News/Commentary

Congrove Outperforms BCS Computer Component Rankers

May 30, 2012 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.

The data in the left-hand column below shows the accuracy of the Congrove rankings compared to the BCS components over the entire period during which any or all of these systems were tracked. 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.

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.

All-Time

Against the Spread

  System ATS Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.509    
2 Massey BCS 0.493 -0.017 -3.420
3 Sagarin Elo 0.492 -0.017 -3.448
4 Billingsly 0.492 -0.017 -3.520
5 Wolfe 0.490 -0.019 -3.909
6 Colley Rankings 0.489 -0.020 -4.100
7 Anderson/Hester 0.488 -0.021 -4.366

Straight Up

  System Win % Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.727    
2 Sagarin Elo 0.712 -0.015 -2.142
3 Billingsly 0.707 -0.020 -2.834
4 Anderson/Hester 0.705 -0.022 -3.151
5 Colley Rankings 0.705 -0.022 -3.190
6 Massey BCS 0.701 -0.026 -3.650
7 Wolfe 0.701 -0.026 -3.697

2003 - Current

Against the Spread

  System ATS Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.509    
2 Wolfe 0.496 -0.014 -2.745
3 Massey BCS 0.493 -0.017 -3.349
4 Sagarin Elo 0.492 -0.018 -3.574
5 Anderson/Hester 0.489 -0.020 -4.135
6 Colley Rankings 0.489 -0.020 -4.191
7 Billingsly 0.488 -0.021 -4.326

Straight Up

  System Win % Difference % Diff
1 Congrove 0.727    
2 Sagarin Elo 0.710 -0.017 -2.359
3 Billingsly 0.704 -0.023 -3.224
4 Anderson/Hester 0.703 -0.024 -3.379
5 Colley Rankings 0.702 -0.025 -3.550
6 Massey BCS 0.702 -0.025 -3.628
7 Wolfe 0.699 -0.028 -4.000