In a college football week, when high ranked teams lose to low ranked and unranked teams, the media calls it a wild or topsyturvy week.  To quantify this hype, we developed a metric called the TT factor. 

The TT factor for the current week is calculated based on the difference between the AP rankings in current week and the previous week. 

The TT factor can vary between 0 and 200; the lowest TT factor recorded so far is 8 and the highest is 72.

Based on statistical analysis of the TT factors for six recent seasons, we consider a week in which the TT factor is greater than 54 to be highly topsyturvy and if less than 30 to be very stable.

Read a full paper on the TT factor, peruse a press-release, and learn more facts about the TT factor.

Where is this work published?

Chance magazine of the American Statistical Association published the paper on this topic in its Summer 2009 issue.  "A Metric to Quantify the Topsyturviness of a College Football Season", Autar Kaw and Ali Yalcin,  Chance, Vol. 22, No 3, pp. 18-26, 2009.

"Chance is a magazine about statistics and the use of statistics in society, and it is intended for everyone who has an interest in the analysis of data."

Do you have the TT factors for the past seasons?

Yes.

2011 TT factors

2010 TT factors

2009 TT factors

2008 TT Factors

What are the frequently asked questions about the TT factor?

Know more about the TT factor.