MaroonMage

Yeah good point. The buyout is money A&M owes him anyway...he gets the same amount regardless, it just depends on when he gets it. And if you're paying a new coach at the same time, that's a lot of money going out the door each year.

Jimbo set the bar so ridiculously (unrealistically) high with that guaranteed contract, it really put us in a bad spot for future coaching negotiations.

If Jimbo does get the boot in the next couple of seasons, my wish is that we'd be able to lure Mike Elko back. He's doing wonders for Duke and is much beloved at A&M for his stint as DC. But if he keeps winning at Duke he's going to be a hot commodity on the coaching market the next couple of seasons.

Very close to the AP Top 25 (+/- a couple) until you get down to #20. We rank Iowa and Liberty instead of AP ranking UCLA and Tulane. We also have the cajones to rank JMU up at 20.

Re: Jimbo...if you think "reasonable" comes into play, you don't know the crazy cabal that is the A&M boosters. If they want Jimbo gone, they'll find the money somewhere.

These are usually clever, but this one absolutely nails it.

Here are my Week 9 results. 100% resume-based computer poll, so your ranking is determined based on your wins/losses compared to everyone else's wins/losses. I've included my Top 35 this week so people can see who is on the cusp:

1. Florida State Seminoles (LW: 2) (+1)
2. Oklahoma Sooners (LW: 1) (-1)
3. Ohio State Buckeyes (LW: 7) (+4)
4. Michigan Wolverines (LW: 6) (+2)
5. Texas Longhorns (LW: 5) ( - )
6. Washington Huskies (LW: 3) (-3)
7. James Madison Dukes (LW: 9) (+2)
8. Alabama Crimson Tide (LW: 11) (+3)
9. Utah Utes (LW: 17) (+8)
10. Ole Miss Rebels (LW: 12) (+2)
11. Liberty Flames (LW: 13) (+2)
12. Air Force Falcons (LW: 14) (+2)
13. Penn State Nittany Lions (LW: 8) (-5)
14. Georgia Bulldogs (LW: 18) (+4)
15. Oregon State Beavers (LW: 15) ( - )
16. Missouri Tigers (LW: 19) (+3)
17. North Carolina Tar Heels (LW: 4) (-13)
18. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (LW: 16) (-2)
19. Oregon Ducks (LW: 25) (+6)
20. Iowa Hawkeyes (LW: 10) (-10)
21. Louisville Cardinals (LW: 20) (-1)
22. LSU Tigers (LW: 22) ( - )
23. Wisconsin Badgers (LW: 23) ( - )
24. Tulane Green Wave (LW: 26) (+2)
25. Georgia State Panthers (LW: 33) (+8)

26. Duke Blue Devils (LW: 21) (-5)
27. USC Trojans (LW: 24) (-3)
28. Troy Trojans (LW: 28) ( - )
29. UCLA Bruins (LW: 31) (+2)
30. Wyoming Cowboys (LW: 27) (-3)
31. Kansas State Wildcats (LW: 36) (+5)
32. Toledo Rockets (LW: 47) (+15)
33. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (LW: 34) (+1)
34. Minnesota Golden Gophers (LW: 37) (+3)
35. Tennessee Volunteers (LW: 30) (-5)

Thoughts on this week:

• I made some minor algorithm tweaks...it didn't majorly affect anyone's rankings but I think it improved results overall. The change gives a larger bonus to wins, as I felt some teams were being ranked too highly based on their "quality losses" compared to teams with good-not-great wins.
• My algorithm is designed to not be "sticky", meaning each week is a completely fresh ranking based on not only this week's results but back-calculating every week's results so far this season. That's why you see a lot of teams sliding around +/-5 ranks each week...this is intentional, for better or for worse. These small jumps usually slow down later in the season.
• The top 5 are all ranked very close together, and there is a pretty big drop after No. 8 Alabama.
• James Madison continues to creep up. Their match-up this week gives them another chance to rise (their opponent No. 77 Old Dominion outranks Washington's opponent No. 114 Stanford), and another opportunity Week 10 with an epic Top 25 showdown versus (checks notes) No. 25 Georgia State. After that their schedule gets softer so they'll have theoretically hit their ceiling. All that to be said...NCAA should do the right thing and let them go bowling, regardless of your thoughts on where they should be ranked in the Top 25, they deserve a post-season.
• Georgia's descent-through-victory has probably ended, and their floor seems to be ranked 14. The +4 bump they got this week is due to the algorithm change I mentioned above. Going forward their schedule finally stiffens with No. 41 Florida this week, followed by No. 16 Mizzou and No. 10 Ole Miss. Now we get to start seeing what they're actually made of.
• I'm looking forward to Michigan beating Ohio State and then Penn State beating Michigan, thus creating a highly ranked circle-of-suck atop the Big Ten East.
• The biggest loser this week was San Diego, who dropped 23 ranks after falling to Nevada. Biggest gainer this week was Virginia, who rose 30 ranks after pulling the upset over a Top 5 North Carolina.

Oof...that spot on 3rd down at the very end of the Texas v Houston game was absolutely criminal. The refs gifted the game to Texas with that call.

Seconded.

I like this poll. It's a good mix of eye test results mixed with a healthy dose of "ain't played nobody". Feels like a good gauge of where we are at this point in the season.

I'll definitely be tuning in for that Penn State v Ohio State game this weekend. Good old fashioned B1G slugfest that could really shake some things up next week. That, and Bama v Tennessee (Vols pls).

That sounds terrible. I hope you are doing ok now.

Beat Bama and I bet you'll get in there.

Yeah, I think that describes A&M this season (every season?) really well: they have good talent, but they underperform. So if your algorithm is looking more at potential, recruiting ranks, stat rankings, then A&M should be good on paper. We just don't win the games.

And yes, JMU in particular has been giving me heartburn every week questioning the validity of my poll. But just to provide a comparison, the average ranking of the teams JMU has beaten is 80.0 (based on my rankings) whereas the average ranking of the teams Georgia has beaten is 99.3, so it makes sense JMU gets the higher rank for now (fun fact: Georgia has the lowest strength of schedule of all the undefeated teams, hence their low ranking). Since my system doesn't care at all about expectations/stats/brand name/eye test and is only based on comparing wins/losses, weird rankings like that will happen even though I know if JMU and Georgia played it wouldn't be close. But those oddities tend to go away as the season progresses.

Definitely agree, it's fun that everyone has a different way of slicing the rankings and everyone's poll is different. It gives us something to compare and argue about, and a lot of the fun of college football is arguing about rankings.

While I appreciate you ranking my Aggies all the way up at 10, I definitely don't see how we deserve that.