New metric, sustained win rate, has Ohio State on top of all programs

· Yahoo Sports

We live in a sea of analytics these days, but some hold more value than others. A new metric, sustained win rate, or SWR, for college football programs, has been developed by Patrick Conn of USA TODAY, and Ohio State finished on top of all other programs with a rating of 0.9387. The top five behind the Buckeyes are Georgia (0.9069), Alabama (0.8966), Clemson (0.7768), and Notre Dame (0.7639). But before we understand what that means, it's important to define what went into making the sausage.

According to Conn, the following data went into computing the SWR for every college football program:

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  1. Schedule-adjusted win percentage: This is a raw win rate adjusted for a bonus or penalty based on how strong or weak a team's opponents were that year. The baseline is .500 since that is all a team has to be to become bowl-eligible.
  2. Recency weighting: This is simply a way to give more weight to recent seasons than older seasons. Why should the data in 2014 matter more than what transpired in 2025? Honestly, it shouldn't.
  3. Consistency scoring: This is calculated in two different ways. One is a simple percentage of seasons over .500, and the other is a stricter version based on year-to-year volatility. I kept both because they tell different stories.
  4. Final SWR: The weighted win rate multiplied by the consistency score.

That's all good and fine, but why the need for a sustained win rate? According to Conn, winning percentage is a good metric, but it doesn't tell the whole story. For example, Ohio State is tops in all-time winning percentage in the FBS, but for a period of time, Boise State was ahead of the Buckeyes. Clearly, the Broncos' competition wasn't anything close to what Ohio State was facing year after year. The data should also be recent so as not to give a false sense of being consistent on a recent basis.

All of that in mind, here's how all of the Big Ten teams rank in SWR.

Team RankingSustained Win Rate (SWR)1. Ohio State (No. 1 overall)0.93872. Oregon (No. 7 overall)0.72573. Iowa (No. 8 overall)0.68684. Penn State (No. 9 overall)0.67215. Michigan (No. 10 overall)0.66326. Washington (No. 16 overall)0.56577. USC (No. 18 overall)0.55488. Wisconsin (No. 20 overall)0.50959. Minnesota (No. 38 overall)0.389610. Northwestern (No. 63 overall)0.285911. Michigan State (No. 68 overall)0.260612. UCLA (No. 84 overall)0.215313. Indiana (No. 88 overall)0.193814. Maryland (No. 95 overall)0.152615. Nebraska (No. 96 overall)0.150416. Illinois (No. 103)0.126217. Purdue (No. 114)0.101118 Rutgers (No. 115)0.0982

A lot of this is not very surprising. You would expect Ohio State and Oregon to be near the top, and Purdue and Rutgers among the bottom-feeders. However, it is a little surprising to see Iowa at No. 3 above both Penn State and Michigan. Then again, the Hawkeyes haven't gone through recent seasons of inconsistency.

As always, though SWR is another fun metric, it only tells part of the story. Penn State seems to be penalized too much for last season, and Indiana's history is dragging it down. It is another metric that says Ohio State is one of the best all-time college football programs and also one of the most recession-proof.

To get a look at all the SWR rankings, head on over to College Sports Wire and check it out, complete with graphics and a drill-down by program.

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This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: New metric, sustained win rate, has Ohio State on top of all programs

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