Crabtree's College Football Rankings

Any college football ranking system must at a minimum do three things: (1) reward teams for the right reasons, (2) be easy to understand, and (3) the results must make sense. Unlike the BCS Rankings and the polls, Crabtree's College Football Rankings successfully meet these three criteria as summarized below.

Reward Teams for the Right Reasons

Crabtree's College Football Rankings reward teams solely for having a good winning percentage and playing a tough schedule. Also, unlike the BCS system and the polls, Crabtree's College Football Rankings do not reward teams for running up the scores on other teams, nor does it count games played against Division I-AA teams. As so few games are played between teams from Division I-A and Division I-AA, it is virtually impossible to accurately compare teams from these two different Divisions. If teams want to be ranked in Division I-A, they should be ranked based on games actually played against Division I-A competition.

Crabtree's College Football Rankings also correctly calculate a team's strength of schedule by considering the opposing teams' winning percentage and strength of schedule. For example, if a team plays a 5-5 SEC team and a 5-5 MAC team, both opposing teams will have a winning percentage of 50%, but most people will agree that the SEC team is probably better than the MAC team. By considering the opposing teams' strength of schedule in addition to their winning percentage, we can more accurately calculate the strength of these two teams. Therefore, if the SEC team did in fact play a tougher schedule than the MAC team, Crabtree's College Football Rankings would increase the SEC team's winning percentage to adjust for its tougher schedule, and reduce the MAC team's winning percentage to adjust for its weaker schedule, thus creating a fair strength of schedule rating.

Easy to Understand

Crabtree's College Football Rankings are easy to understand because they are calculated based on a simple formula that combines each team's winning percentage and strength of schedule. Conversely, the BCS Rankings and other computer rankings are very difficult to understand because they use complicated mathematical formulas to calculate their rankings.

Results Must Make Sense

Under Crabtree's College Football Rankings, the team with the best record who plays the toughest schedule will be ranked number one. Also, in the event that more than one team ties with the same record, the team that played the tougher schedule will be ranked higher. These results are not guaranteed under the current BCS Rankings or the polls, and it is not uncommon for the BCS Rankings and the polls to have the exact opposite results.

Therefore, I believe that Crabtree's College Football Rankings are the fairest and most accurate college football rankings currently being published, and should be used by Division I-A to select teams for its playoff.