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DataDrivenPirate Ballot for 2026 Week 9

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Oct. 27, 2026, 9:11 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Computer model that minimizes the squared error difference between projected spread and actual spread, adjusted for home field advantage (~2.5pts) and with a decay to put more weight in recent games and less weight in games earlier in the season. Ratings are centered at the median and scaled by an assumption that the spread between the best and worst team would be -60.

NOTE: this model does not cap margin of victory! That's an intentional choice, meant to lean more heavily in the opposite direction of models like Colley Matrix, Worster, etc that completely ignore margin of victory. The team is going to workshop that a bit more in the off-season, some combination of:

1) OT adjusted scores, because winning by 7 in OT is very different than winning by 7 in regulation.
2) we will never cap MoV based on our philosophy but perhaps we can apply a non-linear function to dampen it when it's beyond 28 points or something.

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