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ExternalTangents Ballot for 2026 Week 4

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Sept. 22, 2026, 10:05 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Every team gets two numbers: an offense rating (how many more or fewer points it scores than an average team would) and a defense rating (how many more or fewer points it allows, where lower is better). The model learns these from every game score, adjusting for how good each opponent was and for home-field advantage. Home-field advantage is measured separately for each program from about 20 years of results, and it is smaller when the visitor comes from a stronger conference. Because each team's rating depends on its opponents' ratings, the model adjusts all teams together, over and over, until every rating is consistent with every result. Early in the season, when there are only a few games to go on, each rating is blended with a preseason estimate based on last year's final rating and recruiting talent; that estimate is dropped entirely after week 5. The model also tracks how consistent each team is from game to game and how confident it is in each rating. As a result, a prediction isn't just a score but a range of likely outcomes, which gives a win probability. The overall rating (offense minus defense) is how many points a team would be expected to beat an average Division I team by on a neutral field, and that number sets the rankings.

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