Here is my biased Human Poll
1 Oregon
2 Penn State
3 Texas
4 SMU
5 Boise State
6 Indiana
7 Notre Dame
8 Tennessee
9 Arizona State
10 Ohio State
11 Georgia
12 Iowa State
13 BYU
14 Alabama
15 UNLV
16 Miami
17 Ole Miss
18 South Carolina
19 Army
20 Clemson
21 Illinois
22 Syracuse
23 Missouri
24 Colorado
25 Duke
Next 5 Out
Georgia Tech Louisiana Memphis Ohio Texas A&M
Here is my poll. I admit it, my bias is too big for ASU this week. I think they should be a few spots lower, but I wanted to rank ASU above Alabama for once in my life.
The bottom five are the next five in, but are ranked alphabetically.
1 Oregon
2 Ohio State
3 Penn State
4 Texas
5 SMU
6 Boise State
7 Indiana
8 Georgia
9 Notre Dame
10 Miami
11 Tennessee
12 Clemson
13 Arizona State
14 Alabama
15 BYU
16 Iowa State
17 UNLV
18 Ole Miss
19 Tulane
20 Army
21 South Carolina
22 Illinois
23 Texas A&M
24 Louisiana
25 Kansas State
Georgia Tech
Jacksonville State
Louisiana
Missouri
Syracuse
Next 5 out, in no particular order Kansas State Missouri Syracuse Tulane Vanderbilt.
Notre Dame and Ohio State with the HUGE jumps up. That is the big shock here. I guess we just really value wins over Nebraska and Navy.
I predict Liberty will fall out next week. Just a prediction.
I view Army and Navy as being very close in my rankings. They have a 5 spot spread between them, which feels like a huge amount.
All Human baby!
I understand, broadly, what your methodology is, but I still find it amazing to see Pitt, Syracuse, and Boise State drop 30 ranks for having the audacity to have a bye week.
We are no longer cowards!! We finally realized Army and Navy are winning, and rewarded then greatly.
Human poll. Quick overview. I try to make the poll a blind resume, as in I don’t care about head to head. I prefer consistency over peaks (2 wins over a mid program will rank higher than a win against a top and a loss to a bottom. ). 3. If you are 5-0 or better, you get an auto ranking.
Just for fun, because the end was really hard, here are my next 5 out, not in any particular order
Illinois, Syracuse, Texas Tech, UNLV, Washington State
This was a fun week to try and solve. I don’t love a bunch of my placements, but it sure is fun.
We are such cowards. No love for Army or Navy?
Utah is the big winner this week, going from “33” up to 25 all on a bye week. All teams should learn from this.
No, please poke holes in my poll. I spend time on it, but this is the first real year I have actually put pen to paper.
For LSU and Missouri, the cop out answer is that is the 25% of the ballot I give to supposed team quality. Realistically, it shouldn’t have that big of an effect though. Those are 2 teams that, after looking at their schedule just now, I was surprised how weak all their opponents were . I feel a bit bad, because using my metrics, they should be lower. Maybe 3-5 spots each, some where in that range. The good news is, at least LSU will have a chance to make a point this weekend against Ole Miss. That game will make a much bigger difference than me re-evaluating.
Indiana I still feel fine on. Their schedule hasn’t been impressive. I think the Nebraska game in 2 weeks is the first real challenge they will face. If they perform well, they will see a jump.
SMU was on the short list to get ranked, but with my rule of ranking 5-0 teams, they got cut. Kansas state is the lowest ranked one loss team in my ranking, and I would take them over SMU.
OK, where is your poll ranking them?
A quick overview of my methodology. I’m sure you can find contradictions, but I do try to stick to this.
At this point in the season, I try to make the ranking 25% how good I think the team actually is, and 75% what the resume says. As we go on, the resume gets more bias.
A few principles that I try to apply.
I blame all the chaos on myself. I didn’t have time to put together a poll this week.
I have 2 big takeaways.
First, we really don’t have the clarity I thought we would 4/5 games into the season. We have such an even balance of presumed weaker teams that are undefeated, and presumed strong teams with a loss, that I can’t make any of it out. Roughly teams 9-35 all have legitimate claims that they should be ranked in the top 15. I know that this is supposed to get clearer every week, but it hasn’t. I feel more unsure every week.
Second, Boise State is is the most devalued team in our poll. That team looks very good right now. With the rest of their schedule, UNLV is the only ranked game I see the rest of the way. It is possible they don’t move up very much. It really is a loss to a top 4 team hurting them (but I guess Ole Miss and Georgia have the same complaint right now).
You know, I thought we might get more consensus as we went along, but it seems to be getting worse.
My big takeaway is, the power 4 conferences are getting way more benefit of the doubt than the non-power 4 teams. Mississippi State being the prime example. Going 1-3, but being ranked higher than ever non-power 4 except for Liberty and Notre Dame.
I’m sure in a month it will be better, but we are really seeing some wild results here.
All human ranking here. This was a tough one for me. I feel like the top 11 or so is fairly set. You can re-organize them how you want, but it will be the same group. Then 12-18 are another group that I don’t know how to separate very well. The rest is a total crap shoot. I have no idea where anyone actually goes. Washington State VS Boise State will be a really good litmus test to show where those teams actually are.
My poll is all human.
Texas is #1. I’m glad to see it. Winning on the road is more impressive than a neutral site game that George had. Feelings might change as the season goes on, but I’m glad that we aren’t a slave to preseason rankings.
We aren’t cowards!! Northern Illinois over Notre Dame!!
Kansas State winning close over Tulane, and jumping 6 spots is really big, but not as big as 8 for Tennessee for beating North Carolina State. Oregon losing 5 spots by winning is shocking by how much, not that it happened.
Spots 4-8 only have a 2 point difference. This mirrors my internal thought process. They are all good, but I don’t know how good relative to each other.
Reports are that they need at least 2 more members to stay as a conference. My guess is they want to find 2 more schools that can tide them over. Then, when the MWC is up for tv rights, and there isn’t a huge buyout to leave, then the Pac8 can grab what they want. Which ones would they want? I have no idea, I would be guessing at random.
I think it is clear that the 4 teams that left were wanted by the Pac2, even if it took a chunk of cash to break contracts and get them there.
Who could the other 2 teams be to get the conference to 8? I have no idea. Ignoring any Mountain West schools, I don’t know who you would go after. There is probably a discussion with North Dakota State and South Dakota State, but I think they would rather stay in the dominate role of FCS. Then you start looking at all the other names that get thrown around. UTEP, Memphis, Tulane, USF, Uconn. I’m sure there are others, I can’t think of any as I quickly type this. Regardless, these are all huge travel distances, and I don’t think any give a significant boost to the conference.
It is really a shame, because it feels like if Stanford/Cal were still in with these other 6, it would be a solid 5th place conference. A step behind the BigXII, but a step above the best G5. It probably wouldn’t, but if you could get to an auto-qualifying bid into the conference, that would be worth it to everyone involved.
It is still a shame. The Pac 12 dissolving was bad for everyone. The one bright spot was that I felt the MWC and Pac 12 merging would be beneficial to everyone. It just made too much sense. The problem is, these big decisions aren’t made on a conference or national level. They are made by the individual schools each trying to look out for themselves.
Hahaha!! We happy Alabama out too!!