College Football

I’ve given up on CFB. Its so tilted toward the SEC and Big 10, both in perception and funding, that there’s only a little drama to wring out. Especially true where it concerns Alabama.

I don’t see any way to preserve college athletics with integrity. Better to move to a system of club teams in college towns.

My final ballot. Computer poll. Who's got it better than Michigan? Evidently absolutely nooooobody. But it's pretty standard that my poll puts the CFP winner ahead by a wide margin (a notable exception being when it declared an OSU as the national champion in 2017).

I know it's weird that Oregon finished ahead of Washington, although it's really close. Keep in mind this is essentially a power rating -- put those 2 teams on a neutral site tomorrow and I'm sure Vegas would still favor Oregon despite the H2H. For the record, I personally don't but I tried to eliminate as much bias as possible from the algorithm.

Also, pretty happy with Texas at number 5. It was a good season.

Bonus musing: Since I've ran the last 9 CFB seasons through the same algorithm, I was curious how this Michigan team compares to other top teams. Turns out the 2023 Wolverines rank number 4 out of 1,106 FBS teams^1^, trailing only 2022 Georgia, 2019 LSU, and 2021 Georgia (in that order). Also, if any sickos are wondering who the worst team was, it's likely 2020 UMass (or 2019 UMass if you want to exclude the COVID year).

^1^Apparently half my data for the 2018 season got wiped somehow, but fortunately it kept the top 70 teams. I'll have to crunch that season's numbers again at some point, but at least it won't have any bearing on the comparison of elite teams. Also, in 2020 I only ranked 127 teams since 3 opted out, and that season in general had a slightly adjusted formula for obvious reasons.

::: spoiler Full ranking: