I introduced a new concept called the Quality Opponent Factor (QOF) Rating which focuses on how teams have performed against other elite teams. I set the bar at a nine win minimum. The purpose of this was to come up with a rating variable to rank the top teams in the country as it becomes very difficult to effectively rank the difference between Penn State, Georgia, UCLA, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech and Rutgers.

Since I utilized this rating scale to evaluate the SEC Conference in my previous article, I wanted to run this same criteria against the BCSBuster Pre-Season Top-25 to see if I ranked each team correctly. I chose the last three seasons as a common parameter and ran the results. It was a pretty shocking discovery!

BCSBusters QOF-Ratings Top-25

1. USC (12-2) - .857
2. Boston College (6-2) - .750
3. Auburn (10-4) - .714
4. Texas (6-3) - .666
5. Boise State (6-3) - .666
6. LSU (7-6) - .538
7. Florida (8-7) - .533

8T. Georgia (7-7) - .500

8T. Virginia Tech (6-6) - .500

8T. Louisville (4-4) - .500

8T. Ohio State (5-5) - .500

8T. Michigan (6-6) - .500

9. Notre Dame (6-7) - .461
10. West Virginia (5-6) - .454
11. Rutgers (4-5) - .444
12. Wisconsin (3-4) - .428
13. Oklahoma (5-7) - .416
14. Miami (4-6) - .400
15. Wake Forest (4-7) - .363

16T. Clemson (3-6) - .333

16T. California (3-6) - .333

17. Georgia Tech (4-9) - .307
18. Arizona (4-9) - .307
19. Florida State (3-7) - .300

20T. Tennessee (4-10) - .285

20T. Houston (2-5) - .285

21. Iowa (3-8) - .272
22. UCLA (2-6) - .250
23. So. Florida (2-6) - .250
24. Oregon State (3-10) - .230

25T. Texas Tech (2-7) - .222

25T. Oklahoma State (2-7) - .222

26T. Maryland (2-8) - .200

26T. Washington State (2-8) - .200

27. South Carolina (2-10) - .166
28. Kentucky (2-12) - .142
29. Arkansas (2-13) - .133

The three teams that look out of place are Boston College, Arizona and (gulp - gasp) Notre Dame. Other than that, this has become a pretty good tool for me because all the teams in the various rankings that are close together in terms of their Quality Opponent Factor are pretty darn close in terms of overall projection. I know it isn't proper to rank a team before a game is played based on previous seasons successes, but isn't this how we actually base our rankings? And shouldn't we be basing our rankings, especially a pre-season poll, on recent success, and not the typical 30-50 year traditional status in the game? Let me know what you think of this ranking tool and I will break down all of the BCS Conferences over the next couple of days.