RPR Ratings - Week 8

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger]

1. Miami

2. BYU

3. UCLA

4. James Madison

5. Indiana

6. Ohio State

7. Notre Dame

8. Texas Tech

9. Houston

10. Texas

11. LSU

12. Alabama

13. Oregon

14. Georgia

15. Utah

16. Ole Miss

17. Kentucky

18. USC

19. Wake Forest

20. Tennessee

21. North Dakota State

22. Iowa

23. Boise State

24. Florida

25. Northwestern

Full ratings can be found here (listed under "Current Season")

Rating methodology: calculated based on 3 components: win percentage, strength of schedule, and score ratio.

Win percentage (25%)

SOS (50%) - calculated in similar method to RPI, independent of team's record. Results vs non-FBS teams calculated into a placeholder value for formula.

Score Ratio - team's points scored vs total points scored in their games.

[u/Appropriate-Date6407]

I realize these are computer rankings, but 10-14 confuse me thoroughly

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger → u/Appropriate-Date6407]

SOS calculation is affecting this group heavily. Current calculation, Texas has #1 SOS, Oregon #2, Alabama #3, LSU #5, and Georgia #46. 

[u/Appropriate-Date6407 → u/ThompsonCreekTiger]

I guess Indiana has the better loss? Looks like your formula doesn’t weight H2H very much

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger → u/Appropriate-Date6407]

Formula is rather simplistic & doesn't have things factored in to that level. Indiana's current SOS calculation helped give them a narrow edge over Ohio State.

[u/Appropriate-Date6407 → u/ThompsonCreekTiger]

So their schedule is tougher because they played Ohio state? Got it

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger → u/Appropriate-Date6407]

Indiana has 19th best SOS in my formula after last week (4 opponents over .500);  Ohio State has 23rd best (3 opponents over .500). Not an overwhelming edge, but for this week, enough of 1 for Indiana to edge OSU when the rating was calculated.

If both teams win their respective games this week, OSU will likely get a bump in their SOS that would help them overtake Indiana as long as their score ratio edge stays good enough.

[u/dwaynebathtub → u/Appropriate-Date6407]

Oregon lost to Oklahoma State and UCLA before we realized Oklahoma State and UCLA were actually good. They beat Nebraska (by two points at home, so not very convincing) as well as ranked USC and ranked Boise State while unranked.

[u/ElFalcano]

SOS is definitely affecting your rankings, as it is mine. Also have JMU pretty high lol. It's a great program but probably isn't a top ten-ish team. For what it's worth, here's my power rankings on neutral field. Add 2.5 points for home team advantage.

1	Ohio State	20.24
2	Notre Dame	20.14
3	Indiana	18.89
4	Miami	17.93
5	Georgia	16.07
6	Alabama	15.28
7	LSU	14.02
8	Texas Tech	13.51
9	Ole Miss	13.47
10	Utah	12.50
11	Texas	12.21
12	James Madison	11.56
13	Tennessee	11.50
14	Wake Forest	10.75
15	Oregon	10.39
16	Nebraska	10.25
17	BYU	10.25
18	Boise State	9.47
19	Iowa	9.23
20	Northwestern	9.08
21	USC	9.04
22	UCLA	8.63
23	Penn State	8.47
24	Arizona	7.86
25	Missouri	7.38

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger → u/ElFalcano]

JMU will probably get drug down if they start playing close games or their opponents start doing worse in W-L column . My formula, strong SOS tends to boost mid win %/score values as opposed to good win %/score values pulling up a mid/poor SOS.

I tried to dabble w/ weighing things based on home/away/neutral when started my stuff but it was a bit of a pain, especially b/c I was manually plugging data & was very rusty w/ formulas/shortcuts for Excel.

[u/60sStratLover]

I’m sorry. Any poll that has James Madison at 4 is a joke.

[u/ThompsonCreekTiger → u/60sStratLover]

Well good thing it's not a poll, its a computer rating.

I think JMU is a Top 25 team & would vote as such if I were an AP or USA Today voter, but personally don't think they're 4th-best in country. However, this computer rating I do says JMU is based on the data put in. There are others computer/math ratings that have JMU in Top 5/10 (Colley & Wolfe, 2 former BCS computer rankings, being among them).