The Billingsley Report is a

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

rating system developed in the late 1960s to determine a national champion. Billingsley has actively rated college football teams on a current basis since 1970. Beginning in 1999, Billingsley's ratings were included as one of seven mathematical formulas included in the

Bowl Championship Series The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a college football post-season selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of America ...

(BCS) rankings. Unlike the other mathematical formulas included in the BCS rankings, the Billingsley Report was not prepared by a trained mathematician or statistician. Instead, the Billingsley Report is prepared by Richard Billingsley (born c. 1951), a lifelong college football fan in

Hugo, Oklahoma Hugo is a city in and the county seat of Choctaw County, Oklahoma, Choctaw County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located in southeastern Oklahoma, approximately north of the Texas state line. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, t ...

. Billingsley attended Texas Bible College, became a minister and later a consultant in the country music business. He began preparing his own weekly college football ratings as a hobby. Billingsley has also applied his ratings methodology retroactively to select national champions for each year from 1869 to 1870 and from 1872 to 1969. Since 1996, the "Billingsley Report" has been one of the selectors of historic national champions recognized by the

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(NCAA) in its Football Bowl Subdivision record book. The NCAA describes Billingsley's methodology as follows: " The main feature of his system is the inclusion of a unique rule for head-to-head competition, with the overall system consisting of a balanced approach to wins, losses, strength of schedule, and home-field advantage. A slight weight is given to most recent performance. The Billingsley formula does not use margin of victory, however, the Billingsley MOV formula does include margin of victory in the calculations.". Analysis shows that Billingsley's ranking system typically strongly disagrees with other computer ranking systems and more closely resembles human ranking schemes, likely due to the ''ad hoc'' and often self-conflicting nature of Billingsley's many ratings adjustments, such as weighting later season games as more important than early season games, adjusting win values by stadium attendance, forcing head to head victors to be ranked above their defeated opponents (but only until their next game), and discounting the value of wins by teams with more losses. Richard Billingsley is also the owner of the College Football Research Center.

National champions

Billingsley Report selections first appeared in the 1995 edition of the NCAA records book, listing champions since 1960. In the 1996 book these champions were joined with retrospective selections all the way back to 1869. This original set of champions was last printed in the 1999 NCAA records book. In 1998 Billingsley adjusted his formula in order to participate as a computer poll in the

rankings. He re-ranked all past seasons with this new formula; these new champions were printed in the 2000–2003 NCAA records books. Prior to the 2001 season, Billingsley again changed the formula in order to remove "Margin of Victory" from the system's BCS calculations. This third set of champions appeared in the 2004–2012 NCAA books. Finally, beginning in 2013, the NCAA records books profess to list both Billingsley's "No Margin of Victory" and "Margin of Victory" champions in cases where they differ. However, this list is ''not'' a simple superset of the previous two sets of champions. The table below lists the 4 distinct sets of Billingsley Report national champions printed in NCAA records books since 1995. The selections are additionally sourced to the College Football Research Center website, where Billingsley made the same updates to his national champions after each change to the Billingsley Report formula. † Teams chosen solely by Billingsley amongst NCAA-designated "major selectors".

References

{{reflist , refs= {{cite news , last=Billingsley , first=Richard , date=October 21, 2001 , url=http://www.espn.com/ncf/s/formula.html , title=As the game changes, so do the formulas , work=ESPN.com , access-date=July 22, 2023 , quote=Over the years the formula has been modified four times. At the inception of the poll in 1970, the formula was heavily weighted in margin of victory. In 1975, I recognized that fact and took steps to minimize the impact scoring margins had on the results. In 1980, I modified the formula to handle tie games more effectively, which is a moot issue now with our overtime rules, and in 1998, I once again diminished the margin of victory and extended the decimal range to three digits. The most recent — and most prominent change — came in this offseason when I decided to take the scoring margin out completely. {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/details/1995-ncaa-football-records-book-national-champions , title=1995 NCAA Football Records Book , publisher=

, date=1995 , pages=54–58 , access-date=July 15, 2023 {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/details/1996-ncaa-football-records-book-national-champions , title=1996 NCAA Football Records Book , publisher=

, date=1996 , pages=54–59 , access-date=July 15, 2023 , quote=Billingsley Report (1960–present), a mathematically based power rating system developed by Richard Billingsley of

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. His work is published annually as the Billingsley Report through his own company, the College Football Research Center. In 1996, he finished his three-year research project ranking the national champions from 1869–95. Predated national champions from 1869–1959. {{cite book , url=https://archive.org/details/1999-ncaa-football-records-book-national-champions , title=1999 NCAA Football Records Book , publisher=

, date=1999 , pages=58–65 , access-date=July 15, 2023 {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/DI/2000/FBS.pdf , title=2000 NCAA Football Division I-A Records , publisher=

, date=2000 , access-date=May 10, 2023 {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/DI/2003/2003RB.pdf , title=Official 2003 NCAA Football Records , pages=73–80 , publisher=The National Collegiate Athletic Association , date=August 2003 , location=Indianapolis , access-date=May 10, 2023 , quote=Billingsley Report (1970-present), a mathematically based power rating system developed by Richard Billingsley of Nashville, Tennessee. His work is published annually as the Billingsley Report through his own company, the College Football Research Center. In 1996, he finished his three-year research project ranking the national champions from 1869-95. The research is located on the World Wide Web at www.CFRC.com. Predated national champions from 1869-1970. Member of 2002 BCS. {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/DI/2004/2004RB.pdf , title=Official 2004 NCAA Football Records , pages=81–88 , publisher=The National Collegiate Athletic Association , date=August 2004 , location=Indianapolis , access-date=May 10, 2023 , quote=Billingsley Report (1970-present), a mathematically based power rating system developed by Richard Billingsley of Hugo, Oklahoma. The main feature of his system is the inclusion of a unique rule for head-to-head competition, with the overall system consisting of a balanced approach to wins, losses, strength of schedule, and home-field advantage. A slight weight is given to most recent performance. The 2004 publication represents an updated list of champions based on his ‘no margin of victory formula,’ and supersedes any previous reports. Member of 2003 BCS. {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2012/fbs.pdf , title=2012 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records , publisher=

, date=2012 , access-date=May 12, 2023 {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2013/FBS.pdf , title=2013 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records , publisher=

, date=2013 , access-date=May 12, 2023 , quote=Billingsley Report (1970-present), a mathematically based power rating system developed by Richard Billingsley of Hugo, Oklahoma. The main feature of his system is the inclusion of a unique rule for head-to-head competition, with the overall system consisting of a balanced approach to wins, losses, strength of schedule, and home-field advantage. A slight weight is given to most recent performance. The Billingsley formula does not use margin of victory, however, the Billingsley MOV formula does include margin of victory in the calculations. {{cite book , url=http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2022/FBS.pdf , title=2022 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records , publisher=

, date=2022 , access-date=May 12, 2023 College football championships College football awards organizations

National champions

See also

References