CompughterRatings.com Wins College Football Preseason Accuracy Honors

Online, June 18, 2010 (Newswire.com) - CompughterRatings.com was crowned the #1 most accurate publication for predicting the conference finishes for the 2009 NCAA College Football regular season. The website Stassen.com, which was referenced in the editor's column of the 2009 edition of Athon Sports magazine, ranked the accuracy of 17 publications in terms of predicting the order of conference finish for all 120 FBS teams (bowl games excluded). CompughterRatings.com came in at #1, significantly ahead of well-known publications like Sports Illustrated, USA Today, The Sporting News, Athlon Sports, Lindy's, and Phil Steele. The full listing of publications and their associated rank can be found on Stassen.com.

CompughterRatings.com is owned and operated by Steve Pugh, a former mathematics student at Virginia Tech. The significance of Pugh's achievement is the fact that the preseason predictions published by CompughterRatings.com were 100% computer generated. Millions of copies of print publications are sold every college football preseason, with the consumer draw being the expert analysis and opinion of the sports writers. For the 2009 season, however, Pugh's computer algorithm predicted the conference finishes most accurately, with no external bias or knowledge of player injuries, coaching changes, or off-the-field activities. The algorithm uses an iterative technique to measure teams based on how well they performed against their competition in a given season. Preseason ratings are used as a starting point until an adequate number of games have been played. As more and more games are played, the rankings become more of a measurement of past performance than predictions about future outcomes.

CompughterRatings.com will publish the 2010 College Football Preseason Rankings on Sunday, August 1st, 2010.