NEMindex through Week 4

Welcome to College Football 2023 and the NEMindex rankings.

For those who may be new here, this is a ranking system I developed back in ~2010 in response to the continual disrespect Utah kept getting in the old BCS rankings.  For a few more details go HERE. I knew that I could come up with a mathematically-based system that ignored all the biases in the voting systems, given primarily to the legacy teams, and present a clean, unbiased ranking of all FBS teams based purely on in-season performance.  I spent a few years tweaking it (and it still could use more) and have been publishing results online for ~10 years. 

The system uses only in-season performance and recursively compares every team to every other team until a converged solution of rankings is found.  Things obviously get complicated because connections between teams can be many degrees-of-separation away from each other (think Kevin Bacon) but this will find all the connections, weigh them, and sort them into a single list. Obviously I chose all the metrics and weights and functions so in that way my own ideas are inherent here, but I do nothing to push the system in any specific direction. All teams (P5 and G5) start from the same footing and have the same chance to distill to the top.

And here they are, the first rankings of 2023! 

Fell free to hit me up on Twitter (@NateEMiller) if you have questions or comments.

Rank	Team	W	L	Conf	RTPS	Delta
1	Texas	4	0	B12	1.000	0
2	Miami (FL)	4	0	ACC	0.980	+2
3	Wash.	4	0	PAC	0.937	-1
4	Penn State	4	0	B10	0.919	+6
5	Ohio State	4	0	B10	0.870	+4
6	Oklahoma	4	0	B12	0.865	-3
7	Michigan	4	0	B10	0.841	+4
8	Utah	4	0	PAC	0.793	+7
9	Wash. St.	4	0	PAC	0.781	+14
10	Texas A&M	3	1	SEC	0.779	+28
11	Missouri	4	0	SEC	0.777	+6
12	Oregon	4	0	PAC	0.771	+22
13	Alabama	3	1	SEC	0.742	+29
14	Florida St.	4	0	ACC	0.740	-6
15	Ole Miss	3	1	SEC	0.731	-9
16	N. Carolina	4	0	ACC	0.722	-9
17	Kansas	4	0	B12	0.686	+19
18	Louisville	4	0	ACC	0.680	+9
19	Notre Dame	4	1	IND	0.673	-7
20	Duke	4	0	ACC	0.669	-6
21	Kansas St.	3	1	B12	0.669	+34
22	Colorado	3	1	PAC	0.667	-6
23	Maryland	4	0	B10	0.639	+14
24	Georgia	4	0	SEC	0.638	+2
25	Liberty	4	0	USA	0.635	+8
26	Georgia St.	4	0	SUN	0.624	+9
27	Syracuse	4	0	ACC	0.618	-3
28	James Madison	4	0	SUN	0.611	+11
29	Wisconsin	3	1	B10	0.603	+14
30	Kentucky	4	0	SEC	0.603	+2
31	Rutgers	3	1	B10	0.595	-18
32	UCLA	3	1	PAC	0.589	-27
33	USC	4	0	PAC	0.575	-3
34	Fresno St.	4	0	MWC	0.573	-3
35	Marshall	3	0	SUN	0.567	+10
36	Memphis	3	1	AAC	0.565	-11
37	Florida	3	1	SEC	0.562	+11
38	Air Force	4	0	MWC	0.560	+2
39	TCU	3	1	B12	0.546	+20
40	Iowa	3	1	B10	0.545	-18
41	LSU	3	1	SEC	0.543	0
42	UCF	3	1	B12	0.538	-21
43	Wyoming	3	1	MWC	0.527	+8
44	Auburn	3	1	SEC	0.524	-26
45	Oregon St.	3	1	PAC	0.523	-26
46	Miami (OH)	3	1	MID	0.511	0
47	Tulane	3	1	AAC	0.510	-19
48	BYU	3	1	B12	0.498	-28
49	W. Virginia	3	1	B12	0.490	+14
50	UNLV	3	1	MWC	0.485	+3
51	Georgia Tech	2	2	ACC	0.475	+36
52	Mich. St.	2	2	B10	0.472	-2
53	Illinois	2	2	B10	0.471	+20
54	Georgia So.	3	1	SUN	0.455	+25
55	UL Monroe	2	1	SUN	0.452	+13
56	Coastal Caro.	2	2	SUN	0.449	-12
57	Wake Forest	3	1	ACC	0.447	-28
58	Tennessee	3	1	SEC	0.438	+20
59	Ohio	4	1	MID	0.436	+8
60	NC State	3	1	ACC	0.432	+4
61	Jacksonville St.	3	1	USA	0.424	+19
62	S. Carolina	2	2	SEC	0.422	+23
63	Boise State	2	2	MWC	0.419	+14
64	Tulsa	2	2	AAC	0.419	+12
65	Arizona	3	1	PAC	0.413	+9
66	Toledo	3	1	MID	0.407	+33
67	Minnesota	2	2	B10	0.402	-20
68	Troy	2	2	SUN	0.402	+41
69	California	2	2	PAC	0.402	-12
70	W. Kentucky	2	2	USA	0.399	-8
71	Northwestern	2	2	B10	0.393	+23
72	Clemson	2	2	ACC	0.388	-11
73	Indiana	2	2	B10	0.386	+13
74	App. St.	2	2	SUN	0.384	-9
75	UL Lafayette	3	1	SUN	0.382	+21
76	SMU	2	2	AAC	0.374	-27
77	Texas State	3	1	SUN	0.372	+18
78	Temple	2	2	AAC	0.372	-20
79	Cincinnati	2	2	B12	0.370	-8
80	Army	2	2	IND	0.354	-10
81	Arkansas St.	2	2	SUN	0.351	0
82	Iowa State	2	2	B12	0.351	+18
83	Arkansas	2	2	SEC	0.345	-27
84	Florida Int.	3	2	USA	0.342	-15
85	Colorado St.	1	2	MWC	0.336	+25
86	S. Florida	2	2	AAC	0.334	+28
87	Miss. St.	2	2	SEC	0.329	-21
88	Nebraska	2	2	B10	0.327	+9
89	Rice	2	2	USA	0.326	-35
90	Vanderbilt	2	3	SEC	0.309	-6
91	C. Mich.	2	2	MID	0.303	+14
92	San Diego St.	2	3	MWC	0.296	-32
93	S. Alabama	2	2	SUN	0.294	-41
94	Houston	2	2	B12	0.286	+21
95	Navy	1	2	AAC	0.280	-12
96	Stanford	1	3	PAC	0.279	-6
97	Purdue	1	3	B10	0.277	-15
98	Texas Tech	1	3	B12	0.275	0
99	Bowling Grn	1	3	MID	0.273	-11
100	Utah State	1	3	MWC	0.272	-9
101	Charlotte	1	3	USA	0.266	-9
102	Baylor	1	3	B12	0.259	+11
103	Ball State	1	3	MID	0.240	-14
104	E. Mich.	2	2	MID	0.227	-32
105	San Jose St.	1	4	MWC	0.226	+1
106	E. Carolina	1	3	AAC	0.220	+18
107	W. Michigan	1	3	MID	0.208	-14
108	UAB	1	3	USA	0.199	+17
109	Old Dominion	2	2	SUN	0.196	+14
110	S. Miss.	1	3	SUN	0.192	-9
111	Oklahoma St.	2	2	B12	0.186	-36
112	New Mexico	2	2	MWC	0.183	+18
113	Akron	1	3	MID	0.178	-11
114	Arizona St.	1	3	PAC	0.175	-7
115	Pittsburgh	1	3	ACC	0.160	+5
116	BC	1	3	ACC	0.158	+5
117	Mid. Tenn.	1	3	USA	0.154	-13
118	Kent State	1	3	MID	0.154	-15
119	Virginia Tech	1	3	ACC	0.148	0
120	Hawaii	2	3	MWC	0.141	+12
121	UTSA	1	3	USA	0.140	+1
122	Virginia	0	4	ACC	0.135	+4
123	NM St.	2	3	USA	0.118	-6
124	UTEP	1	4	USA	0.112	+9
125	Florida Atl.	1	3	USA	0.107	-7
126	Connecticut	0	4	IND	0.107	+2
127	N. Illinois	1	3	MID	0.099	0
128	LA Tech	2	3	USA	0.096	-16
129	North Texas	1	2	USA	0.088	-13
130	Buffalo	0	4	MID	0.083	+1
131	UMASS	1	4	IND	0.077	-23
132	Nevada	0	4	MWC	0.068	-3
133	Sam Houston	0	3	USA	0.001	-22

Hardest Schedule Played per Team:

Virginia	42.3
Connecticut	47.5
Colorado St.	49.3
Purdue	52.3
Illinois	53.0
Texas A&M	53.3
Alabama	54.8
Baylor	55.0
Charlotte	55.0
Colorado	56.0
:	:
:	:
Florida Int.	108.4
Liberty	109.0
Kentucky	110.0
Arizona	110.3
USC	111.8
Fresno St.	115.8
Air Force	118.0
Marshall	119.7
UL Lafayette	120.3
Texas State	122.3

Average Rank per Conference:

PAC	42.3
SEC	43.2
B10	45.7
B12	56.4
ACC	57.8
SUN	67.2
AAC	73.5
MWC	81.2
IND	89.0
MID	96.9
USA	102.5

Hardest Cumulative Schedules Played per Conference:

B10	70.2
AAC	73.1
IND	73.6
SEC	79.0
ACC	79.2
B12	79.6
MWC	80.2
MID	80.6
PAC	82.0
USA	83.6
SUN	91.0