Composite Team Rankings

These rankings rate the 349 teams that appeared on a Division I softball schedule in 2026, every Division I program plus the crossover opponents they played, using three independent systems, each fit on the full national schedule. The first is a Simple Rating System (SRS) with the margin of victory capped at eight runs and home advantage estimated inside the iteration. The second is a Bradley-Terry model fit on game outcomes alone, which cares only about who beat whom. The third is an Elo rating with time decay, so late-season play weighs more than February tournaments.

The composite is the average of the z-scored SRS and Bradley-Terry ratings. Elo, strength of schedule, Pythagenpat expectation, and an approximate RPI ride along in the download for comparison, together with each team's title odds from a 50,000-run Monte Carlo simulation of the real bracket. The simulation made Texas the favorite at 23.0 percent, and Texas won the Women's College World Series.

The full methodology, including the run values and WAR framework the table references, is on the WAR page and the linear weights page.

This dataset is free to use under CC BY 4.0: use it anywhere, including commercially, with attribution to Pioneer Pennant (pioneerpennant.com).