Top 120 Teams of 2004-2009

The 2010 Compu-Picks Model Lists the Top 120 College Football teams of 2004 - 2009.

Now that the 2010 Compu-Picks model has been finalized, it's time to take that model and look at some of the past seasons of college football. Before I get to that, though, I want to talk about what the model is, what it's for, and a bit about how it works. Compu-Picks, as its name indicates, is a predictive model. Its primary purpose is to make picks against the spread (ATS), and the college model is very good at it (in 2008, its medium confidence picks went 24-10, and high confidence picks went 3-2; in 2009, it went 169-138 [55.0%]; and the 2010 model could be even better after further improvements). The current model makes picks starting in week 8 (it needs that much time to get enough data to work properly), and either passes on a game or makes an ATS pick with confidence level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. The confidence level is the weight that the pick gets (similar to wagering 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 units on a game). Testing on the last six years of data show a 57.5% ATS record, though there is some degree of over-fitting in that number, so you should probably take it with a degree of salt; the "real" number is probably closer to 55%, though that's still excellent by pretty much any standard.

Since its purpose is to make picks, it shouldn't be surprising to hear that the model's output is basically a power rating, loosely representing how good a team actually is and how well it would match up with any other team out there. It is NOT a maximum likelihood calculator, it is NOT an attempt to replicate human poll thought processes, and it is NOT some cool-sounding algorithm that would hopefully churn out something that makes sense. It also does NOT adhere to BCS computer poll rules; it considers location (home/away/neutral), margin, overtime, byes, and various other things that you won't see reflected in any BCS model. Unlike many (perhaps all) BCS models, it also does NOT count ANY games against 1-AA opponents; I believe that there is not enough data available to properly compare 1-A to 1-AA, and that trying to do so anyway can lead to wacky conclusions, such as a Villanova (a 1-AA team) being rated the 30th best team of 2009 by Sagarin's model ( link here ). The BCS models, as well as various other models floating around the internet, are the way they are for their own reasons, and as long as they're doing a good job adhering to their purposes, that's fine. But this model is the way it is because it's the best I can make it at picking games, and every single design decision is made towards furthering that goal.

Since its purpose and structure are substantially different than other models out there, don't be at all surprised to see major differences between Compu-Picks rankings of teams and other models' rankings of teams. That doesn't make other models necessarily wrong; they're trying to do different things than this model, and it may be defensible to rank Team A over Team B even if Team B is actually better, whether due to Team A having a better win %, a head to head win over Team B, or whatever other reason. But in answering the simple question, "which team is better at the end of the year" (as opposed to "who is more deserving", "who scheduled themselves the easiest path to the title", "who plays in the most prestigious conference", "who won the head to head game back in week five", "who had the best record", "who had the best conference record", "who exceeded preseason expectations the most", "who should feel happiest about their season", etc.) I don't think there's anything out there that does a better job than Compu-Picks. You may agree or disagree with specific rankings, and I'm not foolish enough to claim that the system has gotten every single team 100% right, but I think that on the whole, it does an extremely good job at comparing and contrasting teams against the very simple standard of "which team is better at the end of the year". Ultimately, I find the model's outputs to be consistently interesting, defensible, and thought-provoking. I hope you will as well.

This is a two-part project. The first part, this page, is a large table that compares Compu-Picks' top 120 teams of the past six seasons (2004 - 2009) to various other systems' lists of top teams. The second part ( link here ), is a more detailed breakdown of Compu-Picks' top 25 teams, as well as a few selected others, explaining what separates the good from the very good from the great from the best of the best. If you like reading for dramatic effect, you may want to read the second part first, as it's a count-down from #25 to #1. The table here, on the other hand, simply shows you the list from 1 - 120, with some additional detail behind that ranking and comparisons to other systems' rankings.

When reading the table, this key may be useful:
"Rank" : overall rank of each team on the overall list of all 1-A teams from 2004 - 2009
"Year": year that the team played in (some teams show up multiple times on the list)
"Team": the team name
"Year Rank": where the team ranked against all other teams in that year (for instance, the model ranked Utah as the 4th best team in 2004)
"Schedule Rank": where the team's schedule ranked against all other teams that year
(Other Well-Known System Rankings)
"Billingsley": Billingsley's top 20 teams from this time period, taken from his all-time list of top 200 teams.
"Colley": Colley Matrix's top 100 teams from this time period, taken from his website.
"Sagarin": Sagarin's top 100 teams (using the RATING field) from this time period, taken from his website (sub "08", "07", etc for "09" to get previous years' data).
(Football Outsiders' Top 40, emailed to me from Bill Connelly)
"F /+": F /+ top 40 teams from 2005 - 2009 (2004 not included in his list).
(Selected Other Systems linked from Massey's computer ranking comparison page)
"ARGH": ARGH top 40 teams from this time period, taken from his website.
"Bihl": Bihl top 40 teams from this time period, taken from his website.
"Congrove": Congrove top 40 teams from this time period (using POWER field), taken from his website.
"Howell": Howell top 40 teams from this time period, taken from his website.
"Sorenson": Sorenson top 40 teams from this time period, taken from his website.

Also, note that a blank space means that the team did not appear in that model's top X list. "N/A" refers to the fact that the F /+ model did not publish final 2004 ranking, and the ARGH model did not publish final 2005 rankings, so I slapped an "N/A" on all 2004 teams for F /+ and all 2005 teams ARGH and just did a combined top 40 of the other five seasons.

Without further ado, the Compu-Picks top 120 teams from 2004 - 2009:

Rank	Year	Team	Year Rank	Schedule Rank	Billinglsey	Colley	Sagarin	F /+	ARGH	Bihl	Congrove	Howell	Sorenson
1	2004	Southern California	1	1	3	3	2	N/A	1	2	3	2	2
2	2008	Florida	1	2	5	6	5	1	5	9	2	8	1
3	2009	Alabama	1	1	1	2	3	2	2	3	16	1	7
4	2008	Southern California	2	4	8	17	10	5	6	20	6	13	4
5	2005	Texas	1	12	2	1	1	3	N/A	1	1	3	3
6	2005	Southern California	2	1	11	11	4	4	N/A	5	4	10	9
7	2009	Florida	2	2	6	9	7	6	4	7	8	4	25
8	2008	Oklahoma	3	1	14	19	12	8	20	16	7	27	6
9	2004	Oklahoma	2	3	13	8	21	N/A	9	6	5	9	8
10	2008	Texas	4	6	12	7	15	12	11	12	13	18	5
11	2009	Texas	3	9	9	15	23	20	8	19	10	7	37
12	2004	California	3	9		46	38	N/A	23	28	25	16	19
13	2006	Southern California	1	1		13	8	10	15	22	15	12	15
14	2007	Louisiana State	1	3	20	18	17	17	19	27	18	29	26
15	2004	Utah	4	53		21	22	N/A	13	18	29	15	16
16	2005	Ohio State	3	4		23	9	9	N/A	13	17	22	12
17	2004	Auburn	5	27	4	5	18	N/A	3	4	31	6	13
18	2007	West Virginia	2	20		35	24	19	24		20	35
19	2008	Penn State	5	15		58	47	15	32		26		20
20	2006	Ohio State	2	21	18	20	13		10	21	27	14	23
21	2004	Louisville	6	61		48	25	N/A	27	39	9	33
22	2007	Southern California	3	12		44	28	18	28		14		40
23	2009	Texas Christian	4	36	17	30	32	13	17	26	34	19
24	2006	Louisville	3	24		16	14		12	24	30	11	24
25	2006	Florida	4	2	15	4	6	7	7	8	21	5	14
26	2004	Miami (Florida)	7	5		68	50	N/A	37		23		33
27	2006	Michigan	5	6		25	29		31	30	39	25	30
28	2009	Virginia Tech	5	8		59	52	16	29		36	24
29	2005	Penn State	4	8		12	16	11	N/A	10		20	11
30	2007	Ohio State	4	30		54	54	29	30
31	2007	Missouri	5	13		33	31		36	31		40
32	2005	Virginia Tech	5	36		29	19	14	N/A	36	22	26	22
33	2006	Louisiana State	6	16		28	11		16	33	24	30	29
34	2004	Texas	8	13	19	10	43	N/A	14	15	11	21	18
35	2007	Kansas	6	53		41	20		21	29
36	2007	Florida	7	2		71	53	21
37	2007	Oklahoma	8	35		69	30				32
38	2009	Boise State	6	71	7	27	36	38	18	14	37	17
39	2008	Texas Tech	6	3		52	58			37			21
40	2007	Oregon	9	5		90	48	27
41	2004	Virginia Tech	9	10		78	42	N/A	35
42	2008	Ohio State	7	5		80	78				19		34
43	2007	Virginia Tech	10	17		57	51
44	2006	California	7	5		51	33	39
45	2006	Boise State	8	62		24	27	35	22	17		23
46	2007	Georgia	11	9		26	34		33
47	2008	Utah	8	53	10	14	26		25	11		32	10
48	2008	Texas Christian	9	46		62	37	23					27
49	2008	Alabama	10	37		31	35	34	39	34		39	17
50	2005	Notre Dame	6	11		94	59	40	N/A
51	2006	West Virginia	9	29		38	41	22				37
52	2008	Boise State	11	76		60	74		38				35
53	2009	Georgia Tech	7	3		65	83
54	2006	Brigham Young	10	71		100	55	24
55	2009	Ohio State	8	46		36	45	25	26			31
56	2004	Boise State	10	59		43	56	N/A		32	40
57	2005	Miami (Florida)	7	19		81	77	28	N/A
58	2009	Cincinnati	9	22	16	22	57		34	23		28
59	2004	Georgia	11	11		40	66	N/A
60	2007	Cincinnati	12	31
61	2005	Louisiana State	8	28		47	46	26	N/A				32
62	2005	West Virginia	9	44		32	40		N/A	25
63	2009	Penn State	10	53		70	69	30
64	2004	Florida State	12	19			98	N/A
65	2006	Oklahoma	11	27		84	79
66	2009	Iowa	11	25		39	63					38
67	2004	Arizona State	13	2		49	72	N/A		35			31
68	2009	Nebraska	12	48			94
69	2004	Virginia	14	20				N/A
70	2008	Oregon	12	22		89	67						36
71	2005	Georgia	10	47		75		36	N/A
72	2009	Oregon	13	17		45	71	37
73	2006	Rutgers	12	39		50	49					36
74	2008	Oklahoma State	13	7
75	2007	Arizona State	13	22		72	89
76	2005	Oregon	11	7		56	87		N/A
77	2006	Auburn	13	30		34	44			40		34
78	2009	Louisiana State	14	14		99	93
79	2008	Missouri	14	9
80	2009	Oklahoma	15	16							12
81	2006	Wisconsin	14	70		42	39		40
82	2004	Louisiana State	15	28		88		N/A
83	2005	Auburn	12	52					N/A
84	2006	Virginia Tech	15	50				31
85	2005	Alabama	13	55		67	92	33	N/A
86	2005	Boston College	14	24		82	76		N/A
87	2005	Wisconsin	15	32		79	81		N/A
88	2009	Miami (Florida)	16	4
89	2007	Texas	14	39		95	73
90	2008	Georgia	15	8		61	80						28
91	2007	South Florida	15	8
92	2006	Texas	16	40			95				33
93	2009	Clemson	17	11
94	2006	Arkansas	17	10		91	65	32
95	2007	Clemson	16	33
96	2004	Iowa	16	16		37	68	N/A
97	2006	Tennessee	18	12		92	70
98	2004	Texas Tech	17	17			90	N/A			28
99	2004	Oregon State	18	4				N/A
100	2007	Auburn	17	10			85
101	2005	Louisville	16	63					N/A		38
102	2008	Florida State	16	11
103	2007	Michigan	18	28
104	2004	Purdue	19	42				N/A
105	2007	Boston College	19	36		66
106	2005	Texas Tech	17	40		93	64		N/A
107	2009	Texas Tech	18	43
108	2005	Clemson	18	39					N/A
109	2005	Michigan	19	6			84		N/A
110	2006	South Carolina	19	17
111	2009	Pittsburgh	19	40		83
112	2004	Tennessee	20	25		64	97	N/A
113	2008	Oregon State	17	20			75						39
114	2004	Texas A&M	21	7				N/A
115	2006	Georgia	20	15			86
116	2008	Mississippi	18	38			60
117	2005	Texas Christian	20	67		53	82		N/A
118	2008	Iowa	19	65
119	2006	Notre Dame	21	22		77
120	2005	Florida	21	42		86	96		N/A

Questions, comments or suggestions? Email me at [e-mail]