THE ALGORITHM

Who has accomplished the most this season?

That's the only question QU4D asks. Not who's playing the best right now, and not who has the shiniest record — who went out and beat the toughest teams they could find, and didn't hand games away to teams they shouldn't have. Two teams can finish with the exact same record and look completely different once you account for who they actually played.

Every FBS team gets a resume score — we call it QU4D score — built entirely from wins and losses, weighted by the quality of the opponent. Underneath that sits a separate power rating called SDR, which is what decides how good an opponent actually was. This page walks through both, using this season's live settings.

No committee, poll, or vote touches any of it — every number on this site comes straight out of the math, from the final scores alone. Human input has zero impact on the rankings.

Beating good teams counts. Beating bad ones barely does.

Before scoring a game, QU4D sorts every FBS team into one of four tiers — Q1 (best) through Q4 (worst) — based on their own rating. A win or a loss is then worth a fixed number of points depending on which tier the opponent fell in, this season:

QUAD1

Win: +12
Loss: 0

QUAD2

Win: +6
Loss: -1

QUAD3

Win: +2
Loss: -3

QUAD4

Win: 0
Loss: -6

Losing to a Q1 team does cost something, but only a little bit — a small deduction, not a real mark against you. Losing to a Q4 team, on the other hand, costs 6 points — the kind of loss a good team simply shouldn't have. Winning works the same way in reverse: a Q1 win is worth 12x a Q4 win, because everyone is expected to beat bad teams. A win also earns a small bonus for facing a tougher opponent and for winning by more, and a loss is docked a little less if it was close — but which quad the game falls in is what drives the score.

Where a team lands depends on where you play them

Every team's quad is decided by its opponent's SDR rating — and that bar moves depending on the game's location, since a good win on the road is worth more than the same win at home. This season, an opponent needs a rating of 86.00 or better to count as Q1 at home, but only 82.00 on the road. Q2 works the same way (79.00 at home, 75.00 on the road).

Q3's cutoff isn't a fixed number at all — every week it's reset to whichever team currently sits at rank #68 in the SDR ratings — that's the number of Power 4 teams, counting Notre Dame (right now, New Mexico, at 66.84), then shifted down slightly further for neutral-site and road games. Anyone rated below that line is Q4.

Every FBS team, sorted into the quad they'd count as if you played them at your place — based on Week 15, 2025's ratings.

QUAD1

86.00 or better

Indiana100.00

Texas Tech98.89

Ohio St.98.84

Notre Dame95.04

Oregon93.85

Miami (FL)92.48

Utah92.26

Georgia88.99

Vanderbilt87.38

Texas A&M87.29

Iowa86.65

Southern California86.26

QUAD2

79.00 – 86.00

Oklahoma85.88

Ole Miss85.77

BYU85.68

Alabama85.33

Washington84.21

Arizona82.76

Penn St.82.67

Michigan81.67

Missouri81.42

Texas81.28

South Fla.80.59

Illinois80.15

Tennessee79.90

SMU79.72

QUAD3

66.84 – 79.00

Louisville78.09

Pittsburgh77.78

Auburn77.68

Kansas St.77.38

North Texas77.14

James Madison77.01

TCU76.89

Iowa St.76.79

Virginia76.66

LSU76.54

Florida St.76.43

Arizona St.75.77

Clemson75.14

South Carolina74.87

Cincinnati74.22

Kansas73.54

Houston73.40

Georgia Tech73.37

Florida73.37

Arkansas73.11

Duke72.90

NC State72.42

Nebraska72.07

Northwestern71.91

Boise St.71.50

Mississippi St.71.37

Toledo71.22

East Carolina70.95

Washington St.70.89

Baylor70.85

Kentucky70.51

Wisconsin70.39

Tulane70.31

Memphis70.14

Wake Forest69.88

Rutgers69.19

San Diego St.69.03

Old Dominion68.89

Michigan St.67.97

Minnesota67.31

UNLV66.84

New Mexico66.84

QUAD4

below 66.84 and FCS

UCF66.64

Maryland66.48

UTSA65.98

Navy65.31

UCLA65.11

Purdue65.00

Utah St.64.77

Colorado64.34

West Virginia63.88

Hawaii63.83

Virginia Tech63.27

Stanford62.79

Army West Point62.62

California62.44

Fresno St.62.00

UConn61.91

Western Mich.61.58

Ohio61.45

Kennesaw St.61.34

Texas St.61.16

Louisiana Tech60.38

Boston College58.85

Miami (OH)58.56

Air Force58.16

North Carolina57.88

Western Ky.57.46

Syracuse57.01

Troy56.99

Temple56.62

Marshall56.32

Southern Miss.56.07

Oklahoma St.55.72

Central Mich.55.33

Missouri St.54.60

Wyoming54.49

FIU54.25

Liberty53.83

Jacksonville St.53.63

Colorado St.52.90

Arkansas St.52.90

Louisiana52.42

South Alabama52.41

Oregon St.52.27

Nevada51.65

App State51.38

Fla. Atlantic51.29

San Jose St.50.67

Tulsa50.50

Delaware50.42

Ga. Southern50.33

Bowling Green50.25

Buffalo50.11

Eastern Mich.50.10

UAB49.23

NIU49.18

Rice48.40

Coastal Carolina48.14

New Mexico St.47.89

Kent St.47.75

Middle Tenn.46.72

Akron45.59

UTEP45.34

Georgia St.44.82

Ball St.43.39

ULM42.71

Charlotte41.83

Sam Houston37.72

Massachusetts28.85

What is SDR?

SDR is the power rating behind everything above — a single number, roughly 0 to 100, that answers “how good is this team, based purely on what they've done on the field this season?” The simplest way to think about it: SDR is a team's average scoring margin for the season, adjusted for who they played. Right now the top-rated team, Indiana, sits at 100.00 and the #25 team, Tennessee, sits at 79.90 — a gap of about 20.1 points. That gap is QU4D's best estimate of how many points better one team has played than the other on a neutral field, based on this season's results.

Every final score counts, but blowouts are capped at a 42-point margin — running the score up past that point doesn't earn a team anything extra.
Every team is solved together, as one connected system, using every FBS result from the whole season. That way a good win over a team nobody had rated yet still gets full credit once that opponent's own results catch up.
Ratings are rescaled every week so the single best team always lands at exactly 100 — keeping the scale comparable from one week to the next.
Strength of schedule (SOS) is just the average SDR of everyone a team has played.