College Football Preseason Rankings 2016: Can Alabama Repeat?

Here are the official 2016 TeamRankings college football preseason rankings, including the TR Preseason Top 25.

A Quick Primer On Our College Football Preseason Rankings

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:

  • “Percentage of prior season performance returning” stats
  • Prior season final turnover margin
  • End of season team power rating from the last few years

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.

Gut-Checking The Initial Preseason Ratings

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).

College Football 2016 Preseason Rankings Highlights

  • High five. In our past two preseason rankings there’s been a trio of teams at the top that was several points clear of the rest of the field. That’s not the case this year. Instead the biggest gap at the top of the rankings is between #5 LSU and #6 Ohio State. But that gap (2.2 points) is still smaller than the gaps between #3 and #4 the last two seasons. Those years featured gaps of 3 and 6 points. The implication here is that this year is more wide open, and there’s not a clear elite tier that stands out about the rest.
  • In our Top 25 but not the AP’s. Two teams in the TR Preseason Top 25 did not rank in the AP’s version: Texas A&M (#23 TR, #27 AP) and Nebraska (#25 TR, #37 AP).
  • We like ’em better than the AP does. Other teams we ranked higher than the AP voters include Baylor (#13 TR, #23 AP), Georgia (#14 TR, #18 AP), Oregon (#15 TR, #24 AP), and North Carolina (#17 TR, #22 AP). Some years this list of “TR likes” is tilted towards a particular conference. This year, however, there doesn’t seem to be a clear trend. The closest thing to a pattern seems to be that most of these teams either lost several starters, or lost a starting QB. Our model is implying that human voters are penalizing these teams too much for those losses, given their solid recent program history.
  • In the AP Top 25 but not ours. Two teams in the AP Preseason Top 25 didn’t make our list: Florida (#29 TR, #25 AP) and Houston (#31 TR, #15 AP). The Florida rank difference is minor; both TR and the AP voters agree that the Gators are right around the cutoff point for the top 25. The Houston difference is more significant. It mainly results from Houston being rated higher by the AP voters last season. The Cougars were ranked #8 in the final AP poll, but #28 in the final TR team rankings. Both the AP voters and our model thinks Houston will be a bit worse this year. We’re just working from a different starting point.
  • The AP likes ’em better than we do. Other teams we ranked lower than the AP voters did include Michigan (#10 TR, #7 AP), TCU (#19 TR, #13 AP), UCLA (#21 TR, #16 AP), Michigan State (#22 TR, #12 AP), and Iowa (#24 TR, #17 AP). Sorry Big Ten fans, but our model seems to think the conference might be a touch overrated.

An Open Letter To Crazy Hardcore Fan Of Team X

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:

  • We use a systematic approach to rank all 128 teams. Our approach has done very well over the years when measured by the most important yardstick: the overall accuracy of projecting team performance levels in the upcoming season across the entire system of 128 teams. It’s also going to get plenty of individual teams wrong, and some very wrong, for all sorts of reasons.
  • Look at ratings, not just rankings. For example, only about a point separates the #6 team (Ohio State) from the #11 team (Washington). Those six teams are all very close to being equals. Often times, the distinction between two closely ranked teams is essentially negligible, so it’s not even worth debating.

Glossary

  • Team ratings are expressed as points better (positive rating) or worse (negative rating) than the average FBS team, when playing on a neutral field
  • A positive “TR Delta” means we gave a team a better ranking than the AP; a negative TR Delta means we gave it a worse ranking than the AP
  • If you’re still curious to learn more about our college football preseason rankings in general, check out our 2012 post covering college football rankings components

Official 2016 College Football Preseason Rankings

TR RankAP RankTR DeltaTeamRating
11Alabama Crimson Tide21.6
22Clemson Tigers21.2
33Oklahoma Sooners20.9
44Florida State Seminoles19.9
55Louisiana State Tigers19.1
66Ohio State Buckeyes16.9
79+2Tennessee Volunteers16.3
88Stanford Cardinal16.3
910+1Notre Dame Fighting Irish16.2
107-3Michigan Wolverines16.2
1111Mississippi Rebels15.8
1214+2Washington Huskies14.8
1323+10Baylor Bears13.8
1418+4Georgia Bulldogs12.6
1524+9Oregon Ducks11.9
1619+3Louisville Cardinals11.9
1722+5North Carolina Tar Heels11.8
1821+3Oklahoma State Cowboys11.3
1913-6Texas Christian Horned Frogs11.2
2020Southern California Trojans11.1
2116-5UCLA Bruins10.8
2212-10Michigan State Spartans10.6
2327+4Texas A&M Aggies10.0
2417-7Iowa Hawkeyes9.5
2537+12Nebraska Cornhuskers9.1
26Wisconsin Badgers9.1
27Mississippi State Bulldogs8.8
28West Virginia Mountaineers8.7
2925-4Florida Gators8.7
30Auburn Tigers8.4
3115-16Houston Cougars8.2
32Arkansas Razorbacks8.0
33Brigham Young Cougars7.8
34Virginia Tech Hokies7.7
35Miami Hurricanes7.5
36Utah Utes7.4
37Pittsburgh Panthers7.3
38Boise State Broncos7.1
39Texas Longhorns6.9
40Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets6.7
41Washington State Cougars6.4
42Arizona Wildcats6.1
43Texas Tech Red Raiders5.2
44Georgia Southern Eagles5.0
45Navy Midshipmen4.8
46Kansas State Wildcats4.7
47Missouri Tigers4.4
48Arizona State Sun Devils4.4
49San Diego State Aztecs4.2
50Penn State Nittany Lions4.2
51Vanderbilt Commodores4.0
52Duke Blue Devils4.0
53South Carolina Gamecocks3.9
54Boston College Eagles3.8
55South Florida Bulls3.7
56Cincinnati Bearcats3.5
57North Carolina State Wolfpack3.5
58Appalachian State Mountaineers3.4
59Northwestern Wildcats3.4
60Syracuse Orange3.2
61California Golden Bears3.1
62Memphis Tigers3.1
63Northern Illinois Huskies2.8
64Toledo Rockets2.8
65Western Kentucky Hilltoppers2.7
66Temple Owls2.6
67Marshall Thundering Herd2.3
68Minnesota Golden Gophers2.1
69Iowa State Cyclones1.8
70Wake Forest Demon Deacons1.7
71Utah State Aggies1.6
72Virginia Cavaliers1.0
73Indiana Hoosiers0.9
74Maryland Terrapins0.6
75Western Michigan Broncos0.1
76Air Force Falcons-0.4
77Bowling Green Falcons-0.9
78East Carolina Pirates-1.5
79Connecticut Huskies-2.5
80Rutgers Scarlet Knights-2.7
81Oregon State Beavers-3.2
82Central Michigan Chippewas-3.3
83San Jose State Spartans-3.4
84Colorado Buffaloes-3.4
85Illinois Fighting Illini-3.6
86Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders-3.7
87Tulsa Golden Hurricane-4.5
88Purdue Boilermakers-4.5
89Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles-4.6
90Kentucky Wildcats-4.6
91Arkansas State Red Wolves-5.5
92Troy Trojans-6.4
93Nevada Wolf Pack-7.0
94Louisiana Tech Bulldogs-7.2
95Colorado State Rams-7.4
96Southern Methodist Mustangs-7.6
97Army Black Knights-7.8
98New Mexico Lobos-8.7
99Kent State Golden Flashes-9.4
100Central Florida Knights-9.5
101Ohio Bobcats-9.9
102Ball State Cardinals-10.4
103Wyoming Cowboys-11.4
104UL Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns-11.4
105Florida Atlantic Owls-13.1
106Fresno State Bulldogs-13.2
107Akron Zips-13.6
108Georgia State Panthers-14.2
109Rice Owls-14.3
110Buffalo Bulls-14.5
111UNLV Rebels-14.9
112Hawaii Rainbow Warriors-15.5
113Old Dominion Monarchs-15.6
114Florida International Golden Panthers-15.9
115Tulane Green Wave-16.4
116Kansas Jayhawks-17.7
117Texas El Paso Miners-18.2
118South Alabama Jaguars-18.4
119Miami (Ohio) Redhawks-18.5
120Idaho Vandals-18.5
121UL Monroe Warhawks-19.1
122North Texas Mean Green-19.4
123Eastern Michigan Eagles-20.0
124Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners-20.1
125Texas State Bobcats-23.1
126Massachusetts Minutemen-23.8
127New Mexico State Aggies-24.7
128Charlotte 49ers-24.8