My reason for not just including all of division 1 in the ratings was that doing so would give too much influence to teams that are very weakly or not at all connected to 1A. The ratings results for the last few years have convinced me that my rules for inclusion were still a little too generous, so I've simplified them a bit. The result is a 216-team field for 2017.
All teams in 1A are included by default (but would have been anyway.) From 1AA we have all teams in the Big Sky, Colonial, Mid-Eastern Athletic, Missour Valley, Southern and Southland conferences. All Big South teams except Liberty and Presbyterian are included, as are all Southwestern Athletic teams except Alabama State, Alcorn State, and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
These are the teams who have more than half of their games against teams that are 1A or have a 1A team as a scheduled opponent. Games these teams play against teams outside of the field are not included in my ratings calculations. No teams from the Ivy League, Northeast, Patriot or Pioneer are in the field.
With the minor change in its constitution and the cancellations, the field will not be connected until Florida International and Central Florida each play another team in the field. After week 4's games the field will be connected at diameter 10. I may publish preliminary ratings for week 4, but mostly to ensure that the programs still work.
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The distance matrix for currently scheduled games is at the Ratings Field for 2017.
© Copyright 2017, Paul Kislanko
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