News/Commentary

Congrove Continues To Outperform BCS Rankers

January 28, 2014 by Dave Congrove

The independent Prediction Tracker website has measured the results of scores of computer rankings over the years. As the charts below indicate, the Congrove rankings have been far superior to the computer rankings that participate in the BCS Standings.

ATS is the percentage of games in which the system has picked the winner of a game correctly against the spread. This is a valuable measurement of a computer program's ability to not just pick a winner, but indicate that power values are assigned correctly.

Win % is the percentage of games in which the system has picked the simple winner of the game.

All the data below includes only those games in which Football Bowl Subdivision teams played each other.

The data below (top left and top right) shows the accuracy of the Congrove rankings in 2013 compared to the BCS components.

2013 Season, Against the Spread

  System ATS Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.557    
2 Massey BCS 0.517 -0.040 -7.18
3 Sagarin Elo 0.510 -0.047 -8.03
4 Wolfe 0.508 -0.049 -8.88
5 Anderson/Hester 0.506 -0.051 -9.16
6 Billingsly 0.495 -0.062 -11.13
7 Colley Rankings 0.492 -0.065 -11.67

2013 Season, Straight Up

  System Win % Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.773    
2 Billingsly 0.755 -0.018 -2.32
3 Wolfe 0.733 -0.040 -5.17
4 Anderson/Hester 0.716 -0.057 -7.37
5 Colley Rankings 0.714 -0.059 -7.63
6 Massey BCS 0.705 -0.068 -8.79
7 Sagarin Elo 0.695 -0.078 -10.09

The data below (top left and top right) shows the accuracy of the Congrove rankings over the entire period during which any or all of these systems were tracked.

All-Time, Against the Spread

  System ATS Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.509    
2 Massey BCS 0.497 -0.012 -2.523
3 Sagarin Elo 0.495 -0.014 -3.014
4 Wolfe 0.494 -0.015 -3.224
5 Billingsly 0.493 -0.016 -3.244
6 Colley Rankings 0.493 -0.017 -3.374
7 Anderson/Hester 0.492 -0.017 -3.448

All-Time, Straight Up

  System Win % Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.727    
2 Sagarin Elo 0.712 -0.015 -2.046
3 Billingsly 0.707 -0.020 -2.869
4 Anderson/Hester 0.706 -0.021 -2.906
5 Colley Rankings 0.704 -0.023 -3.233
6 Wolfe 0.702 -0.025 -3.526
7 Massey BCS 0.698 -0.029 -4.162

The data in the right-hand column shows the accuracy of all of these systems since 2003 which was the first year during which the Congrove rankings were tracked by the Prediction Tracker website.

2003 - 2012, Against the Spread

  System ATS Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.509    
2 Wolfe 0.499 -0.010 -2.167
3 Sagarin Elo 0.494 -0.015 -3.082
4 Anderson/Hester 0.494 -0.016 -3.191
5 Colley Rankings 0.493 -0.016 -3.283
6 Massey BCS 0.493 -0.017 -3.3569
7 Billingsly 0.488 -0.021 -4.332

2003-2012, Straight Up

  System Win % Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.727    
2 Sagarin Elo 0.711 -0.016 -2.231
3 Anderson/Hester 0.705 -0.022 -3.093
4 Billingsly 0.704 -0.023 -3.220
5 Colley Rankings 0.704 -0.023 -3.267
6 Wolfe 0.702 -0.025 -3.538
7 Massey BCS 0.702 -0.025 -3.624