Lebowski Ratings

Did this last year. Go here for rationale. Shorter version: any poll for college football only rates what it rates. The AP poll doesn't rate how good teams are, only how teams are perceived by a wide subject group. So I created these ratings because they rate one thing - how well a team has performed so far. No context, no perception. Purely objective. Every team begins the year wanting to win every game, and doing so should be rewarded. No team is in complete control of how difficult or easy their schedule will end up being, so schedule should be considered, but only secondarily. Anyway, I think these ratings are sometimes more interesting farther down the list, mainly because you see teams that, by perception, you'd rank higher, but when you look at the teams around them on this list, you can't really say that they've done something remarkably better.

I waited until now because the strength of schedule rankings were too screwy until now. As always, if you're concerned about how your team is rated low because you've had a bye, just wait a few weeks.

Anyway, here's the current top 25.

Team, record, SOS (according to Colley Rankings). An asterisk indicates that the team beat the team ranked immediately next head to head.

1. Michigan 7-0 (21)
2. Ohio State 7-0 (31)
3. Boise State 7-0 (103)
4. Southern California 6-0 (10)
5. Rutgers 6-0 (79)
6. Louisville 6-0 (102)
7. West Virginia 6-0 (113)
8. Auburn 6-1 (22)*
9. Florida 6-1 (8)
10. California 6-1 (14)
11. Wisconsin 6-1 (50)
12. Texas 6-1 (51)
13. Texas A&M 6-1 (89)*
14. Missouri 6-1 (70)
15. Nebraska 6-1 (86)
16. Clemson 6-1 (100)*
17. Wake Forest 6-1 (88)
18. Pittsburgh 6-1 (108)
19. Arkansas 5-1 (11)
20. Notre Dame 5-1 (17)
21. Boston College 5-1 (26)
22. Tennessee 5-1 (41)
23. Tulsa 5-1 (46)
24. Oregon 5-1 (48)
25. Georgia Tech 5-1 (52)

Go ahead and bitch. Blame the formula, not me. And yes, I know that there are flaws in the system.