August 25, 2016 - by David Hess
Here are the official 2016 TeamRankings college football preseason rankings, including the TR Preseason Top 25.
Our preseason rankings are almost entirely data-driven. We’ve used team data from past seasons to find which descriptive statistics have correlated strongly with high end-of-season power ratings. We then used those stats to create a model that predicts a team’s power rating.
Some examples of data points used in the model include:
We assign each input factor a weight based on its demonstrated level of predictive power.
The output is a power rating that represents how many points above or below average we think a team is, with 0.0 representing a “perfectly average” team.
Once we generate initial ratings, we we then check them against the betting markets and the human polls.
If our ranking for a team seems severely out of whack with those other sources, we’ll investigate. We check to see if there’s some factor that’s not taken into account by our model, that human voters and the betting market are picking up on. In some cases, we’ll manually adjust our rating to be a bit closer to the consensus. Though only rarely will we adjust it all the way to match the consensus.
Once we’ve got our final ratings, we simply sort to get our college football preseason rankings.
It’s worth noting that these preseason ratings also drive our college football season projections — at least before the season begins. As the 2016 season progresses, the impact of these preseason ratings will gradually fade, and actual game results will play a larger role in determining our team power ratings (which continue to drive the season projections).
Dear Hardcore Fan Of Team X,
Before you make an enraged comment about where we’ve ranked your beloved alma mater and call us a bunch of mouth-breathing Harambe haters who eat their mac and cheese with a spoon, please keep two things in mind:
TR Rank | AP Rank | TR Delta | Team | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 21.6 | |
2 | 2 | Clemson Tigers | 21.2 | |
3 | 3 | Oklahoma Sooners | 20.9 | |
4 | 4 | Florida State Seminoles | 19.9 | |
5 | 5 | Louisiana State Tigers | 19.1 | |
6 | 6 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 16.9 | |
7 | 9 | +2 | Tennessee Volunteers | 16.3 |
8 | 8 | Stanford Cardinal | 16.3 | |
9 | 10 | +1 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 16.2 |
10 | 7 | -3 | Michigan Wolverines | 16.2 |
11 | 11 | Mississippi Rebels | 15.8 | |
12 | 14 | +2 | Washington Huskies | 14.8 |
13 | 23 | +10 | Baylor Bears | 13.8 |
14 | 18 | +4 | Georgia Bulldogs | 12.6 |
15 | 24 | +9 | Oregon Ducks | 11.9 |
16 | 19 | +3 | Louisville Cardinals | 11.9 |
17 | 22 | +5 | North Carolina Tar Heels | 11.8 |
18 | 21 | +3 | Oklahoma State Cowboys | 11.3 |
19 | 13 | -6 | Texas Christian Horned Frogs | 11.2 |
20 | 20 | Southern California Trojans | 11.1 | |
21 | 16 | -5 | UCLA Bruins | 10.8 |
22 | 12 | -10 | Michigan State Spartans | 10.6 |
23 | 27 | +4 | Texas A&M Aggies | 10.0 |
24 | 17 | -7 | Iowa Hawkeyes | 9.5 |
25 | 37 | +12 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | 9.1 |
26 | Wisconsin Badgers | 9.1 | ||
27 | Mississippi State Bulldogs | 8.8 | ||
28 | West Virginia Mountaineers | 8.7 | ||
29 | 25 | -4 | Florida Gators | 8.7 |
30 | Auburn Tigers | 8.4 | ||
31 | 15 | -16 | Houston Cougars | 8.2 |
32 | Arkansas Razorbacks | 8.0 | ||
33 | Brigham Young Cougars | 7.8 | ||
34 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 7.7 | ||
35 | Miami Hurricanes | 7.5 | ||
36 | Utah Utes | 7.4 | ||
37 | Pittsburgh Panthers | 7.3 | ||
38 | Boise State Broncos | 7.1 | ||
39 | Texas Longhorns | 6.9 | ||
40 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | 6.7 | ||
41 | Washington State Cougars | 6.4 | ||
42 | Arizona Wildcats | 6.1 | ||
43 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | 5.2 | ||
44 | Georgia Southern Eagles | 5.0 | ||
45 | Navy Midshipmen | 4.8 | ||
46 | Kansas State Wildcats | 4.7 | ||
47 | Missouri Tigers | 4.4 | ||
48 | Arizona State Sun Devils | 4.4 | ||
49 | San Diego State Aztecs | 4.2 | ||
50 | Penn State Nittany Lions | 4.2 | ||
51 | Vanderbilt Commodores | 4.0 | ||
52 | Duke Blue Devils | 4.0 | ||
53 | South Carolina Gamecocks | 3.9 | ||
54 | Boston College Eagles | 3.8 | ||
55 | South Florida Bulls | 3.7 | ||
56 | Cincinnati Bearcats | 3.5 | ||
57 | North Carolina State Wolfpack | 3.5 | ||
58 | Appalachian State Mountaineers | 3.4 | ||
59 | Northwestern Wildcats | 3.4 | ||
60 | Syracuse Orange | 3.2 | ||
61 | California Golden Bears | 3.1 | ||
62 | Memphis Tigers | 3.1 | ||
63 | Northern Illinois Huskies | 2.8 | ||
64 | Toledo Rockets | 2.8 | ||
65 | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | 2.7 | ||
66 | Temple Owls | 2.6 | ||
67 | Marshall Thundering Herd | 2.3 | ||
68 | Minnesota Golden Gophers | 2.1 | ||
69 | Iowa State Cyclones | 1.8 | ||
70 | Wake Forest Demon Deacons | 1.7 | ||
71 | Utah State Aggies | 1.6 | ||
72 | Virginia Cavaliers | 1.0 | ||
73 | Indiana Hoosiers | 0.9 | ||
74 | Maryland Terrapins | 0.6 | ||
75 | Western Michigan Broncos | 0.1 | ||
76 | Air Force Falcons | -0.4 | ||
77 | Bowling Green Falcons | -0.9 | ||
78 | East Carolina Pirates | -1.5 | ||
79 | Connecticut Huskies | -2.5 | ||
80 | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | -2.7 | ||
81 | Oregon State Beavers | -3.2 | ||
82 | Central Michigan Chippewas | -3.3 | ||
83 | San Jose State Spartans | -3.4 | ||
84 | Colorado Buffaloes | -3.4 | ||
85 | Illinois Fighting Illini | -3.6 | ||
86 | Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders | -3.7 | ||
87 | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | -4.5 | ||
88 | Purdue Boilermakers | -4.5 | ||
89 | Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles | -4.6 | ||
90 | Kentucky Wildcats | -4.6 | ||
91 | Arkansas State Red Wolves | -5.5 | ||
92 | Troy Trojans | -6.4 | ||
93 | Nevada Wolf Pack | -7.0 | ||
94 | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | -7.2 | ||
95 | Colorado State Rams | -7.4 | ||
96 | Southern Methodist Mustangs | -7.6 | ||
97 | Army Black Knights | -7.8 | ||
98 | New Mexico Lobos | -8.7 | ||
99 | Kent State Golden Flashes | -9.4 | ||
100 | Central Florida Knights | -9.5 | ||
101 | Ohio Bobcats | -9.9 | ||
102 | Ball State Cardinals | -10.4 | ||
103 | Wyoming Cowboys | -11.4 | ||
104 | UL Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns | -11.4 | ||
105 | Florida Atlantic Owls | -13.1 | ||
106 | Fresno State Bulldogs | -13.2 | ||
107 | Akron Zips | -13.6 | ||
108 | Georgia State Panthers | -14.2 | ||
109 | Rice Owls | -14.3 | ||
110 | Buffalo Bulls | -14.5 | ||
111 | UNLV Rebels | -14.9 | ||
112 | Hawaii Rainbow Warriors | -15.5 | ||
113 | Old Dominion Monarchs | -15.6 | ||
114 | Florida International Golden Panthers | -15.9 | ||
115 | Tulane Green Wave | -16.4 | ||
116 | Kansas Jayhawks | -17.7 | ||
117 | Texas El Paso Miners | -18.2 | ||
118 | South Alabama Jaguars | -18.4 | ||
119 | Miami (Ohio) Redhawks | -18.5 | ||
120 | Idaho Vandals | -18.5 | ||
121 | UL Monroe Warhawks | -19.1 | ||
122 | North Texas Mean Green | -19.4 | ||
123 | Eastern Michigan Eagles | -20.0 | ||
124 | Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners | -20.1 | ||
125 | Texas State Bobcats | -23.1 | ||
126 | Massachusetts Minutemen | -23.8 | ||
127 | New Mexico State Aggies | -24.7 | ||
128 | Charlotte 49ers | -24.8 |
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