The CFB Wire
Power Ratings & Poll
Two rankings from one engine — the WPR measures pure team strength, the WP weighs résumé.
Welcome to The CFB Wire
An introduction to the Wire Power Ratings and the Wire Poll — two different ways to look at college football, both built from the same engine.
How the Wire Power Rating Is Built
A walkthrough of the four components that feed into the WPR — from preseason priors to game-day adjustments.
The CFB Wire publishes two college football rankings built from one model. We will explain any major movers and any updates we make to refine the model in real time. You'll know what we're doing and why we're doing it.
The WPR (Wire Power Ratings) measures pure team strength — who would win on a neutral field, regardless of record.
The WP (Wire Poll) adds a résumé layer — rewarding quality wins and penalizing bad losses to mirror how the CFP committee thinks.
What sets it apart: the model aggressively trusts current-season data over preseason assumptions. By midseason, what happened last year barely matters. The hope is that this is more effective as a betting metric (WPR) and as a playoff ranking indicator (WP).
Welcome to The CFB Wire
An introduction to the Wire Power Ratings and the Wire Poll — two different ways to look at college football, both built from the same engine.
How the Wire Power Rating Is Built
A walkthrough of the four components that feed into the WPR — from preseason priors to game-day adjustments.