🎓 COLLEGE FOOTBALL ELO
2026 · WEEK 9 · RUN 2026-10-30Betting-blind FBS Elo (K=35, +50 home, margin-weighted, conference-aware season regression, pooled FCS opponent) tuned on 2005–2023; 2024–25 holdout log-loss 0.499 across every FBS-involved game. Every FBS program since 2001 on one Elo scale: ratings regress each August toward the team's new conference's mean (so realignment is handled by construction), every FCS opponent is one pooled rating, and margin of victory is capped before it feeds the update. Parameters were fit on 2005–2023 and checked on 2024–25 held out; the daily job replays all ~20,000 games from scratch each morning, so there is no rating state that can drift.
Conferences by Avg Elo
| 1 | SEC | 16 | 1689 | 1835 | 1702 | 1543 | 1660 | 9 | Georgia (1893) | Arkansas (1514) |
| 2 | FBS Independents | 2 | 1643 | — | 1643 | — | 1637 | 1 | Notre Dame (1816) | UConn (1470) |
| 3 | Big Ten | 18 | 1632 | 1838 | 1640 | 1404 | 1628 | 7 | Indiana (1942) | Maryland (1344) |
| 4 | Big 12 | 16 | 1579 | 1756 | 1546 | 1441 | 1559 | 5 | Utah (1823) | Colorado (1331) |
| 5 | ACC | 17 | 1541 | 1730 | 1499 | 1388 | 1529 | 3 | Miami (1880) | Syracuse (1342) |
| 6 | Pac-12 | 8 | 1410 | 1526 | 1389 | 1294 | 1402 | 0 | Boise State (1666) | Colorado State (1242) |
| 7 | American Athletic | 14 | 1404 | 1565 | 1407 | 1218 | 1410 | 0 | UTSA (1638) | Charlotte (1149) |
| 8 | Sun Belt | 14 | 1360 | 1482 | 1378 | 1231 | 1381 | 0 | James Madison (1633) | UL Monroe (1139) |
| 9 | Mountain West | 10 | 1301 | 1450 | 1316 | 1146 | 1311 | 0 | New Mexico (1543) | UTEP (1035) |
| 10 | Mid-American | 13 | 1273 | 1451 | 1258 | 1109 | 1294 | 0 | Ohio (1496) | Sacramento State (1027) |
| 11 | Conference USA | 10 | 1269 | 1384 | 1263 | 1156 | 1279 | 0 | Liberty (1464) | Sam Houston (1045) |
Every conference on one Elo scale — inter-conference games are what tie the scale together, and the August regression pulls each program toward its own conference's mean (75% conference, 25% the 1500 base), so an SEC 1500 and a Sun Belt 1500 mean the same thing. Top-4 / Median / Bottom-4 are each conference's ceiling, middle and floor next to its average; Preseason avg is the same average on the morning of the season's first game. The independents are two programs, not a conference. Click any header to re-sort.
Highest & Lowest Rated Programs
Top 10 (★ = top 5)
| # | Program | Conf | Elo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ★ Indiana | Big Ten | 1942 |
| 2 | ★ Ohio State | Big Ten | 1941 |
| 3 | ★ Georgia | SEC | 1893 |
| 4 | ★ Miami | ACC | 1880 |
| 5 | ★ Ole Miss | SEC | 1824 |
| 6 | Utah | Big 12 | 1823 |
| 7 | Texas | SEC | 1821 |
| 8 | Notre Dame | Ind. | 1816 |
| 9 | Alabama | SEC | 1802 |
| 10 | LSU | SEC | 1789 |
Bottom 10 (★ = bottom 5)
| # | Program | Conf | Elo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ★ Sacramento State | MAC | 1027 |
| 2 | ★ UTEP | MWC | 1035 |
| 3 | ★ Sam Houston | C-USA | 1045 |
| 4 | ★ Northern Illinois | MWC | 1049 |
| 5 | ★ Akron | MAC | 1105 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | MAC | 1139 |
| 7 | UL Monroe | Sun Belt | 1139 |
| 8 | Charlotte | American | 1149 |
| 9 | Ball State | MAC | 1166 |
| 10 | Rice | American | 1172 |
All 138 FBS programs on the one scale, not per conference. A program in its first FBS season enters at 1250 and can only prove otherwise on the field — the bottom of this list is where that shows.
Data generated 2026-10-30 16:34:10 · run date 2026-10-30.