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justsaynotoreddit Ballot for 2017 Week 10

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Oct. 29, 2017, 4:45 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I will probably be on the controversial list again, but I'll stand by this method (see previous ballots for a brief description). The ranking is not resume based in the same way most ballots are, which is part of why it will look weird compared to most ballots. It is meant to be a predictive ranking and it went 61% ATS this week. On the year, it is 76.1% straight up and 55.7% ATS with an absolute error of 13.004. I like to compare how it does to the rankings on the prediction tracker (http://www.thepredictiontracker.com/ncaaresults.php?orderby=cover%20desc&type=1&year=17) and you can see it is near the top so far. I'll comment on some of the stranger placements below.

Rank Team Reason
1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Kind of bothersome to have them above the team they lost to. But their SOS is great and they've destroyed all the other good teams they've played.
2 Georgia Bulldogs
3 Penn State Nittany Lions Penn State did exactly what the model expected it to--lose by 1 on the road against an elite team. So they basically don't move (although UGA jumps them for demolishing UF and for ND continuing to impress). It's predictive. It would still predict the same result if they played at Ohio State again so it makes sense to me.
4 Clemson Tigers Beating a good GT team, combined with VT, BC, and Wake all getting big wins bumps Clemson up from last week. Their SOS had the ideal week, while Bama's SOS had a perfectly terrible week causing them to move down.
5 Ohio State Buckeyes See Penn State.
6 Iowa State Cyclones Recency bias? Maybe--that is a potential problem with this system. But this IS a different team than the one that lost to Texas by 10 in an ugly game. Also, Texas isn't bad anyway. Not many teams have two wins as good as ISU does. The next two weeks will tell us a lot.
7 Oklahoma State Cowboys
8 TCU Horned Frogs
9 Virginia Tech Hokies A little high but not too crazy right? BC and Clemson's dominating performances probably bumped them up a bit this week.
10 Auburn Tigers Helped up by Clanga and Clemson's dominating performances.
11 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama falls far on the bye week because almost all of their opponents suffered big losses or lost to bad teams, making Bama's wins up to this point look less impressive. In other words, they ain't played nobody. But that doesn't mean they're not elite or even the best. They might be. They should climb back up near the top with solid wins over the next few weeks.
12 Oklahoma Sooners This is lower than I would like. The close call with Baylor is probably dragging them down the most.
13 Texas Longhorns MOV, SOS, and home field are the only inputs to this poll. Also, I always count OT as a 1-point game. So from this perspective, Texas has a loss by 10 to a mediocre team, two 1-point losses to very good teams (one on the road), and a 5 point loss to a very good team. Couple that with a 10 point victory on the road over a team that now looks great in ISU and that's how you get a 4 loss team this high.
14 NC State Wolfpack They lost to my #1 so they don't move down much. Couple of quality wins, no bad losses really as SCAR continues to win.
15 Washington Huskies The short explanation is they moved down a lot because ASU got destroyed.
16 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets The loss to Tennessee keeps looking worse, but it was by 1 point. Another 1 point loss to Miami and a loss to an elite Clemson team doesn't hurt them much. Wake win is looking better and even Pitt is picking it up lately.
17 Mississippi State Bulldogs Again, losses to elite or very good teams in Auburn and UGA don't hurt you much. Dominating LSU who is now back on the rise helps. Soundly beating A&M who gave Bama a run for their money also helps.
18 Miami Hurricanes A close call against 1-win UNC moves them down a lot. They have several good wins but they have been too close for the computer to like them much.
19 Boston College Eagles First, losses to elite or at least very good teams like Clemson, ND, and VT won't hurt you very much for this poll (and the Wake loss isn't even that bad, with how they have performed this year). Second, teams move based on how they do compared to the prediction. The model predicted them to beat FSU by 1. Instead, BC beat FSU by 32 which gave them a huge bump. Time will tell how much of that was due to BC's upswing and how much was due to FSU's descent into Hell.
20 Wisconsin Badgers Wisconsin's best win so far is probably Northwestern, and all their good wins have been close. Also, a system based on MOV capped at 35 is probably going to be a bit biased against teams that play slow and conservative. It will be hard to know what to make of Wisconsin until the B1G title game, but this is probably underrating them.
21 USC Trojans
22 Stanford Cardinal They were at #15 last week. The close call at Oregon State moves them down.
23 UCF Knights They would be higher but their SOS is bad. They will probably keep climbing.
24 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Wake is great! Tired of writing explanations. You get the theme here. Dominating Louisville looks good. FSU loss looks bad but the other two don't.
25 Iowa Hawkeyes Close losses (with none of them to very bad teams) and a win over an ISU team that now looks great keep Iowa hanging in the top 25.

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