This is TSR's College Football Ranking System by TheSportsRave.com.

The TSR system enters the 2009 season with more tweaks and the addition of a third voter's poll. How accurate it is, will be up to the fans and the comparisons with the other polls by the end of the season. The big difference is that all points will be averaged out. This is a point-accumulation system, as in the past, but it will be based on the week to week averages of each category of points.

This system is designed so that the deeper into the season, the more games played, the more points built up, the more accurate the system will get. This is why a system such as this can start at the beginning of the season. So, to a certain degree, at least among the top twenty teams, it doesn't matter where a school is ranked at the beginning. It's a funnel system to the top, where we get down to the last two highest ranked teams at the end of the season.

There are also no predictors or complicated math theories and no points awarded just because a loss was to a good team. Some of these computer polls get too complicated and confusing and unecessary for compiling an accurate ranking system. The key is accuracy, which, I feel, gets lost in the obsession with complicated math theories. There are also no points for beating 1-AA schools. The WIN points, which lead to OPPONENTS POINTS and are explained below, are only for the 120 D-1A schools.

TSR's system is designed to be as accurate as possible in the most comprehensive way using the average of five computer polls: Congrove, Claasen, Billingsley, Massey and Howell.

Along with the computer polls are the AP Writers and USAToday Coaches polls which is now joined by the CBSSports.com polls. These three polls are added together then a percentage is taken from that sum for it's final points. Also, no computer polls are used which group D-1A with 1-AA schools in the same ranking system. And only ranking systems that start at the beginning of the season are used. The fans need to be inluded at the beginning of the season and in a point accumulation system where it gains more accuracy as the season closes allows this to start at the beginning.

After one column of combined computer points and a second one for opinion polls, comes the next three columns: WIN, OPPONENTS and OPPONENTS/OPPONENTS points. For distributing WIN-Points, all D-1A schools are broken up into 11 sections. A team gets the most points for beating a top five (1-5) team. Then the next highest points to a top ten (6-10) team, and so on. A team gets extra points for winning on the road.

1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-64 65-79 80-99 100-120

All points are awarded in a cascading fashion--you get the most for beating the best. When a team wins, they get WIN points in which the amount depends on where the opponent is ranked at the time of the game (see scale above). The winning team then "owns" that opponent for the entire year. They then receive half their opponent's WIN points for every win the opponent acheives the rest of the year, which is placed into their OPPONENTS category. And finally, the winner receives a fourth of the defeated team's OPPONENTS points, which goes into their OPPONENT'S-OPPONENTS point category.

A percentage is taken from each category where WIN points count the most among the three and the (0pp/0pp) count the least.

The next three categories are SCORING MARGIN, OFFENSIVE SCORING and DEFENSIVE SCORING. For these three, the scale is changed to groups of 10:

1-10......30/0
11-20.....27/3
21-30.....24/6
31-40.....21/9
41-50.....18/12
51-60.....15/15
61-70.....12/18
71-80.....9/21
81-90.....6/24
91-100....3/27
101-110...0/30
111-120...0/33
D1-AA.....0/40

The numbers on the right, (30/0), represent percentages. Playing a (1-10) team means 30 percent is added to what a team scores and for possible winning margin. The zero means no scale points (or penalty points) are added onto defensive points or a losing margin. Playing a team ranked (11-20) means 27 percent is added to offensive points and winning margin but now 3 percent is added to defensive points and/or a losing margin.

For example, giving up 20 points to a Top Ten team (1-10) means exactly 20 points are subtracted from a team's point total but against an (11-20) team, the 3 percent is added for a total of 20.6 points subtracted from a team's total points. If a team lost by 17 (to an 11-20 team), then 3 percent is added to the 17 for a total of 17.51 in the negative under SCORING MARGIN (which can be a plus or a minus depending on the quality of the team). The 17.51 would go into the SCORING MARGIN column and subtracted from a team's total points in addition to the 20.6 they gave up, which would fall into the DEFENSIVE SCORING column, which is also subtracted from the team's total points.

One of the last groups, (101-110), is reversed, (0/30). This means no scale points added for beating a team ranked (101-110) but, 30 percent is added to defensive points and/or losing margin. Ten points given up now means a total of 13 points subtracted from a team's total when adding the 30 percent.

For D1-AA schools, the scale is (0/40). No WIN, OPPONENT'S or OPPONENT'S-OPPONENTS points are awarded for beating this opponent. The only points earned for beating a AA team, aside from computer and votes, is through offensive scoring and winning margin. But the penalty is steeper for giving up points.

The point-scales for the three WIN and three SCORING categories are arranged differently because it's easier to score on a team than it is to beat them. But the closer to the top five the tougher it gets, that's why I've arranged the WIN points-scale broken down to four groups of five for the top twenty.

Among the three SCORING categories, DEFENSIVE scoring counts the most against a team's point total. Next is SCORING MARGIN, which may be a plus or a minus, depending on the quality of the team. The least percentage added is OFFENSIVE SCORING, which is the least in weight because teams can run up the score after having the game in hand.

The BCS, for some ridiculous reason, excludes the scoring categories (mainly scoring margin), which are important and can work, as long as there is a ceiling added. That is what I've done. An official blowout is 30 points and no more points are given to a team's winning margin beyond that. Scale points are then awarded on top of the SCORING MARGIN, which depends on where the opponent is ranked at the time of the game. A cap is also applied for offensive scoring, which is 50 points and scale points are added on top of that under the same guidlines as SCORING MARGIN.

Because of the format for overtime games and how easy it is to score, only the winning margin is calculated on top of the score after regulation. For example, a game that ends tied at 27 after regulation play with a final overtime score of 50-47, means the final score will be calculated as 30-27--the three-point margin on top of the regulation score.

So what you are looking at is an average of computer polls, the human element (coaches and writers polls), strength of schedule (WIN, OPP and OPP/OPP points), and the three scoring categories (SCORING MARGIN, OFFENSIVE and DEFENSIVE).

If this were the official poll, the beauty of this system would be in the fact that it's able to start at the beginning of the season, which includes the fans. What makes up for any over or underrated teams early in the season, is taken care of as the season progresses; The more games played, the more points built up and the more accurate the rankings become. The current BCS system isn't published until October, which excludes the fans.

A good example is if team A beats a 6-0 and top ten team that winds up being overrated by finishing 8-4. Team A will get credit for beating that 6-0 team with WIN points but if that eventual 8-4 team doesn't have any strong victories the rest of the season, then team A only gets OPPONENTS-points worth those eight victories and that big victory over the then 6-0 team is diminished over time.

This system is also not dominated by the opinion polls, as the BCS. These two polls are counted equally with the five computer polls. The three WIN-point columns are weighed more heavily, then the computer and opinion polls are weighed in next. The lowest weighted categories are the three SCORING columns. The winning team continues to feed off any opponent they beat through WIN, OPPONENTS and OPP/OPP's points, which may or may not be worth much at the end of the season.

The point being, who cares who's ranked high at the beginning of the season? That's for the fans to argue and enjoy but at least they're not excluded in the beginning. So, the question is, how does the BCS become more accurate as the season goes along? They have a starting point as well, they just don't publish it. It's still an opinion-dominated system. And without a playoff system, which I'm not advocating, there has to be a good, comprehensive ranking system to take its place. The TSR system does that, the BCS does not.

With the exclusion of strength of schedule, the BCS has basically handed college football's fate into the hands of opinions. Sure, the computer polls count for one-third but the other two-thirds are opinions--coaches and writer's, which quite frankly, are the most arbitrary and least comprehensive of any system out there--and now, they are two-thirds of the BCS poll.

What further hurts the BCS is that they release no final BCS rankings after the bowls. They stop short which fuels talk of a split national championship just because an opinion poll may differ from the BCS winner.

Filed by J.D. Long