A top 30 the BCS would accept

Below I gave top 30 rankings based on a system I developed. Those rankings included such factors as home field advantage and point spread — factors the BCS forbids computer models from considering.

Below is another top 30 list. The rankings are based strictly on the Elo ranking system. For an excellent description of this system, see this article in Wikipedia. I take a different approach than straightforward Elo ranking, though. I first rank all games between FBS and FCS opponents. I then set each conference’s initial score to their respective division score. I then rank all out of conference games. I set each team’s initial score to their respective conference score. For the division and conference ranking I use K = 24. Next I rank each game, using K = 96. The teams are ordered by descending score (ie. highest score is ranked #1).

Here are the results through games played by December 5.