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BosskOnASegway Ballot for 2026 Week 3

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Sept. 14, 2026, 5:05 p.m.

Overall Rationale: My poll is going to look bad and very uncalibrated at the moment, but the predictive and retrodictive accuracies best fit the data we have seen. It is still way too early and too few games for the mechanics to start working properly yet. Fun fact that should explain a lot of the weirdness, Tulsa is the current in season #1.

The stats bare out that the model is working as intended the data is just too light to look good yet.

Week 2 predictive accuracy(post-week-1 blend on the 86 week-2 games): 73.3% accuracy, Brier 0.1577. Preseason baseline on the same games: 67.4% / 0.1860.

Eval grid (accuracy / Brier):
Post-week-1 blend, all 185 games: 79.5% / 0.1378
Post-week-2 blend, all games: 87.6% / 0.1008
Post-week-2 in-season-only, all games: 100.0% / 0.0353 (in-sample, expected)
Post-week-2 blend, week-2 games only: 86.0% / 0.1086
Post-week-2 in-season-only, week-2 games only: 100.0% / 0.0408 (in-sample)

What this means is the blend model used here ranks the better team in head to head high 86% of the time with high precision on margin of victory and the in season only is still perfect from a backward looking perspective, things just look weird due to low sample.

Here are a few breakdowns of the strange ones.

Ohio State for example looks particularly strange.

Ohio St. breakdown: two games, fractional win-shares the MLE actually fits:

Wk Game Score Margin (capped) Win-share Opp in-season
1 vs Ball St. (home) W 56-3 53 → 14 0.919 #85 (1431)
2 at Texas (away) L 23-24 1 → floored at 4 0.361 #18 (1775)
A couple of model mechanics worth noting:

The Ball St. blowout is capped. 56-3 counts the same as 17-3 — margin maxes at 14, so there's no extra credit for running it up on a #85 team.
The Texas loss is floored. A 1-point loss is treated as a 4-point loss (min-win-4), so Ohio St. banks a 0.361 win-share instead of ~0.5. Losing a coin-flip game on the road to a good team is respectable, but it doesn't support a 1976-level rating.
That's the whole story behind in-season #20 (1751): the MLE splits the difference between "dominant over a weak team" (0.919 vs 1431) and "competitive loss to a good team" (0.361 vs 1775). The blend still anchors them at #3 (1901) because preseason was #2 (1976) and the blend is 2/3 preseason — the ▼1/-26 is just the Texas loss pulling the in-season component down.

You can see here they are #20 in season but still propped by pre-season. Oregon is even weirder:

Oregon's two games:

Week 1: beat Boise St. 34-27 at home (Boise is in-season #10, 1940)
Week 2: lost 31-39 at Oklahoma St. (in-season #2, 2076), on the road
Why they're #2 blended (1931), up ▲3 and +89:

The loss was "good." Losing by 8 on the road to the in-season #2 team is a ~0.23 win-share against a 2076 opponent — roughly what a ~1996 team is expected to do. It barely costs them since they are in the middle of one of the longest chains of "winners".
The Boise win gained value. Beating a 1940 team at home is a quality win, and Boise's own in-season rating surged this week, which feeds back into Oregon's rating.
Preseason was already high. They started at preseason #5 (1899), and the blend is still 2/3 preseason, so a strong 1996 in-season rating pulls the blend up to #2 putting them just ahead of Ohio St. at 1901.

Similarly you can checkout Clemson's weirdness due to low sample given them a boost for SoS despite a blowout loss.

Two games:

Week 1: lost 10-51 at LSU (in-season #4, 2014 Elo)
Week 2: beat Georgia Southern 22-7 at home (FCS, collapses to the NON_FBS node)
Why the model still has them at in-season #29 (1713) and blended #24:

Margin is capped at 14. The 41-point LSU loss is treated as a 14-point loss — a ~0.08 win-share against a 2014 team. Losing big to an elite team barely dents the rating; it's roughly what a ~1700 team is expected to do there. This is the main reason things are strange.
Only two games of evidence. The MLE splits the difference between "competitive-ish with LSU" and "dominant over an FCS team," which lands around 1713.
The blend is still 2/3 preseason. Preseason had them #32 (1525), so #24 blended is mostly preseason inertia — the in-season signal has only moved them up a few spots.

Overall things get more logical the longer the season goes. I'll also include the in-season each week until it is the only component. Overall you can see the general idea of selecting the combination of ratings that makes the true outcomes observed most likely. Since this is very early in the season that functionally making a bunch of independent chains of outcomes separated by margins of victory.

Here is the top 30 with the in-seaon/ preseason and previous week plus changes from week 1.

| Team | Blended | In-Season | Preseason | Post-Wk1 | ΔRank | ΔElo
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
1 | Notre Dame | 1979 | #17 (1837) | #1 (2050) | #1 (1988) | 0 | -10
2 | Oregon | 1931 | #8 (1996) | #5 (1899) | #5 (1843) | +3 | +89
3 | Ohio St. | 1901 | #20 (1751) | #2 (1976) | #2 (1927) | -1 | -26
4 | Southern California | 1846 | #12 (1906) | #7 (1815) | #3 (1898) | -1 | -52
5 | Indiana | 1830 | #7 (1997) | #9 (1747) | #10 (1736) | +5 | +94
6 | BYU | 1799 | #44 (1594) | #4 (1902) | #6 (1834) | 0 | -35
7 | Texas | 1758 | #18 (1775) | #8 (1749) | #9 (1738) | +2 | +20
8 | Georgia | 1751 | #117 (1347) | #3 (1953) | #4 (1876) | -4 | -125
9 | Texas Tech | 1749 | #69 (1487) | #6 (1880) | #7 (1815) | -2 | -66
10 | Texas A&M | 1738 | #16 (1837) | #12 (1689) | #12 (1687) | +2 | +51
11 | Miami (FL) | 1736 | #21 (1747) | #11 (1731) | #8 (1741) | -3 | -4
12 | Oklahoma | 1714 | #34 (1650) | #10 (1746) | #11 (1735) | -1 | -21
13 | Alabama | 1690 | #15 (1847) | #18 (1612) | #19 (1624) | +6 | +67
14 | Michigan | 1687 | #27 (1728) | #14 (1666) | #15 (1642) | +1 | +45
15 | Boise St. | 1679 | #10 (1940) | #29 (1548) | #32 (1530) | +17 | +149
16 | Maryland | 1653 | #24 (1735) | #19 (1612) | #21 (1592) | +5 | +61
17 | Tennessee | 1644 | #42 (1606) | #15 (1663) | #17 (1635) | 0 | +9
18 | Pittsburgh | 1627 | #31 (1688) | #20 (1596) | #20 (1610) | +2 | +16
19 | Vanderbilt | 1621 | #51 (1560) | #17 (1651) | #18 (1625) | -1 | -4
20 | Duke | 1617 | #6 (1997) | #44 (1426) | #43 (1469) | +23 | +148
21 | Utah | 1604 | #36 (1650) | #21 (1581) | #25 (1567) | +4 | +38
22 | Tulsa | 1600 | #1 (2307) | #80 (1246) | #74 (1318) | +52 | +281
23 | LSU | 1595 | #4 (2014) | #55 (1386) | #48 (1435) | +25 | +160
24 | Clemson | 1588 | #29 (1713) | #32 (1525) | #39 (1491) | +15 | +97
25 | Florida | 1587 | #28 (1716) | #34 (1522) | #28 (1548) | +3 | +38
26 | SMU | 1585 | #43 (1606) | #22 (1575) | #14 (1648) | -12 | -63
27 | Ole Miss | 1585 | #88 (1428) | #16 (1663) | #16 (1639) | -11 | -55
28 | Nebraska | 1571 | #49 (1567) | #23 (1572) | #22 (1590) | -6 | -20
29 | Illinois | 1570 | #14 (1853) | #43 (1429) | #41 (1471) | +12 | +99
30 | Missouri | 1570 | #23 (1735) | #37 (1487) | #40 (1488) | +10 | +82



Rank Team Reason
1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1988.3 -> 1978.6 [-9.7] (#1 -> #1)
2 Oregon Ducks 1842.6 -> 1931.3 [+88.7] (#5 -> #2)
3 Ohio State Buckeyes 1926.7 -> 1900.8 [-25.9] (#2 -> #3)
4 USC Trojans 1898.1 -> 1845.6 [-52.5] (#3 -> #4)
5 Indiana Hoosiers 1736.4 -> 1830.5 [+94.1] (#10 -> #5)
6 BYU Cougars 1833.9 -> 1799.4 [-34.5] (#6 -> #6)
7 Texas Longhorns 1737.6 -> 1757.6 [+20.0] (#9 -> #7)
8 Georgia Bulldogs 1876.0 -> 1750.6 [-125.4] (#4 -> #8)
9 Texas Tech Red Raiders 1815.3 -> 1748.9 [-66.4] (#7 -> #9)
10 Texas A&M Aggies Texas A&M Aggies 1687.3 -> 1737.9 [+50.6] (#12 -> #10)
11 Miami Hurricanes Miami Hurricanes 1740.7 -> 1736.3 [-4.4] (#8 -> #11)
12 Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma Sooners 1735.2 -> 1714.1 [-21.1] (#11 -> #12)
13 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama Crimson Tide 1623.7 -> 1690.4 [+66.7] (#19 -> #13)
14 Michigan Wolverines Michigan Wolverines 1641.8 -> 1686.7 [+44.9] (#15 -> #14)
15 Boise State Broncos Boise State Broncos 1530.1 -> 1678.6 [+148.5] (#32 -> #15)
16 Maryland Terrapins Maryland Terrapins 1592.2 -> 1653.1 [+60.9] (#21 -> #16)
17 Tennessee Volunteers Tennessee Volunteers 1634.8 -> 1644.0 [+9.2] (#17 -> #17)
18 Pittsburgh Panthers Pittsburgh Panthers 1610.1 -> 1626.5 [+16.4] (#20 -> #18)
19 Vanderbilt Commodores Vanderbilt Commodores 1624.9 -> 1620.9 [-4.0] (#18 -> #19)
20 Duke Blue Devils Duke Blue Devils 1468.6 -> 1616.5 [+147.9] (#43 -> #20)
21 Utah Utes Utah Utes 1566.7 -> 1604.3 [+37.6] (#25 -> #21)
22 Tulsa Golden Hurricane Tulsa Golden Hurricane 1318.5 -> 1599.6 [+281.1] (#74 -> #22)
23 LSU Tigers LSU Tigers 1434.9 -> 1595.0 [+160.1] (#48 -> #23)
24 Clemson Tigers Clemson Tigers 1490.6 -> 1587.6 [+97.0] (#39 -> #24)
25 Florida Gators Florida Gators 1548.5 -> 1586.7 [+38.2] (#28 -> #25)

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