I Heart the Sagarin Rankings

Over at USAToday Sports, they have the latest Sagarin Rankings for College Football.  Interestingly, the rankings come 2 ways:  By Team and by Conference.

Some notes on the rankings:

Quality wins are represented in the rankings with a weight given to Top 15 wins and Top 30 wins.

Strength of current schedule is a contributor.  So, if a team beats #1 in week 1, and that #1 team falls to #45 over the season, that win won’t matter come the end of the season.

ALL teams are ranked to compute these rankings.

Home field advantage is part of the rankings and predictions for the following week’s games. 

Margin of victory is unimportant in one measure, and points scored are all that matters in another measure.  These 2 measures combine to make the final rating.

Over the course of the season, all teams willl be connected by who they have played and who has played them- giving a ranking based solely on points scored and win-loss outcomes on the field.

The results as of week 2?

1  USC

2  BYU

3  Boise State

4  Alabama

5  Ohio State

6  LSU

7  California

8  Oklahoma

9  Texas

10  Virginia Tech

11  Florida 

12  TCU 

13  Missouri

14  Oregon  

15  Miami-Florida

16  Utah

17  Penn State

18  Oklahoma State 

19  Houston

20  Michigan

21  Georgia

22  UCLA  

23  Iowa

24  North Carolina   

25  Clemson

The team results of week 2 in college football are already well indicated by these rankings, in my opinion:

1)  It pays to play against good competition, win or lose

2)  It pays to score points

3)  Every team will be connected by performance and success

For the doubters, the conference rankings may or may not give you some comfort.  Looking inside the conferences is interesting as well.  Florida sits at #3 within the SEC.

It will be interesting to follow these rankings throughout the year and see how they predict outcomes.