DSA Labs Research · First of its kind
Every college football team. One scale.
Every division normally gets ranked on its own, with its own #1 set to 100. That means a 100 in DIII and a 100 in FBS are not the same team. We used the games played between divisions to measure how far apart they really are, then put all 668 teams in FBS, FCS, DII and DIII on a single index.
2026 season · live · updated October 8, 2026
- Teams on one scale
- 668
- Games analyzed
- 1,634
- Cross-division bridges
- 185
- Unconnected, flagged
- 22
Where each division's #1 lands overall
- FBS5-0
Miami Hurricanes
Overall rank
#1
Index
100.0
- FCS6-0
Lehigh Mountain Hawks
Overall rank
#137
Index
7.36
- DII5-0
Ferris State Bulldogs
Overall rank
#221
Index
2.09
- DIII4-0
The shape of the sport
How the divisions stack up
Each dot is one team, placed by its overall rank. FBS fills the top of the table on its own. The first team from outside FBS is Lehigh Mountain Hawks (FCS) at #137. Below that, the other three divisions mix together, and the best DIII teams usually finish above the best DII teams.
The rankings
All divisions, one table
Index is on one scale where the top FBS team is 100. Because the model is Bradley-Terry, the numbers work as ratios: a team with an Index of 50 is half as strong as one at 100. The bar uses a log scale so you can still see the differences between teams outside FBS.
| Rank | Team | Div | Div rank | Record | Div index | Index (log scale) | vs #1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miami Hurricanes | FBS | 1 | 5-0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | — |
| 2 | Indiana Hoosiers | FBS | 2 | 5-0 | 98.8 | 98.8 | 49.7% |
| 3 | BYU Cougars | FBS | 3 | 4-0 | 88.1 | 88.1 | 46.8% |
| 4 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | FBS | 4 | 5-0 | 87.3 | 87.3 | 46.6% |
| 5 | Alabama Crimson Tide | FBS | 5 | 5-0 | 87.2 | 87.2 | 46.6% |
| 6 | Georgia Bulldogs | FBS | 6 | 5-0 | 84.1 | 84.1 | 45.7% |
| 7 | James Madison Dukes | FBS | 7 | 5-0 | 82.7 | 82.7 | 45.3% |
| 8 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | FBS | 8 | 5-0 | 81.7 | 81.7 | 45.0% |
| 9 | Texas Longhorns | FBS | 9 | 4-0 | 79.6 | 79.6 | 44.3% |
| 10 | Oregon Ducks | FBS | 10 | 3-1 | 79.0 | 79.0 | 44.1% |
| 11 | Utah Utes | FBS | 11 | 4-0 | 75.7 | 75.7 | 43.1% |
| 12 | Ohio State Buckeyes | FBS | 12 | 4-1 | 74.1 | 74.1 | 42.5% |
| 13 | Duke Blue Devils | FBS | 13 | 4-0 | 68.9 | 68.9 | 40.8% |
| 14 | Pittsburgh Panthers | FBS | 14 | 5-0 | 66.2 | 66.2 | 39.8% |
| 15 | Ole Miss Rebels | FBS | 15 | 3-1 | 66.2 | 66.2 | 39.8% |
| 16 | USC Trojans | FBS | 16 | 5-1 | 62.5 | 62.5 | 38.5% |
| 17 | Houston Cougars | FBS | 17 | 4-1 | 62.5 | 62.5 | 38.5% |
| 18 | North Dakota State Bison | FBS | 18 | 5-0 | 61.9 | 61.9 | 38.2% |
| 19 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | FBS | 19 | 5-0 | 60.8 | 60.8 | 37.8% |
| 20 | Boise State Broncos | FBS | 20 | 4-1 | 60.1 | 60.1 | 37.5% |
| 21 | Wake Forest Demon Deacons | FBS | 21 | 4-1 | 59.1 | 59.1 | 37.1% |
| 22 | North Texas Mean Green | FBS | 22 | 3-2 | 58.8 | 58.8 | 37.0% |
| 23 | Iowa Hawkeyes | FBS | 23 | 4-1 | 57.6 | 57.6 | 36.6% |
| 24 | UCLA Bruins | FBS | 24 | 4-0 | 56.9 | 56.9 | 36.3% |
| 25 | Arizona Wildcats | FBS | 25 | 4-1 | 56.5 | 56.5 | 36.1% |
| 26 | South Florida Bulls | FBS | 26 | 4-1 | 54.9 | 54.9 | 35.5% |
| 27 | SMU Mustangs | FBS | 27 | 4-1 | 54.9 | 54.9 | 35.4% |
| 28 | Fresno State Bulldogs | FBS | 28 | 4-1 | 54.6 | 54.6 | 35.3% |
| 29 | LSU Tigers | FBS | 29 | 4-1 | 54.4 | 54.4 | 35.3% |
| 30 | Memphis Tigers | FBS | 30 | 4-1 | 53.6 | 53.6 | 34.9% |
| 31 | Florida Gators | FBS | 31 | 4-1 | 53.4 | 53.4 | 34.8% |
| 32 | Missouri Tigers | FBS | 32 | 4-1 | 53.1 | 53.1 | 34.7% |
| 33 | UTSA Roadrunners | FBS | 33 | 4-1 | 53.1 | 53.1 | 34.7% |
| 34 | Kentucky Wildcats | FBS | 34 | 4-1 | 51.3 | 51.3 | 33.9% |
| 35 | Wisconsin Badgers | FBS | 35 | 4-1 | 50.8 | 50.8 | 33.7% |
| 36 | Minnesota Golden Gophers | FBS | 36 | 4-1 | 50.4 | 50.4 | 33.5% |
| 37 | New Mexico Lobos | FBS | 37 | 4-1 | 50.3 | 50.3 | 33.4% |
| 38 | Mississippi State Bulldogs | FBS | 38 | 4-1 | 50.2 | 50.2 | 33.4% |
| 39 | Tennessee Volunteers | FBS | 39 | 4-1 | 49.2 | 49.2 | 33.0% |
| 40 | Oklahoma Sooners | FBS | 40 | 2-2 | 49.1 | 49.1 | 32.9% |
| 41 | Baylor Bears | FBS | 41 | 4-1 | 48.5 | 48.5 | 32.7% |
| 42 | Northwestern Wildcats | FBS | 42 | 3-1 | 48.4 | 48.4 | 32.6% |
| 43 | Vanderbilt Commodores | FBS | 43 | 3-2 | 48.1 | 48.1 | 32.5% |
| 44 | Texas A&M Aggies | FBS | 44 | 3-2 | 47.8 | 47.8 | 32.4% |
| 45 | Tulane Green Wave | FBS | 45 | 2-2 | 47.5 | 47.5 | 32.2% |
| 46 | Toledo Rockets | FBS | 46 | 4-1 | 46.5 | 46.5 | 31.7% |
| 47 | Cincinnati Bearcats | FBS | 47 | 4-1 | 45.3 | 45.3 | 31.2% |
| 48 | Michigan Wolverines | FBS | 48 | 3-2 | 45.2 | 45.2 | 31.1% |
| 49 | Liberty Flames | FBS | 49 | 4-1 | 44.3 | 44.3 | 30.7% |
| 50 | Virginia Tech Hokies | FBS | 50 | 4-1 | 43.8 | 43.8 | 30.5% |
Showing 50 of 690
Matchup lab
Pick any two teams, from any division
Every team is on the same scale, so we can estimate a result between teams that would never meet: a DIII champion against a mid-table FBS team, or the top FCS team against a Power 4 school. Home field multiplies the home team's strength by 1.45.
vs
24.8%
Lehigh Mountain Hawks
75.2%
Old Dominion Monarchs
- Lehigh Mountain Hawks
- #137 · 7.36 · 6-0
- Old Dominion Monarchs
- #104 · 22.3 · 1-4
- Strength ratio
- 1 / 3.03
- Confidence
- Moderate: cross-division
The research
How we put 700 teams on one scale
01 — The naive approach
Putting every game into one model doesn't work
The simple idea is to load every game into one model and let the results sort it out. We tested that on the full 2025 season: 3,824 games, 699 teams, and 99% of teams linked by a chain of results. The ranking still made no sense. Only 227 games (6%) were played between divisions. That wasn't enough to separate four talent pools, so a 14-1 DIII team ended up looking a lot like a 13-2 FBS team.
- 1FBSIndiana Hoosiers15-0
- 2DIIIWisconsin-River Falls Falcons14-1
- 3DIIFerris State Bulldogs16-0