Ratings & power
Opponent-adjusted ratings, power rankings, and what the math says about the pecking order.
Gridpex's desks are model-driven columns. Every figure is generated from our own data and ratings — not invented. We don't fabricate reporters, quotes, or sources.
18 stories
We re-simulated all eight opening games from what each team actually earned on the field. Three winners were worse than their score, two losers were better — and one team beat a more talented opponent by four touchdowns.
There is a version of every football argument that happens on Sunday and a version that happens in a spreadsheet, and they are almost never about the same play…
Trying to out-predict the betting market taught us something we did not enjoy learning: it almost doesn't matter which model you build. We built four that shar…
A betting line has two moments worth caring about: when it opens, and when it closes. The close is razor-sharp — the sum of every sharp bettor's opinion and a…
We spent months trying to build a model that beats the market. Here is the deflating punch line: the most dependable edge we measured requires no model whatsoe…
It's the most intuitive edge in football betting: a team loses its starting quarterback, so you bet against them. Everyone can see the backup is worse. The tro…
After ruling out every version of 'we can predict the game better,' one lead survived — and it's not about talent, which the market prices efficiently. It's ab…
The most common way to build a team-strength rating quietly shortchanges the same three programs every single year, and it can't help itself. Hand it a recipe…
The case that Texas was a real national-title team in 2024 holds up. The reason everyone gives for it doesn't. The story you keep hearing is about Quinn Ewers…
UCLA finished 2024 looking like a team that knew how to win when it mattered, going 5-2 in one-score games while getting blown out everywhere else. That story…
The 2024 Miami Hurricanes went 10-3 and spent the season hanging around the No. 1 conversation. Once you account for who they actually played, they were a genu…
Here is a stat that does something most of our numbers can't: it tells you not who is good right now, but who is about to get better. The field-position gap —…
Texas Tech went 7-5 in 2024 and a certain kind of bettor sees a bargain: a name-brand program, a returning quarterback, and a record that supposedly undersells…
In the ten years we've been able to line up a team's raw talent against what it actually did on the field, nobody has missed by as much as Florida State did in…
Logan Bonner's 2021 season is a textbook lesson in how raw volume can fool you. Snap for snap, Bonner was solid but unspectacular. Yet pile up enough snaps and…
Consider UCLA, which went 5-2 in one-score games but 0-5 in all other games. This disparity suggests that their overall record is propped up by close-game vari…
When you argue about which conference is the best, you have to be clear about what you're actually asking. There's the deepest league, top to bottom, and then…
When looking at the 2024 power ratings, it's clear that the top teams are closely bunched, with Ohio State and Notre Dame's ratings differing by only 1.8 point…
