MaroonMage

That's interesting. So instead of being fired on the spot, the old coach would stay on during the year-long transition? I feel like that would take a pretty large change to how D1 football works now but it's definitely an interesting thought. Does the old coach stay on as an analyst or something? And what if after being fired they want to find a new job and move on?

1. Washington | 10 - 0 | LW: 2 (+1)
2. Michigan | 10 - 0 | LW: 5 (+3)
3. Florida State | 10 - 0 | LW: 3 ( - )
4. Ohio State | 10 - 0 | LW: 1 (-3)
5. Alabama | 9 - 1 | LW: 6 (+1)
6. Texas | 9 - 1 | LW: 4 (-2)
7. Georgia | 10 - 0 | LW: 8 (+1)
8. James Madison | 10 - 0 | LW: 7 (-1)
9. Oregon | 9 - 1 | LW: 13 (+4)
10. Liberty | 10 - 0 | LW: 11 (+1)
11. Ole Miss | 8 - 2 | LW: 9 (-2)
12. Penn State | 8 - 2 | LW: 10 (-2)
13. Louisville | 9 - 1 | LW: 12 (-1)
14. Oklahoma | 8 - 2 | LW: 14 ( - )
15. Iowa | 8 - 2 | LW: 16 (+1)
16. Missouri | 8 - 2 | LW: 18 (+2)
17. Tulane | 9 - 1 | LW: 21 (+4)
18. LSU | 7 - 3 | LW: 23 (+5)
19. Troy | 8 - 2 | LW: 17 (-2)
20. Toledo | 9 - 1 | LW: 25 (+5)
21. Utah | 7 - 3 | LW: 19 (-2)
22. North Carolina | 8 - 2 | LW: 33 (+11)
23. Notre Dame | 7 - 3 | LW: 24 (+1)
24. Oregon State | 8 - 2 | LW: 27 (+3)
25. Kansas State | 7 - 3 | LW: 29 (+4)

26. Kansas | 7 - 3 | LW: 15 (-11)
27. Memphis | 8 - 2 | LW: 31 (+4)
28. USC | 7 - 4 | LW: 28 ( - )
29. Oklahoma State | 7 - 3 | LW: 20 (-9)
30. Tennessee | 7 - 3 | LW: 26 (-4)
31. UNLV | 8 - 2 | LW: 43 (+12)
32. NC State | 7 - 3 | LW: 36 (+4)
33. Arizona | 7 - 3 | LW: 35 (+2)
34. Fresno State | 8 - 2 | LW: 22 (-12)
35. Coastal Carolina | 7 - 3 | LW: 39 (+4)

This week's takeaways:

• Movement is slowing down. Must be getting to the end of the season.
• The Top 4 are almost interchangeable, and there's a pretty decent drop after No 7 Georgia
• Jimbo got fired

I hate how right this is

I wish they had left the head football coach's name blank, that way they could just keep giving it to each new hire and the joke could continue.

It would be funny after all the highly public shit talking Kiffin lobbed at Jimbo this season if Kiffin essentially sold out and became the very thing we was against. Personally I don't see it happening...Kiffin's got a great thing going in Oxford and the A&M job doesn't feel as appealing right now. But I've been wrong before, so who knows.

The buyout will get all the headlines here, understandably so because of how big it is. But the payout is structured as x% over a certain number of years (I'm too lazy to google it right now), so it really shouldn't have too much of an impact overall. A&M's boosters have famously deep pockets.

My postmortem take is that while it's earlier than I expected, it feels like the right call. A&M paid a ton of money for essentially no improvement over our previous coach (Jimbo's SEC record was 56%, Kevin Sumlin's SEC record was 52%). Too many times I was watching games this season and I had to remind myself that this was Year 6 in Jimbo's tenure, not Year 1 or 2...every season feels like a rebuilding season, every game feels like we're playing for the moral victory, and the mantra always feels like we're waiting for next year. Those that follow the A&M program know this is the same old story it's always been, and Jimbo was hired specifically to change that and he hasn't. Sure we've had bad luck with injuries and other teams in our division are good, but at some point those excuses have to start going away if you want to be a good football program.

We've got some really talented players that I'm sure are disappointed and frustrated right now. It will be interesting to see how many of them light up the transfer portal and how many stick it out. Either way, we're probably stuck in rebuilding seasons again for the foreseeable future.

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?

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.

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)

26. Tennessee | 7 - 2 | LW: 27 (+1)
27. Oregon State | 7 - 2 | LW: 30 (+3)
28. USC | 7 - 3 | LW: 22 (-6)
29. Kansas State | 6 - 3 | LW: 25 (-4)
30. Duke | 6 - 3 | LW: 40 (+10)
31. Memphis | 7 - 2 | LW: 38 (+7)
32. Air Force | 8 - 1 | LW: 13 (-19)
33. North Carolina | 7 - 2 | LW: 34 (+1)
34. Rutgers | 6 - 3 | LW: 36 (+2)
35. 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.

This week's rankings:

1. Ohio State | 8 - 0 | LW: 3 (+2)
2. Florida State | 8 - 0 | LW: 1 (-1)
3. Michigan | 8 - 0 | LW: 4 (+1)
4. Texas | 7 - 1 | LW: 5 (+1)
5. Washington | 8 - 0 | LW: 6 (+1)
6. James Madison | 8 - 0 | LW: 7 (+1)
7. Alabama | 7 - 1 | LW: 8 (+1)
8. Oklahoma | 7 - 1 | LW: 2 (-6)
9. Liberty | 8 - 0 | LW: 11 (+2)
10. Ole Miss | 7 - 1 | LW: 10 ( - )
11. Georgia | 8 - 0 | LW: 14 (+3)
12. Penn State | 7 - 1 | LW: 13 (+1)
13. Air Force | 8 - 0 | LW: 12 (-1)
14. Louisville | 7 - 1 | LW: 21 (+7)
15. Oregon | 7 - 1 | LW: 19 (+4)
16. Missouri | 7 - 1 | LW: 16 ( - )
17. Notre Dame | 7 - 2 | LW: 18 (+1)
18. Utah | 6 - 2 | LW: 9 (-9)
19. Iowa | 6 - 2 | LW: 20 (+1)
20. Tulane | 7 - 1 | LW: 24 (+4)
21. Kansas | 6 - 2 | LW: 38 (+17)
22. USC | 7 - 2 | LW: 27 (+5)
23. LSU | 6 - 2 | LW: 22 (-1)
24. Troy | 6 - 2 | LW: 28 (+4)
25. Kansas State | 6 - 2 | LW: 31 (+6)

26. UCLA | 6 - 2 | LW: 29 (+3)
27. Tennessee | 6 - 2 | LW: 35 (+8)
28. Toledo | 7 - 1 | LW: 32 (+4)
29. Fresno State | 7 - 1 | LW: 40 (+11)
30. Oregon State | 6 - 2 | LW: 15 (-15)
31. Wisconsin | 5 - 3 | LW: 23 (-8)
32. Minnesota | 5 - 3 | LW: 34 (+2)
33. Georgia Southern | 6 - 2 | LW: 43 (+10)
34. North Carolina | 6 - 2 | LW: 17 (-17)
35. Oklahoma State | 6 - 2 | LW: 39 (+4)

That worked, dunno why I didn't see the link before. Thanks

Am I missing the link to vote? Or do we just use last week's?