An Effective Nonlinear Rewards-Based Ranking System

Abstract

This article describes a new strategy for objectively quantifying the performance exhibited by each and every team as derived from that years games. When applied to the last sixteen seasons of division I-A college football, one can readily observe a strong correlation between the final rankings computed using this new strategy and the combined average ranking of the weekly polls administered by the Associated Press (AP) and USA Today (since 1991, and by the United Press International UPI before then). The nearly identical ordering of the top teams in these two rankings after all the post season bowl games have concluded, and the similarity of these rankings before the bowl games were played the past eight seasons, i.e. the "BCS years", are submitted here as evidence for the validity of this strategy.