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70stang Ballot for 2024 Week 3

Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Sept. 8, 2024, 7:03 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Welcome back to the Report Card Poll! THIS IS NOT A PREDICTIVE POLL. The key tenet of this poll is that pre-season polls are bullshit, and poll inertia is extremely bullshit. I endeavor to eliminate as much poll inertia as possible. This poll is entirely resume based. It is not intended to be predictive in any way. A team ranked 5th is not necessarily expected to beat a team ranked 20th. It does not take into account preseason rankings, team talent, returning production, recruiting, results from last season, or any advanced stats. We're here to generate a Report Card. What have you accomplished on the field so far this season? That's the only question that matters, and it is largely determined algorithmically against some very objective measurements. This is a hybrid poll, and there is a human element. The algorithm does 99% of the work though: Pure win/loss percentage is the first element. Then, we consider who the team has beaten or lost to; P5 opponents, G5 opponents, and FCS opponents. A 3-0 team with wins over 2 P5 and 1 G5 will be ranked higher than a 3-0 team with wins over 1 P5, 1 G5 and 1 FCS, for example. Similarly, losing to a G5 is worse than losing to a P5, etc. Lastly, we consider where the game was played. Home, neutral site, or away. Winning at home is less impressive than winning away, and losing at home is worse than losing away. Once all of these factors have been considered, the human element will come into play if there are teams who are otherwise equal. Things like strength of schedule and convincing wins can be a factor here. This would be entirely a computer poll, except for the rare occasions when it truly makes sense for a human to weigh in. Speaking of rankings, I don't consider them as a weighted element in my poll until week 6-7ish. This is done to eliminate poll inertia, and also bias. Once they are considered, I'll include a much more thorough rundown of how I weight them and how recalculation works. For the first few weeks, this poll will be silly. Any clean sheet, non-predictive poll SHOULD be. Bear with me, because it gets interesting and more effective the further into the season we get. I'm excited to tackle the 12 team playoff; it's arguably the most relevant my poll will ever have been.

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Tier 1 - 2-0 Teams with 1 P5 away win, and 1 G5 win There are no 3-0 teams, and there are no undefeated teams with 2 P5 wins yet, so the top couple tiers are undefeated teams who have not played an FCS opponent. The stronger away P5 win puts these teams into this category; incidentally, all of these teams played the G5 team at home as well, so the order of this tier falls to human input. I mostly considered the strength of schedule to this point in the season, and the ever-dubious "eye test" as well. Texas has played no games that were remotely close, whereas most of the other teams in this tier have. They are the clear number 1.
2 Pittsburgh Panthers Pitt is 2-0 with a convincing win over a G5 team, and a close away P5 win. They take this spot over UNC due to beating the G5 team more convincingly than UNC.
3 North Carolina Tar Heels UNC is 2-0 with a convincing win over a G5 team, and a close away P5 win.
4 South Carolina Gamecocks SCar is 2-0 with a close home win over a G5 and a convincing away P5 win. They played Old Dominion close at home, which is why they're not above UNC or Pitt. That is not a unique situation among the next few teams. Some of these teams won their P5 games more convincingly than Pitt or UNC did, but I'm dinging them more for close G5 games at home than I'm boosting them for the P5 wins away. They did have the most convincing win against their P5 opponent outside of Texas in Tier 1, beating Kentucky soundly in their own house 31-6 to be 2-0.
5 Penn State Nittany Lions Penn State is 2-0 with a close home win over a G5 and a convincing away P5 win. The close Bowling Green game is more of a hit than a solid win over WVU is a boost.
6 Michigan State Spartans Michigan State is 2-0 with a close home win over a G5 and a close away P5 win. They beat FAU in a rock-fight by 6 points, and won @ Maryland by 3, putting them at the bottom of this tier.
7 USC Trojans Tier 2 - 2-0 Teams with 1 neutral P5 win and 1 G5 win USC gets their own tier. They're the only team with a neutral site P5 win and a G5 win. The neutral site win is valued less than an away win, but more than the home wins in the next tier.
8 Nebraska Cornhuskers Tier 3 - 2-0 Teams with 1 home P5 win and 1 G5 win Nebraska tops this tier, with convincing home wins over both UTEP and Colorado (lmao)
9 Arizona State Sun Devils Arizona State is 2-0 with 1 convincing home G5 win, and 1 respectable home P5 win
10 Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma is 2-0 with 1 convincing home G5 win, and 1 rock fight home P5 win. You gotta win your clunkers, but it's still a clunker.
11 Syracuse Orange Syracuse is 2-0 with 1 respectable home G5 win, and 1 close home P5 win.
12 Miami Hurricanes Tier 4 - 2-0 Teams with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win Miami tops this tier, destroying both Florida in the Swamp and FAMU, leaving nothing in doubt. The Hurricanes are 2-0 with 1 FCS win and 1 away P5 win.
13 Boston College Eagles BC is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win. They are the second team in this tier with games that were never in question.
14 UNLV Rebels UNLV is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win. Surprisingly, they are the third team in this tier with games that were never in question.
15 Northern Illinois Huskies NIU is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win. Their FCS game was dominant, and they pulled out a great upset over ND in South Bend.
16 California Golden Bears Cal is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win. Cal had a respectable win over an FCS team, and outplayed Auburn for the P5 win. #FireHughFreeze
17 TCU Horned Frogs TCU is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win. TCU dominated their FCS team, and had a respectable win over Stanford.
18 Duke Blue Devils Duke is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win.
19 Virginia Cavaliers UVA is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win.
20 Iowa State Cyclones Iowa State is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win.
21 BYU Cougars BYU is 2-0 with 1 away P5 win and 1 FCS win.
22 Georgia Bulldogs Tier 5 - 2-0 Teams with 1 neutral site P5 team and 1 FCS win Georgia tops this tier of two teams, allowing 6 points on the season across their two games and soundly beating Clemson at a neutral site.
23 Tennessee Volunteers Tennessee is second in this tier, dominating both opponents they played, including NC State at a neutral site. Georgia gets the nod purely due to strength of opponent; as a human I value Clemson more highly than NC State, despite Tennessee being my team. Hopefully this serves as an object lesson that when I do have to get involved with algorithmically equal teams, I am as objective as possible. You may also notice that Tennessee beat their FCS opponent by a higher margin, and their P5 opponent by a higher margin. This doesn't really matter, because a blowout is a blowout. Once you cross the 30 point lead line, it doesn't really matter, and the opponent quality becomes more important.
24 Utah Utes Tier 6 - 2-0 Teams with 1 home P5 win and 1 FCS win
25 Vanderbilt Commodores

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