Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Sept. 4, 2017, 8:54 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Beginning of season this is still off. The model uses a "game score" mechanic. You get points for beating an opponent and lose points for losing to your opponent. Points gained are equal to the rank of the opponent in the prior week (i.e. if you beat #1 you get 131 points, if you lose to #1 you lose 131 points). Strength of Schedule and overall W/L rank are added. Additionally, I factor in my ballot from last week and /r/CFB rankings from last week to balance it out. Adding my ranking and the /r/CFB ranking helps break up the ties that the model creates because opponents have similar game scores at the start of the season.

• Ballot
• Analysis

Rank	Team	Reason
1	Clemson Tigers	Still the reigning champ. Will be #1 until I'm shown a reason for them not to be. My model actually has Clemson at #2, so this is a manual override.
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	Comfortable #2. Lots of arguments to be #1. My model shows Alabama at #1 (like everyone else), but this is a manual override.
3	Stanford Cardinal	This is where the models start coming in. You'll see odd rankings from here on.
4	LSU Tigers
5	Oklahoma State Cowboys
6	Oklahoma Sooners
7	Auburn Tigers
8	Ohio State Buckeyes	First half was scary for OSU, however the comfortably won the game.
9	USC Trojans	I had them at #4 last week, i've dropped them to #10 because of the terrible first half performance. Though WMU is a good team, USC should have been way more comfortable. My model actually has them tied at #1, but I really don't feel comfortable with that.
10	Washington Huskies
11	Georgia Bulldogs
12	Utah Utes
13	Penn State Nittany Lions
14	Michigan Wolverines
15	Miami Hurricanes
16	Wisconsin Badgers
17	Kansas State Wildcats
18	Virginia Tech Hokies
19	Washington State Cougars
20	Colorado Buffaloes
21	Florida State Seminoles
22	Florida Gators
23	West Virginia Mountaineers
24	UCLA Bruins	lol A&M & Chosen Rosen. My model actually put them at #26, so I just had a slight bump.
25	Mississippi State Bulldogs	Model actually has MSU at #29, but I manually removed Louisville (still not sold) and USF (the worst 2-0 team I've seen) and skipping USCar moved them up to #25.

Teams Ranked:

Rank	Team	Unusualness
1	Clemson Tigers	0.35
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	0.00
3	Stanford Cardinal	1.45
4	LSU Tigers	1.32
5	Oklahoma State Cowboys	0.45
6	Oklahoma Sooners	0.00
7	Auburn Tigers	0.89
8	Ohio State Buckeyes	-0.89
9	USC Trojans	0.00
10	Washington Huskies	0.00
11	Georgia Bulldogs	0.88
12	Utah Utes	4.67
13	Penn State Nittany Lions	-1.50
14	Michigan Wolverines	-0.99
15	Miami Hurricanes	0.24
16	Wisconsin Badgers	-0.83
17	Kansas State Wildcats	0.22
18	Virginia Tech Hokies	0.00
19	Washington State Cougars	0.25
20	Colorado Buffaloes	0.06
21	Florida State Seminoles	-0.91
22	Florida Gators	0.10
23	West Virginia Mountaineers	0.06
24	UCLA Bruins	0.00
25	Mississippi State Bulldogs	0.00

Omissions:

Team	Unusualness
Louisville Cardinals	1.19
USF Bulls	0.30
TCU Horned Frogs	0.26
Tennessee Volunteers	0.04

Total Score: 17.84