Fall camp for the overwhelming majority of college football teams is just a week away, and we are officially just a month away from live-action football on our screens. In August, teams will take the first step toward making the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. More teams making the postseason means a wider championship-contending field than ever before.
So who is the best of the best? Let’s rank them.
I use play-by-play data to make a projection for each college football team. The projections are not only made up of box score statistics but also returning production, recruiting rankings and transfers. These projections aren’t who the model believes is most likely to win the national championship or make the playoff — more on those in the coming weeks — but instead an overall power ranking. Using the outputs of this model, I’ve built an algorithm to simulate every game of the season 100,000 times to get projected win totals as well as conference title odds for every college football team.
Before we get to the rankings, I should note that the difference between rankings is not equal. For example, the rankings from 20-25 in the model are much different than one to five. As we all know, there are tiers in college football, and my model is fully aware of that, too.
So who is the best of the best? Let’s rank them.
I use play-by-play data to make a projection for each college football team. The projections are not only made up of box score statistics but also returning production, recruiting rankings and transfers. These projections aren’t who the model believes is most likely to win the national championship or make the playoff — more on those in the coming weeks — but instead an overall power ranking. Using the outputs of this model, I’ve built an algorithm to simulate every game of the season 100,000 times to get projected win totals as well as conference title odds for every college football team.
Before we get to the rankings, I should note that the difference between rankings is not equal. For example, the rankings from 20-25 in the model are much different than one to five. As we all know, there are tiers in college football, and my model is fully aware of that, too.
The Power 2?
The Big Ten and SEC have 12 of the top 13 teams. Notre Dame is the lone wolf in the elite programs of college football before a run of Utah, Kansas State and Florida State gives the Big 12 and ACC some representation.Runner-up dropoff again
For the second year in a row, the national title game runner-up is not ranked in the top 25. Washington is 41st in my model. TCU was ranked 26th heading into last season before going 5-7.Top 25 teams by conference
- SEC: 9
- Big Ten: 5
- Big 12: 5
- ACC: 5
- Independent: 1
