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What You'll Find in a College Football Rankings Guide

A college football rankings guide provides information about how teams are evaluated and ranked throughout the season. These guides explain the different ranking systems that exist in college football, including the College Football Playoff rankings, Associated Press (AP) Poll, Coaches Poll, and various computer-based ranking systems. Understanding what goes into these rankings helps fans and followers of the sport see why certain teams are positioned where they are in the standings.

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The guide typically covers how rankings change week to week based on game results, strength of schedule, and head-to-head competition. For example, a team that wins by one point against a top-25 opponent may see a bigger jump in rankings than a team that wins by 30 points against a lower-ranked team. The guide explains this reasoning and shows readers how to interpret the numbers they see published each week.

Many college football fans want to understand the ranking systems because they directly impact which teams play in bowl games and the College Football Playoff. The guide provides context for how these decisions are made and what factors carry the most weight. This information helps readers follow the sport with greater understanding of the reasoning behind rankings rather than simply seeing numbers without context.

The educational content in these guides often includes historical perspective on how ranking systems have evolved. For instance, the College Football Playoff replaced the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 2014, which changed how rankings were calculated and used. Learning this history provides context for how the current system works and why certain changes were made.

Practical Takeaway: When you read the guide, you'll learn to recognize which ranking system is being referenced when you see rankings published online or on television, and why different outlets may rank teams differently based on their methodology.

Understanding the College Football Playoff Rankings

The College Football Playoff rankings represent one of the most important ranking systems in college football. These rankings determine which four teams play in the playoff games each season, making them the most high-stakes rankings in the sport. The guide explains how the College Football Playoff Committee selects and ranks teams from the beginning of the season through the final playoff selection in December.

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The Playoff Committee begins releasing its rankings in November, roughly halfway through the college football season. Teams are ranked based on how well they have performed against their opponents, the quality of those opponents, and how they compare to other teams in the country. The Committee meets weekly to discuss and debate rankings, considering factors like head-to-head results, conference strength, and wins against ranked teams.

A key detail in the guide is how strength of schedule factors into these rankings. A team with a 10-2 record that played primarily weak opponents may be ranked lower than a team with a 9-3 record that faced several strong opponents. This is because the Playoff Committee evaluates not just wins and losses, but the quality of competition throughout the season. For example, Alabama and Georgia play in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which is generally considered one of the strongest conferences, so their wins carry more weight in rankings than wins in less competitive conferences.

The guide also covers how the top four teams are selected in early December for the playoff games that take place in January. The selection process involves the Playoff Committee voting on the final rankings, and these decisions are announced publicly. The rankings can be surprising or controversial, which is why understanding the reasoning behind them is valuable for anyone interested in college football.

Information in the guide explains that teams can move significantly in these rankings based on a single game, particularly late in the season. A loss by a highly-ranked team can open the door for another team to move into the top four. Conversely, a strong win by a lower-ranked team against a ranked opponent can boost that team's position.

Practical Takeaway: After reading about the Playoff rankings, you'll understand why the Playoff Committee's selections each December matter so much and what factors the Committee considers when making those crucial decisions about which teams advance to the playoff games.

How the Associated Press and Coaches Polls Work

Before the College Football Playoff Committee began releasing rankings in 2014, the Associated Press (AP) Poll and the Coaches Poll were the primary ranking systems in college football. These polls are still published each week during the season and remain influential in the sport. A college football rankings guide explains how these two polls operate and why they sometimes differ from each other.

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The AP Poll is voted on by a panel of college football reporters and media members. Each voter ranks their top 25 teams, and these rankings are compiled into an overall poll. The Coaches Poll works similarly, but the voters are college football coaches at the Division I level. Because different groups of people are voting, the two polls can produce different rankings, which is why you sometimes see a team ranked differently in the AP Poll versus the Coaches Poll.

The guide typically includes information about how many points teams receive based on their ranking. A team ranked first receives 25 points, a team ranked second receives 24 points, and so on down to a team ranked 25th, which receives one point. Teams that receive votes but don't make the top 25 may also be mentioned as "receiving votes." This point system means that a team ranked 15th by most voters will be ranked higher than a team ranked 23rd by most voters, even if a few voters placed that lower-ranked team higher.

One important fact covered in the guide is that the AP Poll and Coaches Poll have been published since 1936 and 1950 respectively, making them among the longest-running polls in sports. This long history means they have credibility and tradition, though their methodologies have remained largely consistent over decades.

The guide explains that these polls are subjective, meaning they depend on human judgment rather than formulas. This is different from computer-based ranking systems. Some voters may weight certain factors differently, such as strength of schedule, conference affiliation, or recent performance. This subjectivity is why these polls can vary from week to week and from each other, and why they remain debated among college football fans.

Practical Takeaway: Understanding the AP Poll and Coaches Poll helps you recognize that rankings are opinion-based and can vary depending on who is voting, which explains why you might see the same team ranked at number 12 in one poll and number 15 in another.

Computer Rankings and Mathematical Models

Beyond human-voted polls, college football uses various computer-based ranking systems that evaluate teams using mathematical formulas. A rankings guide typically covers the most well-known computer ranking systems and explains how they differ from polls that rely on human voters. These systems include models like FEI (Football External Index), S&P+ (Simple Rating System with Pythagorean Wins), and various Elo rating systems that are published on different sports websites.

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Computer rankings work by assigning numerical values to each team based on their game results and the quality of their opponents. For example, a computer model might give a team extra credit for beating a strong opponent and slightly less credit for a close win over a weak opponent. The specific formulas used vary from system to system, but all of them attempt to objectively measure team strength without human bias.

One advantage of computer rankings mentioned in the guide is consistency. Once a formula is established, it produces the same result every time based on the same data. A human voter might rank a team differently week to week based on factors like injury reports or their subjective impression of a game, but a computer model ranks teams the same way based on the game results and opponent strength. This makes computer rankings useful for comparison with human polls to see where there is agreement and disagreement.

The guide explains that computer rankings can produce surprising results that differ from human polls. Sometimes a team that looks good on the field and wins games might be ranked lower in computer models because the computer determines they are playing weaker opponents than the model's formula expected. This creates interesting debates about whether a team is being underrated or overrated by different ranking systems.

Different computer models emphasize different factors. Some models heavily weight recent performance, assuming that how a team played in the last few weeks is more important than how they played earlier in the season. Other models weight the entire season equally, treating a win in September the same as a win in November. The guide helps readers understand these differences so they can interpret what computer rankings are telling them.

Practical Takeaway: Learning about computer rankings gives you another perspective on team strength beyond human opinion, and helps you understand why different ranking systems sometimes disagree about which teams are the best in college football.

Factors That Influence Rankings and How They Change Week to Week