My ballot – still a little weird from preseason expectations, but that’s mostly factored out now. The bigger issue is that 2-3 weeks of data is too small a sample size for the computer to know what to do with. Teams that played P4 teams are very high (even if they lost), whereas teams that played FCS schools are very low (even if they blew them out). Teams that already had a bye are even lower (exacerbated by this season having an extra bye week). It should all be sorted out in a couple weeks.

I will say, by eye test I really disagree with some of these rankings (I mean, ou up to number 4???) but I find the pure data intriguing, especially for spots 40ish through 134 which a lot of people ignore. I’m considering a few tweaks (to diminish the effects of garbage time stat padding), but it would make the algorithm more complex. Without fully automating it, I need to keep it simple enough to tabulate semi-manually every week. Hoping I can use next offseason to tinker with some scripts.

So just checking, are we supposed to submit our ballots for week 3 in the link above? Because I did, but looking at the results it seems like it might still have week 2 ballots as well.

If I were the band director, I’d play it anyway. He doesn’t have authority over them. Why even have a marching band if they can’t play the fight song?

If you want to make it all about your son, how about commissioning the band for some theme music they could play just for him or something. I wouldn’t have nearly as much distrust and distaste for Sanders if he could just be integrate into a school’s culture and traditions rather than parasitically replacing them with his own cult of personality.

Sounds like even Joel Klatt is souring on the Sanders experiment, so it might not be long until the whole fan base is calling for him to go (although I’m sure he’s planning on leaving after this season anyway)

The cowards ranked NIU!

But a lot of these seem suspect given the results yesterday. How do OK St and KSU move up? Related, why did Tulane stop receiving votes, especially since they pushed KSU around most of the game? Notre Dame doesn’t fall farther (or out completely)? Alabama doesn’t slide a little for messing around with USF (the final score does not tell the story of how that game went)?

And I feel like there’s not enough credit given to Nebraska (who took it easy on CU), Clemson (shouldn’t be punished too much for falling to #1 UGA), and Illinois (who beat a pretty good Kansas squad).

Voters just peeping the box score and relying on name brands, as is tradition

Just curious, is there a good week for him to be fired? Especially since the back of the schedule is such a gauntlet, it seems like it would set up an interim for failure.

Very nice pick six! I’m confused by the play call/throw though. I probably would take that out of the play book if I were NC State.

Real impressed with what I’ve seen from Raiola so far. Future looking bright for y’all

So are there going to be any Duke’s mayo shenanigans like with the bowl game? Maybe a mayo bath for the loser rather than the winner (seems like that would be more motivating)?

Fair enough. I was thinking about 2022 with the loss to Marshall (maybe not fair to judge a coach in their first year). You might be right about last week’s game being fool’s gold. Shades of the 2016 Texas-ND game where both of us had a terrible year.

Hope things turn around for y’all…

I don’t understand why this is as close as it is. Does Marcus Freeman only get the team hyped up for big games? I know full well how painful that is, as that was Texas under Tom Herman…

I will only feel welcome in the SEC once Texas beats Georgia. Hopefully we can do that once or twice this season.

Actually tuning away from my Texas game because it’s so lopsided. K-State just got a scoop n’ score in this one. I was hoping the Green Wave could hold on to their lead but this is probably the turning point in this game

Very uncharacteristic of Loveland to cough up the ball like that. Normally I’d be real annoyed about it, but they’re playing my alma mater so shrug

Man, I wish I could pay more attention to the ²⁰K-State @ Tulane game. Really curious how the Wildcats have struggled so much in the first half so far

So we lose Baxter in the preseason, and Blue goes down in this game. :( It’s a good thing Wisner has stepped up, otherwise the RB room would be pretty bare. Hope Blue is okay.

I’m thinking that ¹⁷Georgia Tech at Syracuse is lowkey the most interesting matchup in the early window.

²Texas at ¹²Michigan

Super frustrating to have a touchdown taken away because of a holding penalty, and then not missing the FG. But there will be plenty of opportunities to score. Although I’m a fan of both teams, the Michigan team is a husk of what they were last year and I really expect my Longhorns to push them around, especially later in the game

In the SMU-BYU game, very intriguing recovered muffed punt return by BYU. Ruled that the SMU guy was not blocked into the punt, but it was close, and made me realize I’m not sure I’ve seen that penalty actually called before.

Also, while I like SMU’s fight song, they are playing it an awful lot

Updated the banner and sidebar!

I see I’m catching a lot of flack here for my computer poll (and understandably so), to which I say: vote in the poll! The more participants, the more my funky algorithm gets drowned out. I will say, I did tweak it this year to further devalue preseason expectations, but I can’t let it just stand on 1.5 weeks of data. Preseason expectations get fully flushed out after week 4.

Also, because the transfer portal makes it so hard to get a read on rosters early in the season, I outsourced the returning production variable to Action Network’s metric. It worked pretty well last year, but I’m not sure they’re on the mark this year. If anyone has a better source (that is free or cheap), I’m willing to give it a try for next year.

This is hilarious. But poor FSU, they might not even make a 112-team playoff. Now, if only we had a 128-team playoff. Think about it: a 7-round single-elimination tourney! Let’s gooooo