Dolphin Ratings - College Football

Explanation: Each team is listed with its record, overall score differential, and six ratings. Brief explanations of the ratings follow.

Schedule The number in this column is the effective opponent strength of a team. In other words, they would be expected to have the same record had they played all games against an opponent of this predictive rating at a neutral site. Because this calculation depends on the strength of the team in question, it is not possible to rank schedules using these values.
Standard Ranks teams in an order such that a team is "probably better" than all teams ranked lower than it. This calculation uses margin of victory only for computing a team's opponents strengths; the team's rating itself is computed using only wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule
Median Likelihood Determines the likely ratings for each team, based on its wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule. This generally produces the same or similar ratings as the standard ranking.
Predictive Both schedule strength and rating vs. schedule strength are determined considering both the wins and losses and the score differentials. This rating contains none of the biases in the standard rating, but does weight recent games slightly more than past games since those are a better indication of the team's current strength. This rating is the best of the first three for seeing how good teams are, and thus is the best for predicting future results.
Improved RPI Rating The improved RPI formula is similar to the standard RPI, except that the schedule strength is carried out to infinite depth instead of ending with opponents' opponents, thus allows for a better comparison of isolated groups of teams than is given by the standard RPI calculation. It is similar to the simple rating, except that all games are given equal weight.
RPI Rating. Included only because of common real-life usage. The RPI rating has many statistical problems. The football RPI rating is based on the BCS formula, and approximates the schedule, loss, and quality win components.
Pseudo-Poll. A blended ranking based on win-loss and predictive ratings, calibrated to match real-life polls as closely as possible. This gives a rough but unbiased estimate of how typical voters value record vs. impressive wins.
Predictive-Scoring. This value indicates how many points a team would be expected to score if it played an identical team.
Predictive-Offense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team scores. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to score the league average number of points. This does not necessarily rate a team's offensive abilities, as a fast pace in basketball or big-play defense in football can make a team score more points.
Predictive-Defense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team allows. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to allow the league average number of points. The same caveat in the predictive-offense rating applies here.

Because these ratings contain no prejudices regarding team or conference strengths, they tend to be quite inaccurate early in the seasons. College football appears to take at least 5 games per team before even remotely reasonable ratings are produced; acceptable ratings are produced with 8 games per team; excellent ratings unfortunately require 14 games per team.

Rankings by division: Overall I-A I-AA II III NAIA NESCAC NSIC MAIAA

Full Ranking

                                               STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI     RPI         POLL       OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM                     W  L  PF  PA  SCHED  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
Minn St-Mankato         14  1 600 193  1.131    1  2.161    1  1.907    1  1.875    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    1 13.069    2  1.498    1  2.253
Minnesota-Duluth        13  1 573 300  0.525    2  1.769    2  1.584    3  1.018    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    3 12.214    3  1.236    4  0.801
Sioux Falls             11  1 512 209  0.782    3  1.699    3  1.508    2  1.445    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    2 12.258    1  1.532    2  1.358
Northern St SD           8  3 413 364 -0.154    4  0.690    4  0.514    8  0.062    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    5  9.883    5  0.790   11 -0.665
Augustana SD             6  5 380 204  0.708    5  0.559    5  0.389    4  1.017    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    4 10.116    6  0.755    3  1.279
Upper Iowa               6  5 379 347  0.277    6  0.480    6  0.294    5  0.315    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    6  9.662    4  0.861    8 -0.230
Concordia-St Paul        5  6 243 290  0.245    7  0.358    7  0.159    7  0.142    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    7  9.402   13 -0.247    5  0.531
St Cloud St              6  5 330 349 -0.105    8  0.346    8  0.145   10 -0.168    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    8  9.322   11  0.015    9 -0.351
Wayne St NE              5  6 345 401  0.151    9  0.197    9  0.041    9  0.000    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    9  9.208    8  0.644   10 -0.644
Winona St                4  7 310 316  0.310   10 -0.022   10 -0.141    6  0.158    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   10  8.816    9  0.232    6  0.084
TEAM                     W  L  PF  PA  SCHED  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
Mary                     5  6 305 380 -0.394   11 -0.207   11 -0.297   14 -0.459    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   11  8.217   12 -0.108   14 -0.809
Minn St-Moorhead         4  7 393 496 -0.181   12 -0.296   12 -0.382   11 -0.321    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   12  8.121    7  0.696   15 -1.337
SW Minnesota St          3  8 293 426  0.018   13 -0.310   13 -0.397   13 -0.349    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   13  8.022   10  0.035   12 -0.732
Bemidji St               3  8 267 351 -0.179   14 -0.561   14 -0.687   12 -0.323    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   14  7.467   14 -0.420    7 -0.225
Minot St                 1 10 165 427 -0.621   15 -1.156   15 -1.306   15 -1.219    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   15  6.058   15 -1.668   13 -0.769
Minnesota-Crookston      0 11 150 542 -0.871   16 -1.450   16 -1.662   16 -1.829    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   16  5.219   16 -1.888   16 -1.771


Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference: strength=0.058 (#1)
                                               STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI     RPI         POLL       OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM                     W  L  PF  PA  SCHED  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
Minn St-Mankato         14  1 600 193  1.131    1  2.161    1  1.907    1  1.875    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    1 13.069    2  1.498    1  2.253
Minnesota-Duluth        13  1 573 300  0.525    2  1.769    2  1.584    3  1.018    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    3 12.214    3  1.236    4  0.801
Sioux Falls             11  1 512 209  0.782    3  1.699    3  1.508    2  1.445    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    2 12.258    1  1.532    2  1.358
Northern St SD           8  3 413 364 -0.154    4  0.690    4  0.514    8  0.062    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    5  9.883    5  0.790   11 -0.665
Augustana SD             6  5 380 204  0.708    5  0.559    5  0.389    4  1.017    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    4 10.116    6  0.755    3  1.279
Upper Iowa               6  5 379 347  0.277    6  0.480    6  0.294    5  0.315    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    6  9.662    4  0.861    8 -0.230
Concordia-St Paul        5  6 243 290  0.245    7  0.358    7  0.159    7  0.142    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    7  9.402   13 -0.247    5  0.531
St Cloud St              6  5 330 349 -0.105    8  0.346    8  0.145   10 -0.168    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    8  9.322   11  0.015    9 -0.351
Wayne St NE              5  6 345 401  0.151    9  0.197    9  0.041    9  0.000    1 0.0000    1 0.0000    9  9.208    8  0.644   10 -0.644
Winona St                4  7 310 316  0.310   10 -0.022   10 -0.141    6  0.158    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   10  8.816    9  0.232    6  0.084
Mary                     5  6 305 380 -0.394   11 -0.207   11 -0.297   14 -0.459    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   11  8.217   12 -0.108   14 -0.809
Minn St-Moorhead         4  7 393 496 -0.181   12 -0.296   12 -0.382   11 -0.321    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   12  8.121    7  0.696   15 -1.337
SW Minnesota St          3  8 293 426  0.018   13 -0.310   13 -0.397   13 -0.349    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   13  8.022   10  0.035   12 -0.732
Bemidji St               3  8 267 351 -0.179   14 -0.561   14 -0.687   12 -0.323    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   14  7.467   14 -0.420    7 -0.225
Minot St                 1 10 165 427 -0.621   15 -1.156   15 -1.306   15 -1.219    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   15  6.058   15 -1.668   13 -0.769
Minnesota-Crookston      0 11 150 542 -0.871   16 -1.450   16 -1.662   16 -1.829    1 0.0000    1 0.0000   16  5.219   16 -1.888   16 -1.771

Conference Strengths
CONFERENCE                                                W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference                  94  90 0.511    1  0.058

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.134 points in main ratings
     0.023 points in improved RPI
Average of 6.20 points per score

Predict score:






Team Strength vs. Time Plot:





posted: Sun Oct 12 21:52:58 2025

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.