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David Mease's Football Rankings


Below are my ranks for all 128 FBS teams based on all games played through Monday, January 11, 2016. The ranks were produced using a penalized maximum likelihood model I developed which is described in a paper I wrote in 2003. The model uses ONLY wins and losses as its input and ignores margin of victory, location of the game, conference affiliation, date of the game, etc. Moreover, the model does not use any prior information such as pre-season rankings. Despite its simplicity, the rankings produced have agreed more strongly on average with the AP and Coaches polls than all 10 computer models that have been used in the BCS, as discussed in my paper.

Click here to download my paper, updated July of 2003. The paper was published in the November 2003 issue of The American Statistician.

Click here to view the SAS code or R code which ranks teams using my model.

Special thanks to Derek, Vijay, and Earl for all the help they have given me with this project and to Kenneth Massey for including my rankings on his comparison page.


Rank Team Rating Wins Losses
1 Alabama 1.8839 14 1
2 Clemson 1.6601 14 1
3 Ohio St. 1.4604 12 1
4 Michigan St. 1.3891 12 2
5 Stanford 1.3301 12 2
6 Oklahoma 1.2519 11 2
7 Iowa 1.2312 12 2
8 Houston 1.1674 13 1
9 Mississippi 1.1274 10 3
10 TCU 1.1239 11 2
11 LSU 1.0875 9 3
12 Notre Dame 1.0752 10 3
13 Michigan 1.0631 10 3
14 Northwestern 1.0245 10 3
15 Navy 0.9583 11 2
16 Florida 0.9138 10 4
17 Oklahoma St. 0.9053 10 3
18 Wisconsin 0.8673 10 3
19 Utah 0.8416 10 3
20 Georgia 0.8339 10 3
21 Tennessee 0.8226 9 4
22 Western Kentucky 0.8201 12 2
23 Baylor 0.8193 10 3
24 Oregon 0.7945 9 4
25 Mississippi St. 0.7863 9 4
26 Toledo 0.7784 10 2
27 Florida St. 0.7645 10 3
28 Arkansas 0.7167 8 5
29 North Carolina 0.7057 11 3
30 Appalachian State 0.6677 11 2
31 Memphis 0.6104 9 4
32 USC 0.6009 8 6
33 Texas A&M 0.5488 8 5
34 Temple 0.5472 10 4
35 California 0.5274 8 5
36 Bowling Green 0.5080 10 4
37 Auburn 0.4708 7 6
38 Pittsburgh 0.4676 8 5
39 Brigham Young 0.4637 9 4
40 UCLA 0.4396 8 5
41 West Virginia 0.4268 8 5
42 Louisville 0.4022 8 5
43 Washington St. 0.4019 9 4
44 Miami, Fla. 0.3955 8 5
45 San Diego St. 0.3929 11 3
46 Penn St. 0.3826 7 6
47 Western Michigan 0.3166 8 5
48 Texas Tech 0.3165 7 6
49 Marshall 0.2845 10 3
50 Washington 0.2822 7 6
51 South Florida 0.2466 8 5
52 Georgia Southern 0.2429 9 4
53 Minnesota 0.2287 6 7
54 La. Tech 0.2133 9 4
55 Arkansas St. 0.2118 9 4
56 Nebraska 0.2066 6 7
57 Boise St. 0.1392 9 4
58 Texas 0.1169 5 7
59 Arizona St. 0.1087 6 7
60 Arizona 0.1004 7 6
61 Duke 0.0883 8 5
62 Ohio U. 0.0882 8 5
63 So. Mississippi 0.0765 9 5
64 Cincinnati 0.0759 7 6
65 Kansas St. 0.0319 6 7
66 North Carolina St. 0.0218 7 6
67 Indiana 0.0184 6 7
68 Virginia Tech 0.0099 7 6
69 Illinois -0.0139 5 7
70 Akron -0.0168 8 5
71 No. Illinois -0.0280 8 6
72 Central Michigan -0.0282 7 6
73 Air Force -0.0490 8 6
74 Missouri -0.0499 5 7
75 Middle Tennessee -0.1371 7 6
76 Connecticut -0.1766 6 7
77 Vanderbilt -0.1943 4 8
78 Kentucky -0.2332 5 7
79 Utah St. -0.2463 6 7
80 New Mexico -0.2842 7 6
81 Tulsa -0.2894 6 7
82 Colorado St. -0.3070 7 6
83 East Carolina -0.3087 5 7
84 Maryland -0.3146 3 9
85 Virginia -0.3251 4 8
86 Nevada -0.3505 7 6
87 Syracuse -0.3924 4 8
88 Rutgers -0.4313 4 8
89 San Jose St. -0.4320 6 7
90 Iowa St. -0.4385 3 9
91 Georgia Tech -0.4627 3 9
92 South Alabama -0.4725 5 7
93 Buffalo -0.5288 5 7
94 South Carolina -0.5508 3 9
95 Colorado -0.5698 4 9
96 Georgia St. -0.5765 6 7
97 Old Dominion -0.6520 5 7
98 Purdue -0.6592 2 10
99 Florida Intl -0.6988 5 7
100 Rice -0.7011 5 7
101 Texas El Paso -0.7015 5 7
102 Wake Forest -0.7309 3 9
103 Idaho -0.7442 4 8
104 Oregon St. -0.7678 2 10
105 Troy -0.7679 4 8
106 Boston College -0.7707 3 9
107 Ball St. -0.8252 3 9
108 Kent -0.8324 3 9
109 La. Lafayette -0.8645 4 8
110 Florida Atlantic -0.8665 3 9
111 Fresno St. -0.8709 3 9
112 Massachusetts -0.9315 3 9
113 Miami, Ohio -0.9502 3 9
114 UT San Antonio -0.9515 3 9
115 Nevada Las Vegas -0.9680 3 9
116 New Mexico St. -0.9876 3 9
117 Texas St. -1.0186 3 9
118 Tulane -1.0284 3 9
119 Hawaii -1.0447 3 10
120 SMU -1.0505 2 10
121 Wyoming -1.2079 2 10
122 Charlotte -1.2863 2 10
123 La. Monroe -1.3513 2 11
124 North Texas -1.4564 1 11
125 Army -1.4664 2 10
126 Eastern Michigan -1.5523 1 11
127 Kansas -1.5549 0 12
128 Central Fla. -1.8056 0 12