Beyond the Scoreboard: Decoding College Football Rankings by Noah Poll & Sean Morrissey ’24

Our colloquium discusses College Football Rankings and alternative methods for relative rankings with incomplete data. Ranking college football teams throughout – and even after – the college football season is a particularly difficult task due to a variety of factors, including small sample size and variation in strength of schedule. Current ranking systems depend on polls by coaches and “experts” to rank teams. We present two alternative methods for ranking college football teams that are based on mathematics-driven systems as opposed to opinion. We also consider how this method can be applied to hierarchical relationships in nature.