Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Jan. 10, 2024, 11:26 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I have two predictive models - one that predicts how many points a team will score and one that predicts if they will win or lose. I simulate every FBS team against each other in each model and average the ranks based on who wins the most and who scores the most/allows the fewest points. Occasionally if there's a team that doesn't make sense based on the eye test I'll adjust or replace them (see notes for details). This week I forced the playoff teams into the top 4 and then only adjusted for egregious errors (OSU was ranked way above Mizzou after the Cotton Bowl and OU ranked way above Arizona after the Alamo Bowl). I'm not including movements this week since the way the weeks are labeled in the data makes the automatic calculation inaccurate and I'm too lazy to calculate it by hand. I added comments for the top 10 and my take on the FSU situation.

• Ballot
• Analysis

Rank	Team	Reason
1	Michigan Wolverines	Natty champs, congrats!
2	Washington Huskies	Great playoff showing! Penix should've been Heisman.
3	Texas Longhorns	Washington was a tough matchup and they took it to the very last play. Great season!
4	Alabama Crimson Tide	Battled Michigan into overtime, in my opinion they proved they deserved to be there.
5	Oregon Ducks	Deserved a better opponent than Liberty in their bowl. Great season, just limited by the 2 losses against UW.
6	Georgia Bulldogs	I mean they beat up on half a Florida State team. Does that mean they deserved to be in over Bama? We'll never know.
7	LSU Tigers	Tbh I didn't even watch the ReliaQuest Bowl but they won I guess? Good for them, the model still likes them statistically.
8	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	The season that could've been, if they had just pulled off wins against OSU and Clemson.
9	Missouri Tigers	Mizzou was consistently underrated this year and proved it in the Cotton Bowl. Should be a bright future ahead!
10	Ohio State Buckeyes	Definitely an ugly Cotton Bowl and watching Michigan win the championship must've been rough. But I'm sure they'll be back next year.
11	Penn State Nittany Lions
12	Florida State Seminoles	Honestly, I've been quietly supportive of the committee's decision since they made it. I'm not saying that FSU's skeleton of a team getting destroyed by UGA means the committee was right, but they did have a chance to prove the committee wrong and instead everyone opted out. This team never really passed the eye test for me and unfortunately we'll never know how good they could've been if Travis stayed healthy. I know they went undefeated and won a P5 conference and they do deserve credit for that, I just think that you could've easily justified leaving them out of the top 4 teams and that's just a really unfortunate situation all around. The 12-team playoff can't come soon enough to prevent situations like this. Sorry, FSU fans.
13	Kansas State Wildcats
14	SMU Mustangs
15	Arizona Wildcats
16	Oklahoma Sooners
17	Tennessee Volunteers
18	Louisville Cardinals
19	Ole Miss Rebels
20	James Madison Dukes
21	Clemson Tigers
22	UTSA Roadrunners
23	Kansas Jayhawks
24	Maryland Terrapins
25	West Virginia Mountaineers

Teams Ranked:

Rank	Team	Unusualness
1	Michigan Wolverines	0.00
2	Washington Huskies	0.00
3	Texas Longhorns	0.07
4	Alabama Crimson Tide	0.00
5	Oregon Ducks	0.42
6	Georgia Bulldogs	-0.58
7	LSU Tigers	1.76
8	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	1.85
9	Missouri Tigers	0.00
10	Ohio State Buckeyes	0.00
11	Penn State Nittany Lions	0.11
12	Florida State Seminoles	-1.33
13	Kansas State Wildcats	1.21
14	SMU Mustangs	2.54
15	Arizona Wildcats	-0.29
16	Oklahoma Sooners	0.00
17	Tennessee Volunteers	0.00
18	Louisville Cardinals	0.00
19	Ole Miss Rebels	-3.94
20	James Madison Dukes	0.94
21	Clemson Tigers	0.00
22	UTSA Roadrunners	3.25
23	Kansas Jayhawks	0.00
24	Maryland Terrapins	1.15
25	West Virginia Mountaineers	0.00

Omissions:

Team	Unusualness
Oklahoma State Cowboys	1.64
NC State Wolfpack	0.77
Iowa Hawkeyes	0.19

Total Score: 22.07