's expected margin of victory can be modeled by a normal distribution. The distribution's mean is set equal to the average margin of victory achieved by the team over all of its games in the season. The distribution's variance is set equal to the variance of the team's margin of victory in each of its games. Based on this distribution, I calculate the probability that the team will achieve a positive margin of victory against generic opposition. This probability is the team's MOV rating.

The true "base rating" is then calculated by combining the W/L rating with the MOV rating. This combination is intended to dampen the effects of a team's running up the score, while also admitting the difference between a close game and a blowout.

Finally, the team's base rating is adjusted by the strength of its schedule. In the first round of calculations, schedule strength is set equal to the average base rating of each of the team's opponents. The team's first adjusted base rating (FABR) is then calculated by adjusting its base rating up or down depending on how strong or how weak its opposition was, as determined by this metric. In the next round, the FABRs of the team's opposition are averaged to calculate strength of schedule, and the team's base rating is again adjusted accordingly to determine the team's second adjusted base rating. I repeat this process twenty-five times so that the ratings will converge. The twenty-fifth adjusted base rating is the rating reported here.

With respect to overtime games, in calculating the MOV rating, I use the score at the end of four quarters, but in calculating the W/L rating, I treat an overtime win or loss just as I would any other win or loss.

New for 2009: Until this season, I didn't count games against non-FBS competition for any purpose. Starting in 2009, I treat games between FBS and non-FBS teams the same way as I treat games between two FBS teams, except that all non-FBS teams are aggregated for purposes of calculating schedule strength.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

2010 Season—Week 4 Ratings (through 9/25/2010)