Let me rephrase the question. What is the history of The Sports Report Ranking System?
Glad you asked. The first version was inspired in the late 1970s by something called the Stegeman system, when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution began running rankings generated by taking wins and losses of AP- and UPI-ranked teams and adding in strength-of-schedule based on the AP and UPI rankings of the opponent. TSRRS v0.1 took that one step further by adding scores and also doing it for all NCAA Division I teams. Even after all these years, Brigham Young and Tennessee-Chattanooga still stand out. Incidentally, Oklahoma was #1. The next version dumped the AP and UPI rankings and was self-contained. All teams started at the same level, and points were added or lost based on the next game. Very procedural. But it worked. In 1983, TSRRS v0.2 was used for lacrosse rankings, and the system made the ridiculous assertion that Syracuse was the best team in the country. In retrospect, it was right, of course, but who knew? Then in 1984, the pop statistician Bill James began to be published on
