this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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A wild and wacky week last week. One with ballot implications for sure

top 17 comments
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My ballot. Computer poll.

A clear top 2 have emerged, and I find it really interesting that spots 3 through 12 are all quite close so that order is liable to shake up in these last few weeks. Keep in mind Notre Dame and USC have played an extra game so they are still artificially high.

::: spoiler Full ranking:

Rank Change Team Record Points
1 - Michigan 9-0 672
2 - Florida State 9-0 651
3 +3 Oregon 8-1 608
4 +1 Ohio State 9-0 591
5 -2 Notre Dame 7-3 587
6 -2 Texas 8-1 580
7 - Washington 9-0 577
8 - Oklahoma 7-2 562
9 +2 Penn State 8-1 561
10 +2 Alabama 8-1 548
11 -1 Georgia 9-0 547
12 -3 USC 7-3 542
13 +3 Louisville 8-1 514
14 -1 Kansas State 6-3 508
15 - Ole Miss 8-1 486
T16 +6 Tennessee 7-2 484
T16 - Texas A&M 5-4 484
18 +3 Arizona 6-3 478
19 - Oregon State 7-2 476
20 -6 North Carolina 7-2 472
21 -3 LSU 6-3 465
22 +2 Liberty 9-0 463
23 +16 Utah 7-2 459
24 -1 Duke 6-3 456
25 +8 Oklahoma State 7-2 454
26 +3 Kansas 7-2 452
27 -7 UCLA 6-3 451
28 -3 SMU 7-2 446
T29 +2 Iowa 7-2 444
T29 -3 Wisconsin 5-4 444
31 -1 Missouri 7-2 435
32 -4 Miami (FL) 6-3 433
33 +18 West Virginia 6-3 428
34 +15 Clemson 5-4 424
35 +1 Fresno State 8-1 423
36 +16 Kentucky 6-3 419
37 +1 Nebraska 5-4 418
38 +2 Texas Tech 4-5 414
39 -5 Rutgers 6-3 413
40 -13 Maryland 5-4 408
41 +20 Georgia Tech 5-4 407
T42 +12 JMU 9-0 405
T42 -7 Virginia Tech 4-5 405
T44 +3 UTSA 6-3 403
T44 -1 Florida 5-4 403
46 -9 Air Force 8-1 402
47 +11 Auburn 5-4 401
T48 -5 Jacksonville State 7-3 400
T48 -8 Colorado 4-5 400
50 -3 New Mexico State 7-3 398
51 -1 TCU 4-5 397
T52 +12 UNLV 7-2 396
T52 -6 Iowa State 5-4 396
54 -1 Minnesota 5-4 392
55 +1 Troy 7-2 389
T56 +1 Toledo 8-1 386
T56 -24 Miami (OH) 7-2 386
58 -15 South Alabama 4-5 385
59 +1 Arkansas 3-6 383
60 -1 Memphis 7-2 377
61 +7 NC State 6-3 374
62 +3 UCF 4-5 372
T63 -2 Tulane 8-1 370
T63 +6 Boston College 6-3 370
T63 - Washington State 4-5 370
66 +9 Illinois 4-5 360
67 +9 Texas State 6-3 359
T68 -28 Ohio 6-3 356
T68 +1 Coastal Carolina 6-3 356
T70 +10 Appalachian State 5-4 353
T70 +8 Wake Forest 4-5 353
72 -5 Northern Illinois 4-5 352
73 +14 Houston 4-5 345
T74 -8 Georgia Southern 6-3 342
T74 +11 Northwestern 4-5 342
76 -21 San Jose State 4-5 336
T77 -4 Louisiana 5-4 335
T77 +6 FAU 4-5 335
T77 -6 Purdue 2-7 335
80 -9 BYU 5-4 332
81 +11 South Carolina 3-6 331
82 +1 Rice 4-5 330
83 +4 Boise State 4-5 328
84 +11 Wyoming 6-3 326
85 -4 Mississippi State 4-5 324
86 +8 Syracuse 4-5 323
T87 +2 Old Dominion 4-5 321
T87 +25 Army 3-6 321
T89 -13 Georgia State 6-3 320
T89 -10 Louisiana Tech 3-7 320
T91 -2 Pittsburgh 2-7 318
T91 +7 Cincinnati 2-7 318
93 -12 Virginia 2-7 317
T94 +8 Western Kentucky 5-4 316
T94 +8 Utah State 4-5 316
96 -22 California 3-6 315
97 +1 Bowling Green 5-4 313
98 +9 Baylor 3-6 308
99 -2 Vanderbilt 2-8 306
100 - UNT 3-6 303
101 -5 Marshall 4-5 300
102 +3 UTEP 3-7 298
103 -3 Buffalo 3-6 297
104 -18 Eastern Michigan 4-5 292
T105 +5 Central Michigan 5-4 287
T105 -13 Arizona State 2-7 287
107 +8 Michigan State 3-6 286
108 +1 Colorado State 3-6 285
T109 -18 Western Michigan 3-6 284
T109 +7 Stanford 3-6 284
111 +6 Indiana 3-6 283
112 +7 Hawaii 3-7 277
T113 +9 Arkansas State 5-4 275
T113 - USF 4-5 275
T115 +5 Charlotte 3-6 271
T115 -13 Connecticut 1-8 271
T117 -1 San Diego State 3-6 265
T117 -9 Sam Houston 1-8 265
119 -13 FIU 4-5 263
120 - Middle Tennessee 2-7 261
121 +3 UAB 3-6 259
122 -12 Massachusetts 3-7 258
123 +3 Akron 2-7 252
124 +1 ECU 1-8 251
125 -2 Nevada 2-7 248
T126 -12 New Mexico 3-6 240
T126 +1 Navy 3-5 240
128 +1 Ball State 2-7 230
129 -1 UL Monroe 2-7 229
130 +1 Southern Mississippi 2-7 225
131 -1 Tulsa 3-6 221
132 - Temple 3-6 208
133 - Kent State 1-8 192
[–] g0d0fm15ch13f 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like USC is way artificially high, even with the extra game. I think they've only lost big games and only won cupcakes?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'd agree with that assessment. If I were doing it by eye, they'd definitely be lower. But one of my main objectives when I created the model was to reward teams that schedule tough opponents. USC has Notre Dame plus their 9 P5 conference foes and no FCS teams. (Ironically, the Notre Dame blowout loss is the game dragging them down the most.)

[–] merikus 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I found today’s poll super hard. My methodology is what it always is: look at the last week’s rankings, look at the results, and vibe my way through it.

The hardest part of this week was when I got to 20, realized I forgot about Oklahoma, and had to figure out the middle again.

I have very low confidence on my picks under the 10 or 11 slot, but based on this week’s results, so do the professional pollers too.

  1. Michigan
  2. Ohio State
  3. Washington
  4. Florida
  5. Georgia
  6. Oregon
  7. Penn State
  8. Texas
  9. Alabama
  10. Louisville
  11. Ole Miss
  12. Missouri
  13. Oklahoma
  14. Oregon State
  15. Utah
  16. Tennessee
  17. LSU
  18. Kansas
  19. Notre Dame
  20. Tulane
  21. USC
  22. Oklahoma State
  23. Clemson
  24. Arizona
  25. UCLA
[–] g0d0fm15ch13f 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm assuming #4 fLorida is actually #4 fsu?

[–] merikus 3 points 1 year ago

Head/desk.

Yes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Really curious about the rationale behind Mizzou at #12, given you've got LSU (who beat them) at #17 and aren't ranking K-State or Kentucky. I hope it's not because they just picked up a "quality loss" yesterday...

[–] merikus 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I would say it’s largely because I’m bad at this, and you’re probably right.

EDIT: I just noticed the Coaches Poll did something similar to me. Of course, the Coaches Poll is often bizarre.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

LOL, no worries. There are AP voters that are more consistently bizarre (looking at you, Jon Wilner).

And actually, this made me curious since I hadn't looked at their individual ballots in a while, and Wilner did the exact same thing but with Mizzou at 11....

[–] MaroonMage 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This week's poll. Computer resume-based ranking system:

  1. Ohio State | 9 - 0 | LW: 1 ( - )
  2. Washington | 9 - 0 | LW: 5 (+3)
  3. Florida State | 9 - 0 | LW: 2 (-1)
  4. Texas | 8 - 1 | LW: 4 ( - )
  5. Michigan | 9 - 0 | LW: 3 (-2)
  6. Alabama | 8 - 1 | LW: 7 (+1)
  7. James Madison | 9 - 0 | LW: 6 (-1)
  8. Georgia | 9 - 0 | LW: 11 (+3)
  9. Ole Miss | 8 - 1 | LW: 10 (+1)
  10. Penn State | 8 - 1 | LW: 12 (+2)
  11. Liberty | 9 - 0 | LW: 9 (-2)
  12. Louisville | 8 - 1 | LW: 14 (+2)
  13. Oregon | 8 - 1 | LW: 15 (+2)
  14. Oklahoma | 7 - 2 | LW: 8 (-6)
  15. Kansas | 7 - 2 | LW: 21 (+6)
  16. Iowa | 7 - 2 | LW: 19 (+3)
  17. Troy | 7 - 2 | LW: 24 (+7)
  18. Missouri | 7 - 2 | LW: 16 (-2)
  19. Utah | 7 - 2 | LW: 18 (-1)
  20. Oklahoma State | 7 - 2 | LW: 35 (+15)
  21. Tulane | 8 - 1 | LW: 20 (-1)
  22. Fresno State | 8 - 1 | LW: 29 (+7)
  23. LSU | 6 - 3 | LW: 23 ( - )
  24. Notre Dame | 7 - 3 | LW: 17 (-7)
  25. Toledo | 8 - 1 | LW: 28 (+3)

  1. Tennessee | 7 - 2 | LW: 27 (+1)
  2. Oregon State | 7 - 2 | LW: 30 (+3)
  3. USC | 7 - 3 | LW: 22 (-6)
  4. Kansas State | 6 - 3 | LW: 25 (-4)
  5. Duke | 6 - 3 | LW: 40 (+10)
  6. Memphis | 7 - 2 | LW: 38 (+7)
  7. Air Force | 8 - 1 | LW: 13 (-19)
  8. North Carolina | 7 - 2 | LW: 34 (+1)
  9. Rutgers | 6 - 3 | LW: 36 (+2)
  10. Arizona | 6 - 3 | LW: 47 (+12)

  • UGA is starting to creep up with a big win over Mizzou. Next up they have a showdown with Ole Miss, followed by Tennessee. Both will be tough matchups.
  • Michigan vs Penn State this week will help define who Ohio State's big competition is atop the B1G. I really wanna see the chaos that would happen if Penn State pulls off the upset.
  • Group of 5 intruders Liberty and James Madison both dropped this week despite winning. Their strength of schedule through the end of the season is pretty weak, so I expect that to keep happening some. However, if they win out I expect they will finish the regular season around the Top 15-ish position.
  • Surprises this week: LSU didn't move despite losing to Alabama, and Troy jumped a whopping 7 ranks after beating South Alabama. Troy's movement is more due to what happened around them, plus they got a strength of schedule boost with former opponent Army taking down Air Force.
  • This week's biggest loser is the aforementioned Air Force, who fell 19 ranks from 13 down to 32 after being defeated by Army. This week's biggest winner is Indiana who rose 26 ranks from 99 to 73 after beating Wisconsin.
[–] g0d0fm15ch13f 3 points 1 year ago

I know I'm just petty, but I really miss alabama being ranked behind James Madison in this poll lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's so goofy that Georgia is still behind JMU in your poll. Do any rankings factor into your algorithm at all or is it just record+SOS?

Also, I didn't notice this last week, but Troy is also kind of suspect here given they went head-to-head with K-State and lost handily. But I know computers are weird at times (mine seems to go the opposite way with the G5 teams).

[–] MaroonMage 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah it's just a part of how my poll is set up. There can be some goofyness sometimes, but it usually works out by the end of the season.

I use the Pre-Season AP rankings as a starting point, purely to give the early weeks some kind of structure. Those rankings are applied as a diminishing factor from Week 0 through Week 6. After Week 6 my rankings are only based on W/L record and opponent's rankings.

Through Week 10, Georgia has the weakest strength of schedule of all Power 5 teams, with their opponents ranking 82 on average. For comparison, the average ranking of JMU's opponents is 74. So JMU's wins are worth more at the moment. Those SOS rankings are re-calculated each week, so they're going to change over the last weeks of the season. If UGA wins out, they'll be fine.

This also explains the K-State/Troy discrepancy. Yes K-State beat Troy earlier in the season, but my spreadsheet doesn't really care who you beat, it only cares about what your opponent is ranked and whether you won or lost. Teams don't get a head-to-head boost against previous opponents.

I like this ranking system in part because it takes all the human emotion out of it. Teams are ranked only based on the results of their games and how strong their opponents are ranked, so their name or conference or my personal feelings of where they should be ranked don't factor into it. It also looks at their entire body of work evenly, so early games aren't weighted differently than late-season games, which is different from how AP and most human polls do it.

Of course, one of the obvious drawbacks of this system is highlighted by the UGA scenario: the best team in the country could be cursed with a bad schedule. For that I rely on the other eye test based polls in c/cfb to balance me out. I bring the robotic analysis, I'll let others handle the vibes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the in-depth reasoning. As I mentioned in a previous week, I'm totally cool with this approach (and my poll also disregards head-to-head, but it is always an interesting argument against our power-rating-style computer polls).

Any plans to adjust the methodology with realignment kicking into high gear next year? I foresee lots of strong teams stuck playing each other, resulting in everyone picking up losses and looking worse on paper than in reality (as already happens with the PAC every year). I, for one, plan on restructuring my algorithm since it was designed based on the assumption that the 5 "power" conferences (+ND and BYU) were relatively equal.

[–] MaroonMage 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Totally agree...we've chatted about this before, but a lot of the fun of voting in this poll for me is seeing how everyone does it differently. We're trying to answer the question of who is the "best" team, but that word means something a little bit different to everybody.

Yeah I try to add improvements every year based on stuff I see during the season and I've been thinking of ways to re-tool it for next season, especially with the weirdness of realignment coming and some of the odd results I've gotten this season. I haven't figured out exactly what I want to do yet, because I don't want to add too much of my own biases into the formula. For example, I don't want to give an artificial boost to teams just based on conference affiliations, because if we really do get an excellent team in a lower conference I don't want my spreadsheet pushing them down just because of that. This season I've been running a few modified spreadsheets on the side just to play with, but I haven't landed on anything I really like yet. Thankfully the offseason is long and I have plenty of data to tinker with to keep dialing it in.

I'm curious about yours, how much does it factor in stats throughout the season? I think you mentioned before that pre-season expectations are factored out at this point, do you keep it updated with performance stats every week?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's mostly just margin of victory/defeat. I've tinkered with adding more advanced stats, but then it feels like I'm geeking out too much and the tail is wagging the dog. At the end of the day, your team just needs to score more than the other team and if you can do that consistently, especially against good competition, you should be rewarded.

One criterion I really would like to tinker with is home field advantage. Right now it's just a +4 point modifier for everyone, but there are definitely some environments where it's worth more and some where it's less. I haven't found good public data on that (I'm sure all the bookies have that down pat though) so it'll take a fair bit of statistical analysis to ascertain what those values are. Maybe next off-season.

[–] g0d0fm15ch13f 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here's mine. I still don't feel like fsu deserves to be as high as they are in my 100% gut based poll, but my brain can't provide a compelling enough argument to keep them lower. I've also got Tennessee top 10 again, definitely not caused by bias, no siree. This week will also see either Penn State or Michigan drop like a stone

  1. Michigan
  2. Washington
  3. Georgia
  4. Texas
  5. Florida State
  6. Oregon
  7. Ohio State
  8. Alabama
  9. Penn State
  10. Tennessee
  11. Ole Miss
  12. Notre Dame
  13. Utah
  14. LSU
  15. Louisville
  16. Missouri
  17. Iowa
  18. Liberty
  19. Oklahoma
  20. James Madison
  21. Duke
  22. Oregon State
  23. Kansas
  24. Tulane
  25. Oklahoma State