Make sure that you haven't repeated any teams!
Honor system 1 ballot per voter per week (I don't want to collect email addresses to limit it on my end)
Losers exposed, winners relieved. Submit your ballot so we can make sense of it all. Or don’t I’m a mod not a cop.
My ballot. Computer poll. Very glad the good guys are back in the #1 spot (and by a long way, apparently). Still some weirdness from the bye week (e.g. Alabama ahead of Texas) but that should straighten out next week.
Lol. Beat (highly) ranked teams by a lot and you’ll jump up. (Beating A&M by 1 score didn’t do that much.) So I’d say beat Alabama and Georgia and you’re good.
In case you’re really wondering why the Vols are so low: they’re being dragged down by that Austin Peay game… LET’S GO PEAY!
I think they’re a lot better than most people give them credit for. I also think Georgia is nowhere near as good as it ranks nationally—I think your #6 makes sense here.
Yeah, ND has played a whopping 8 games which definitely skews the data. If you average it down to 7 games played, they would be about 12th and if you bring them to 6 it puts them about 24th. I think if I were doing this by eye test, I’d have them somewhere in the 10 to 15 range.
Georgia at 6 finally feels like the computer finally placed them in the right spot (early in the season it had them at 1 and at one point as low as 24, I think). I probably would rather see Washington ahead of them rather than USC, though.
I described it a bit in this comment. There’s also some pre-season expectations that get factored in for the first 4 weeks and then it stands on its own in week 5.
I feel like mid-season it can be kind of weird, but it usually feels right at the end each year. For example, in this post I included a screenshot of my top 40 at the end of last season.
Yeah, I keep wondering if I made a mistake inputting the data with y’all. It always has A&M (and Texas) really high every year even when either of us underperform (which is pretty often). It must speak to the talent on our teams due to the numbers they put up and the fact they rarely have bad losses.
Looks like your computer poll and mine are built around opposite philosophies. I think it’s great the community is getting a variety of methods. And we certainly need human polls/eye tests to balance out some of the weirdness our algorithms create (like JMU in the top 10??)
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.
My ballot. Computer poll. Very glad the good guys are back in the #1 spot (and by a long way, apparently). Still some weirdness from the bye week (e.g. Alabama ahead of Texas) but that should straighten out next week.
Full ranking:
who tf we gotta beat to get ranked on your poll?
Lol. Beat (highly) ranked teams by a lot and you’ll jump up. (Beating A&M by 1 score didn’t do that much.) So I’d say beat Alabama and Georgia and you’re good.
In case you’re really wondering why the Vols are so low: they’re being dragged down by that Austin Peay game… LET’S GO PEAY!
Yeah… that was not pretty. I don’t really blame your model for that.
Beat Bama and I bet you’ll get in there.
Don’t tempt me with a good time
Notre at #2. Very spicy, I like it.
I think they’re a lot better than most people give them credit for. I also think Georgia is nowhere near as good as it ranks nationally—I think your #6 makes sense here.
Yeah, ND has played a whopping 8 games which definitely skews the data. If you average it down to 7 games played, they would be about 12th and if you bring them to 6 it puts them about 24th. I think if I were doing this by eye test, I’d have them somewhere in the 10 to 15 range.
Georgia at 6 finally feels like the computer finally placed them in the right spot (early in the season it had them at 1 and at one point as low as 24, I think). I probably would rather see Washington ahead of them rather than USC, though.
I’m curious about your computer poll. How did you set it up?
I described it a bit in this comment. There’s also some pre-season expectations that get factored in for the first 4 weeks and then it stands on its own in week 5.
I feel like mid-season it can be kind of weird, but it usually feels right at the end each year. For example, in this post I included a screenshot of my top 40 at the end of last season.
While I appreciate you ranking my Aggies all the way up at 10, I definitely don’t see how we deserve that.
Yeah, I keep wondering if I made a mistake inputting the data with y’all. It always has A&M (and Texas) really high every year even when either of us underperform (which is pretty often). It must speak to the talent on our teams due to the numbers they put up and the fact they rarely have bad losses.
Looks like your computer poll and mine are built around opposite philosophies. I think it’s great the community is getting a variety of methods. And we certainly need human polls/eye tests to balance out some of the weirdness our algorithms create (like JMU in the top 10??)
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.