2011-09-19

NCAA Football Power Rankings, Week 3

A few years ago, I thought to myself, "I could do a better job than some of the BCS computers".  As I recall, at the time I felt Mizzou was underrated.  The BCS rules state margin of victory cannot be used, so I thought I'd stick to that.  I put together a convergence algorithm, in which I initially sort the teams by record (so all the 3-0 teams are tied at #1 this week), then judge the strength of schedule based on the current rankings of the opponents, and resort based on that strength.  I run through this process until 2 consecutive iterations give the same result, or up to 10,000 times.

If 10,000 iterations happen with no convergence, I search for a loop, that is, a number of iterations that return the results to the initial condition.  So, if iteration 10,002 gives the same rankings as iteration 10,000, then each iteration will fluctuate between the rankings in 10,000 and 10,001.  I average those rankings to come up with the final rankings.  It is still possible - but generally unlikely - that teams can tie for a final ranking.

Due to most teams playing other teams in lower divisions, and a lack of desire on my part to delve so deeply that I have to track down NAIA schedules, I've decided to count all games listed on ESPN's college football site., which includes all Division I, II, and III schools.  I then filter the final results to only the 120 FBS schools.

The Rankings tend to fluctuate wildly near the beginning of the season, but congrats Too Many Grandersons, your Wolverines are on at #2 this week (I don't know any NC fans, and they may miss the postseason either way this year.)

1North Carolina3-0
2Michigan3-0
3Nebraska3-0
4USC3-0
5Iowa State3-0
6West Virginia3-0
7Illinois3-0
8San Diego State3-0
9Oklahoma State3-0
10South Florida3-0
11LSU3-0
12Florida International3-0
13Vanderbilt3-0
14Clemson3-0
15South Carolina3-0
16Georgia Tech3-0
17Wyoming3-0
18Ohio3-0
19Texas3-0
20Virginia Tech3-0
21California3-0
22Alabama3-0
23Florida3-0
24Wisconsin3-0
25Houston3-0
26Stanford3-0
27Iowa2-1
28Arkansas3-0
29Louisville2-1
30Penn State2-1
31Tennessee2-1
32Texas A&M2-0
33Utah2-1
34Arizona State2-1
35Oklahoma2-0
36Virginia2-1
37Wake Forest2-1
38Baylor2-0
39Eastern Michigan2-1
40Southern Methodist2-1
41North Carolina State2-1
42Washington State2-1
43Syracuse2-1
44Pittsburgh2-1
45Boise State2-0
46Auburn2-1
47Kansas2-1
48Navy2-1
49TCU2-1
50Western Michigan2-1
51Ball State2-1
52Bowling Green2-1
53Kansas State2-0
54Louisiana-Lafayette2-1
55Texas Tech2-0
56Oregon2-1
57Washington2-1
58Kentucky2-1
59Michigan State2-1
60Missouri2-1
61UTEP2-1
62Florida State2-1
63Southern Miss2-1
64UCF2-1
65Tulane2-1
66Cincinnati2-1
67Temple2-1
68Ohio State2-1
69Purdue2-1
70Northwestern2-1
70Notre Dame1-2
72Marshall1-2
73Colorado State2-1
74Rice1-1
75Maryland1-1
76Tulsa1-2
77Georgia1-2
78Air Force1-1
79Connecticut1-2
80Fresno State1-2
81Rutgers1-1
82Northern Illinois1-2
83Brigham Young1-2
83Arizona1-2
85Utah State1-1
86Arkansas State1-2
87Miami (FL)1-1
88UNLV1-2
89Army1-2
90Mississippi State1-2
91Idaho1-2
92New Mexico State1-2
93UCLA1-2
94Louisiana Tech1-2
95Indiana1-2
96Toledo1-2
97Duke1-2
98Colorado1-2
99Ole Miss1-2
100Nevada1-1
101Central Michigan1-2
102Louisiana-Monroe1-2
103Buffalo1-2
104Hawaii1-2
105Minnesota1-2
106Memphis1-2
107East Carolina0-2
108Troy0-2
109North Texas0-3
110Florida Atlantic0-2
111UAB0-2
112Middle Tennessee0-2
113Kent State0-3
114Western Kentucky0-3
115New Mexico0-3
116Oregon State0-2
117Miami (OH)0-2
118Akron0-3
119San Jose State0-3
120Boston College0-3

3 comments:

  1. What a dork.


    As a guy who has written code for many useless purposes, I love it.

    Honestly, I'm such a dork, because my first thought was, "what did he code it in?"

    If you say Matlab, then you are my hero.

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  2. C++, mostly because that's what I used at work, so I had the environment already set up. It's fairly lightweight though, so C++ is really a bit of overkill. The whole thing runs in about 3 seconds tops, faster if it converges, so I've had very little motivation to optimize/port it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You didn't put Memphis or ULM last? You are my hero!

    ReplyDelete