Ballot Type: Human
Submitted: Sept. 4, 2018, 2:03 p.m.
Overall Rationale: This feels like more of a crapshoot that the preseason poll.  I'm trying as hard as I can to only base the rankings off of Week 1 games and not take any preseason hype or any of last season's results into consideration, but that is really hard to do and I'm sure I failed miserably.  That being said, I want to rank based solely off of resume and not at all based on who I think will be better at the end of the season, so here's my attempt to do so with only Week 0 and Week 1 to look at.One criteria to begin with that will (hopefully) clarify a bunch of the weirdness in these rankings - for the vast majority of teams, only one game has been played.  I have only one game's body of work to evaluate.  Therefore, if you don't have a win over an FBS team yet, I'm not ranking you regardless of how good I think you are because your resume doesn't deserve it.  For example, Clemson's first game was a comfortable win over an FCS team.  I think that Clemson will very likely end the season in the top five, but they aren't ranked because their only game was against an FCS team.  Another example is Washington.  They had arguably the most "quality" loss of the week and I'm pretty sure they'll be a top ten team come bowl season.  But right now they are 0-1, so they don't get a place in these rankings.This is also why I expect my poll to vary wildly in the first several weeks and then finally settle down after week 3, 4, or 5.  But to remind everyone - this is pretty much a crapshoot at this point, and I don't expect these rankings to be close to my rankings for next week or the week after.  
Teams Ranked:
Rank | Team | Unusualness |
---|---|---|
1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 0.00 |
2 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 0.46 |
3 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 1.26 |
4 | Oklahoma Sooners | 0.00 |
5 | Auburn Tigers | 0.00 |
6 | LSU Tigers | 0.53 |
7 | West Virginia Mountaineers | 0.71 |
8 | Wisconsin Badgers | 0.00 |
9 | Stanford Cardinal | 0.23 |
10 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 0.00 |
11 | Boise State Broncos | 1.22 |
12 | Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors | 4.07 |
13 | Washington State Cougars | 8.72 |
14 | Cincinnati Bearcats | 6.76 |
15 | Boston College Eagles | 5.71 |
16 | Duke Blue Devils | 8.74 |
17 | Colorado Buffaloes | 7.68 |
18 | Oregon Ducks | 0.52 |
19 | BYU Cougars | 4.62 |
20 | California Golden Bears | 4.54 |
21 | Maryland Terrapins | 0.92 |
22 | Indiana Hoosiers | 3.23 |
23 | Vanderbilt Commodores | 2.07 |
24 | Michigan State Spartans | -0.80 |
25 | Penn State Nittany Lions | -1.26 |
Omissions:
Team | Unusualness |
---|---|
Clemson Tigers | 3.93 |
Georgia Bulldogs | 3.86 |
Washington Huskies | 1.82 |
TCU Horned Frogs | 1.82 |
USC Trojans | 1.60 |
UCF Knights | 0.89 |
Mississippi State Bulldogs | 0.92 |
Michigan Wolverines | 0.39 |
Oklahoma State Cowboys | 0.23 |
Miami Hurricanes | 0.16 |
Total Score: 79.67