About
FROM THECHEAP SEATS.
Built for the fans. No media input, no corporate input. Just the data.
What this is
The Cheap Seats Index ranks teams and players the way a fan in the top row would if they had every box score: from what happened on the field and nothing else. No media voters, no committee, no company deciding who matters. It starts with college football; more sports will follow the same rules.
College football
The college football index rates every FBS and FCS team from the games they have played this season: who they played, where, and by how much. It does not use preseason expectations, recruiting rankings, last season, polls or anybody else's ratings. A team's place is what it has earned on the field.
Around the index sit the tools to read a season: a story for every team and every player, a matchup simulator, predictions for every game graded against the final score, playoff and conference race projections, award watch lists and charts.
How it works, in one minute
Power measures how well a team plays, adjusted for every opponent and site. Résumé measures how hard its record would be to match against the same schedule. The index weighs the two equally. Predictions come from the power gap plus home field, and the rest of the season is played 10,000 times to project records, conference titles and the playoff. The Method page has every detail.
When it updates
Ratings, predictions, stories and charts update every Sunday afternoon (Mountain time) after the Saturday games. The AP and College Football Playoff rankings, shown only as small comparison tags, refresh on Tuesday nights when the committee releases its list. Neither poll is used in any rating.
Independent
This is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the NCAA, any conference, school, bowl, the College Football Playoff, ESPN or CollegeFootballData.com. See Sources for where the data comes from and Terms for how it may be used.