Preseason Prediction Accuracy (1997-2001)

See "notes" following the table for more information on its contents.

Magazine	Rank	Total Score	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997
Lindy's	1	672	155	124	152	117	124
Phil Steele's	2	683	148	130	143	120	142
Street & Smith	3	688	180	136	138	119	115
Athlon	4	692	162	134	149	120	127
GamePlan	5	696	165	132	157	126	116
CNN/SI [Web Site]	6	703	177	125	144	124	133
Jim Feist's	7	707	162	129	162	122	132
ATS Consultants	8	724½	158½	147	158	127	134
Preview Sports	9t	725	168	134	153	138	132
The Sporting News	9t	725	173	135	155	124	138

This page shows the accuracy of preseason magazines' conference predictions for the five-year span 1997-2001 ("the last five years" going into the 2002 season). In order to qualify for either table, a magazine must have been published for every year used in that table.

There is also a "1999-2001 (last three years)" table, and a "1993-2001 (all-time)" table.

Tables with more years have the advantage of having a larger sample of data: a single unusually lucky or unlucky year has less impact on the standings. However, tables with fewer years have the advantage of including more magazines: several of the magazines available today were not published if one goes back far enough.

Notes:

Lower scores are "better." The lower the score, the closer the magazine's predictions were to the actual results.
Some magazines don't predict every I-A conference; those included in this table are shown in bold. (Their scores include the "average" of other magazines' scores for the non-predicted conferences, plus a two-point penalty per non-predicted conference.)
Click on a magazine name to see a detailed review; or click here to visit the reviews index.
See the notes file for further information on the scoring process.