Preseason Prediction Accuracy (1998-2002)

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

Magazine	Rank	Total Score	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998
Phil Steele's	1	694	153	148	130	143	120
Lindy's	2	698	150	155	124	152	117
Athlon	3	709	144	162	134	149	120
The Sporting News	4	718	131	173	135	155	124
Jim Feist's	5	723	148	162	129	162	122
Street & Smith	6	728	155	180	136	138	119
GamePlan	7	734	154	165	132	157	126
ATS Consultants	8	738½	148	158½	147	158	127

This page shows the accuracy of preseason magazines' conference predictions for the five-year span 1998-2002 ("the last five years" going into the 2003 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 "2000-2002 (last three years)" table, and a "1993-2002 (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.