Final Saurian Sagacity Power Rankings

We instituted a Power Rankings system this year and, for the most part, I have been pretty pleased by what it has accomplished. In devising our system I wanted to use totally non-biased inputs, and make the system totally transparent, unlike say Jeff Sagarin’s.

What we are trying to discern in these rankings is an order of the relative “power” of college teams, not who is “most deserving”, which I think is an entirely different endeavor. To reiterate once again, our system uses the following –

1. Total Offense
2. Total Defense
3. Win-Loss Record
4. Strength of Schedule (per NCAA).

We use the NCAA strength of schedule because it is itself non-biased, going only on the opponents win-loss records.

We reduce the first two factors to ratios of the “best” team, make a simple percentage of the 3rd factor, then modify the sum of the factors by a similar ratio of the SOS.

The “best” team for each of the first two ratios were

1. Total Offense – Tulsa 543.93 ypg
2. Total Defense – Ohio State 233 ypg

The best score a team can achieve in our rankings is a “3”, which would be the best offense, with the best defense, with an undefeated record, against the toughest competition.

Our final Power Rankings, with scores, is –

1 LSU 2.3198
2 Ohio St. 2.2541
3 Missouri 2.1768
4 West Virginia 2.1712
5 Georgia 2.1623
6 Virginia Tech 2.1561
7 Florida 2.1483
8 Oklahoma 2.0937
9 Oregon 2.0321
10 South Fla. 2.0231
11 Illinois 2.0085
12 Boston College 1.9932
13 Kansas 1.9860
14 BYU 1.9627
15 Oregon St. 1.9426
16 Southern California 1.9299
17 Oklahoma St. 1.9267
18 Clemson 1.9236
19 Kentucky 1.9223
20 Texas 1.9207
21 Tennessee 1.9138
22 Auburn 1.9009
23 Michigan 1.9008
24 Arizona St. 1.8363
25 Penn St. 1.8305
26 Texas Tech 1.8294
27 Texas A&M 1.8287
28 Cincinnati 1.8275
29 Arkansas 1.8108
30 Rutgers 1.8009
31 Alabama 1.7660
32 Wisconsin 1.7648
33 Michigan St. 1.7584
34 Louisville 1.7464
35 Purdue 1.7350
36 South Carolina 1.7198
37 Nebraska 1.6913
38 Mississippi St. 1.6885
39 Hawaii 1.6716
40 UCF 1.6622
41 Tulsa 1.6543
42 Utah 1.6526
43 Connecticut 1.6427
44 Arizona 1.6423
45 UCLA 1.6407
46 Pittsburgh 1.6283
47 California 1.6199
48 Air Force 1.5883
49 Georgia Tech 1.5846
50 Boise St. 1.5695
51 Wake Forest 1.5679
52 Maryland 1.5549
53 Kansas St. 1.5541
54 Troy 1.5464
55 Virginia 1.5439
56 Vanderbilt 1.5221
57 Colorado 1.5195
58 Florida St. 1.5183
59 TCU 1.5105
60 East Caro. 1.4911
61 New Mexico 1.4770
62 North Carolina St. 1.4738
63 Indiana 1.4612
64 Washington 1.4542
65 Fresno St. 1.4509
66 Wyoming 1.4005
67 Southern Miss. 1.3999
68 Northwestern 1.3986
69 Washington St. 1.3985
70 Mississippi 1.3897
71 Houston 1.3715
72 Ball St. 1.3456
73 Fla. Atlantic 1.3349
74 Western Mich. 1.3303
75 Central Mich. 1.3214
76 Toledo 1.3197
77 Marshall 1.3183
78 San Diego St. 1.3113
79 Iowa St. 1.3088
80 La.-Monroe 1.2809
81 North Carolina 1.2790
82 Navy 1.2750
83 Bowling Green 1.2583
84 Miami (Fla.) 1.2570
85 Baylor 1.2378
86 Colorado St. 1.2359
87 Nevada 1.2338
88 Arkansas St. 1.2086
89 Notre Dame 1.2033
90 Iowa 1.2032
91 Stanford 1.2028
92 UTEP 1.1775
93 Minnesota 1.1751
94 UNLV 1.1693
95 Louisiana Tech 1.1612
96 New Mexico St. 1.1592
97 Middle Tenn. St. 1.1585
98 Miami (Ohio) 1.1316
99 Army 1.1290
100 San Jose St. 1.1269
101 Memphis 1.1179
102 Ohio 1.1066
103 La.-Lafayette 1.0991
104 Tulane 1.0937
105 Akron 1.0740
106 Kent St. 1.0633
107 Eastern Mich. 1.0616
108 Buffalo 1.0400
109 Temple 1.0264
110 Syracuse 1.0178
111 UAB 1.0028
112 Rice 0.9780
113 Southern Methodist 0.9436
114 Duke 0.9382
115 North Texas 0.9256
116 Idaho 0.8880
117 Utah St. 0.8614
118 Florida Int'l 0.8205
119 Northern Ill. 0.8022

When we apply the same methodology to last year, Florida is 1st with 2.4690, indicating last year’s Gator team was 6.43% better than this year’s LSU team.

Notably the system has pegged the “consensus” national champions of the past two years.