If you have read the other parts of the magazine, I am sure you are familiar with the fact that I have EIGHT different sets of power ratings that I create each preseason to give me 8 different ways of looking at a team. The last few years I have provided you with one of those sets here. It is the one that will most closely resemble the Top 25 polls as it is based on last year’s scores and adjustments made for this year. Let me take a minute of your time to give you a little history on my fascination and dependency on power ratings when analyzing a team in the preseason and during the season. I am in my mid-40’s and I started following college football with great intensity at about 10 years old. At that time (being a numbers guy) I devised my own set of power ratings which was based mostly on where the preseason magazines I was reading ranked the teams. Being 10, I even awarded points at that time for how many pictured players each team had in the magazines. I updated those ratings during the season based on the final scores of the games and that is how most were done. One of the reasons for this particular article is that a few years later after compiling my ratings (and no longer counting pictures), I stumbled upon the Game Plan magazine. In the front of the magazine was a set of power ratings for each team!! I now had two sets of power ratings on each team and I updated them both during the year giving me two different ways of looking at the strength of a team. This year I thought for all of you who like to use a set of power ratings, that I would provide you with ONE of my 8 sets. Is this the main set of ratings that I use? No, that would be my Power Poll rankings which are a combination of the 8 sets. This is a solid set of numbers, however, what I have noticed is that it most closely resembles what the general perception of each team is heading into 2007. First of all, let me tell you about some of my other power ratings. One of my main sets is the talent rating. For this I rank each position on every team from 4 for weakest to 10 for strongest in the country. They are ranked to the decimal. For example, I will rate a QB position at 7.87 if I feel they are a hair weaker than a 7.89 team. I add all of the positions up, add in special teams and coaching and that set is ready. The second one to look at is the Power Plays numbers. I take a look at last year’s final numbers which not only take into account the score of the game but the strength of each team’s offensive rush and pass also the defensive rush and pass. When doing my power ratings I always award what I call a Plus/Minus for each position. If a team had an All-American VHT QB last year and is going to an inexperienced one that is not a VHT, then they would rate a minus 6. If a team had no experience at a position, suffered through injuries last year with poor production, but now has everyone back including the injured players who are more experienced, while adding new talent to the mix they would rate a plus 6. Everything else falls in between. To make my Power Plays numbers for THIS year I looked at last year’s and applied the Plus/Minus for each position to them to develop the computer projection. I mentioned that I rank each position from 4 to 10 which gives me a fresh set of numbers based just on this year and have a formula which takes the talent of each position (example: pass offense would be QB plus WR plus O-line) and converts it to a Power Plays number. I compare the two Power Plays numbers derived from two different methods then put my own thoughts into refining the figures and come up with an opening number for the next season. I could write a book (or a magazine for that matter) on how I devise each of the 8 sets but that gives you some idea of how I do two sets of my power ratings. As for the ratings listed below, these are my Plus/Minus ratings. I first take last year’s final Plus/Minus ratings which are compounded mostly by the score of each game last year and the strength of opponents played. Losing to USC by 5 would move a team up in the ratings (USC would have been expected to win big) while beating Buffalo by 20 last year would probably have moved the same team down. I then take my aforementioned Plus/Minus ratings and add them to the totals. Some teams are weaker than last year and drop in the rankings while the ones that are improved move up. As mentioned this is just ONE set of power ratings. A note here is that on page 315 I rank the teams based on the Power Poll which is all 8 ratings combined so that page does indeed differ with this one as far as rankings. The Plus/Minus ratings are a good set of ratings but I personally put more weight into the Power Poll as it combines all 8. Below I list my current 2007 Plus/Minus ratings for the upcoming season. I hope you find them useful. | 
