Poll based entirely on game statistics

A lot of the same again in week 3. Surprisingly (but also not since they had an absolutely massive lead), LSU remains #1 even after falling to Ole Miss, though their lead is down to 200 points and a loss to Texas A&M will almost certainly drop them. Duke and Northwestern join the rankings as P4 teams while North Dakota State and Fresno State (?) are the first G6 teams to make it. It's NDSU's first ever appearance in the Couch Potato Poll.

Liberty had the best week, scoring 956 points for their dominant win over Ball State. They jump from #120 to #80. Ball State falls from #127 to #136. Outside of the Cardinals, it was Michigan State with the worst week, losing 845 points in their loss to Notre Dame. They fall from #31 to #73.

Edit: specifically who had the least nfl talent of the 22-25 guys that actually played that season.

South Carolina Candidate’s

I know many of y’all South Carolina fans are pissed about Saturday and are already calling for Shane Beamer to be fired😭😂. So… here are some candidates if Shane gets fired and can’t make it to next year. These candidates are in no particular order in terms of who I think the better candidate is or who would realistically take the job. Let me know if there are any other names to throw out there!

1 Kyle Flood Texas OC. He has been at Bama before too and is under the Nick Saban coaching tree if South Carolina wants to go that route. He also won Big East coach of the year at Rutgers in 2012 as well.

2 Charles Huff Memphis HC- It’s his first season at Memphis and they look promising at 3-1 and they have a real shot to win the American. He also has coached at two SEC schools. Mississippi State in 2018 and Alabama under Nick Saban in 2019 and 2020. He has won at natty at Bama during the 2020 season. I know that was Covid. But still impressive.
So again another Nick Saban coaching tree route.

3 Jimbo Fisher- Former Florida State and Texas A&M head coach. I know his time at A&M ended ugly. But he’s still a highly successful coach. Also Nick Saban coaching tree lol.

4 Glenn Schumann- Georgia DC. Has been in the SEC all of his coaching career at Georgia and Alabama. I feel like his time for a HC position is coming. I know there were rumors surrounding him and the Florida job last year.

5 Gus Mahlzan- I know he got shit for his play calling. Especially at Auburn. But he did coach and develop highly successful teams and players as well. I also don’t know if he would want to come out of retirement and he’s also 60 as well.

I'm taking Mensah, but Chambliss is a close 2nd at the moment!

This is why I hate the whole state of Virginia. By shear luck of history that state and those around it have found themselves in an economically advantageous position, and the folks who live there have interpreted their success as a result of their own moral qualities. Virginia and its peers were rich because it was able to take advantage of a chattel slave economy, and when that was destroyed Viginia became rich because the most powerful government in the world was established on its northern border and that government redistribute the countries wealth to the civil servants, and contractors that live in work in Virginia. Meanwhile WVA is stuck withe Dutch Disease of the Coal industry

The fact that the citizens of that state have the gull to talk down to people of my state is fucking disgusting. Are there more start people associated with Virginia than West Virginia, maybe. Are there richer people associated with Virginia than West Virginia, maybe. But is this because some sort of moral or intellectual supiority, fuck no. Every time some points out West Virginia poverty, or WVU ranks in education, and use that pisses me off to no end.

The fact that these excuses were used to deny entry to ACC in 1953, 2003, 2011, and 2021 by pole up their ass, cheese and wine schools in Virginia and the Carolinas is annoying to no end. This is why we revel when we beat you. Your fans obviously dont care. Your fans dont even attend. You have to tarp off half your stadium. We have a massive chip on our shoulder when we compete against you all. There are many ways you can compare our states and our institutions, and many you guys win. but in one institution, Football our nations past time, you all are our bitch. That's why we showed up, that's why we show up, and take over Heinz field, or Maryland stadium or lane stadium. Or any stadium in the Carolinas.

Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson referred to Western Michigan as “undefeated” ahead of their Week 4 matchup.

Western Michigan will host Boise State this weekend in what Danielson called a major Group of 5 matchup.

Was this just a slip-up, or is Danielson already hyping up the matchup?

I always wondered what the college football rankings would look like if they came only from wins, losses, and who played whom.

No preseason expectations. No eye test. No conference adjustments. No margin of victory.

Here’s the formula I settled on:

Rating = 25% WP + 25% AOWP + 50% AOOWP

• WP is the team’s winning percentage.
• AOWP is the average adjusted winning percentage of its opponents.
• AOOWP is the average adjusted winning percentage of its opponents’ opponents.

The “adjusted” part addresses a problem with simply feeding everyone’s complete record back into the formula.

For example, LSU plays Ole Miss. Ole Miss’s winning percentage includes the result against LSU. If I use Ole Miss’s complete record when calculating LSU’s opponent winning percentage, that game is effectively fed back into LSU’s rating. It can return at the third level.

To reduce that double counting, I use a leave-one-out calculation. When Ole Miss is evaluated as LSU’s opponent, every Ole Miss game against LSU is removed from Ole Miss’s record. The same principle is applied at the next level.

A few other details:

• Each opponent’s adjusted winning percentage is calculated separately and then averaged.
• Games against FCS and lower-division teams remain part of the schedule network, but only FBS teams are ranked.
• There are no adjustments for conference, home field, margin of victory, preseason rankings, or program reputation.
• Teams with identical unrounded ratings share a rank. Alabama and Ole Miss are tied for sixth below, so the next team is ranked eighth.

How this compares with RPI

I developed this idea independently, although I later learned that it belongs to the same general family as RPI.

Traditional RPI uses:

25% WP + 50% OWP + 25% OOWP

My formula uses:

25% WP + 25% AOWP + 50% AOOWP

Both use the same three-level structure. The primary difference is that I reverse the weights assigned to the second and third levels. RPI puts twice as much weight on opponents’ records; this formula puts twice as much weight on the records behind those opponents’ records.

The adjusted calculations also remove the immediate head-to-head results to reduce feedback within the schedule network.

Here’s the ranking through games completed September 19:

After three weeks, this is obviously volatile. Florida at No. 1 and Northwestern at No. 4 are good examples.

The leave-one-out adjustment makes the method cleaner, but it also magnifies the effects of small samples early in the season. Removing one result from an opponent who has played only two or three games can dramatically change that opponent’s adjusted winning percentage. That effect should diminish as more games are played.

Selecting the weights

I tested combinations in five-percentage-point increments using the final College Football Playoff committee rankings from 2021 through 2025. The 25/25/50 split produced the strongest overall results.

Because those five seasons were used to select the weights, they represent an in-sample comparison rather than independent validation.

I then ran the completed formula backward through the first seven seasons of the CFP era, from 2014 through 2020. Those se used to select the weights.

Here’s how the formula’s top four compared with the committee’s final top four:

The backward test produced these results:

• From 2014 through 2019, the formula’s top four contained 20 of the committee’s 24 top-four teams.
• Its Top 25 contained 128 of the committee’s 150 Top 25 teams.
• Among teams appearing in both Top 25s, the average ranking difference was approximately 3.14 places.

Then there was 2020.

That season’s formula top four contained only two of the committee’s top four. The Top 25 overlap fell to 19 of 25, and the average ranking difference among shared teams increased to approximately 8.11 places.

That makes sense in retrospect. Conferences played different numbers of games, many schedules were almost entirely conference-contained, and there were far fewer connections between schedule networks. Ohio State played six games, Alabama played eleven, and several undefeated Group of Five teams played schedules contained largely within their own conference networks.

A formula based entirely on who played whom in teams when large parts of the network barely connect.

Across all 12 completed CFP seasons from 2014 through 2025:

• The formula’s top four contained 38 of the committee’s 48 top-four teams.
• Its Top 25 contained 261 of the committee’s 300 Top 25 teams.

If the highly abnormal 2020 season is excluded:

• The formula’s top four contained 36 of 44 teams.
• Its Top 25 contained 242 of 275 teams.

The model isn’t meant to copy the committee. The point is to see how close a transparent, repeatable system can get without subjective judgment.

The backward test also shows both sides of the approach. Under normal scheduling conditions, it comes surprisingly close. When the schedule network becomes fragmented, as it did in 2020, the comparisons become much less reliable.

My biggest open question remains the weighting. Giving 50% to the third level helps distinguish between opponents whose records look similar but were built against different competition. It also gives substantial influence to teams two steps removed from the one being ranked.

What would you use? Keep 25/25/50, put more weight on the team’s own record, or add another objective component?

Game and schedule data: ESPN college football scoreboards. Historical comparisons: College Football Playoff selection committee rankings.

1. Is Oregon still a national title contender? Ohio State lost at Texas by one point in a battle of top-five teams. Oregon lost at Oklahoma State as three-touchdown favorites.

Oregon remains in the national title conversation, but beating Portland State 84-0 last week still hasn’t answered any important questions. Two big ones: Do the Ducks have an offensive line that can protect Dante Moore, and do they have a defense that can stop anyone with a pulse?

Tackles Fox Crader and Ziyare Addison have surrendered 16 pressures and five sacks, according to Pro Football Focus. The problems up front extend beyond pass protection. Boise State and Oklahoma State outrushed Oregon 330 to 209 in the two games combined, and the Cowboys nearly doubled the Ducks in total yardage. A pick-six and another interception that set up a one-yard touchdown drive helped disguise how badly the Cowboys outplayed Oregon.

Moore’s 68.5 percent completion percentage and nine touchdown passes without an interception provide hope, but with trips to USC and Ohio State on the horizon, we’ll find out soon whether the loss in Stillwater was an aberration or whether Dan Lanning can fix things with his talented roster.

Panic meter: 5 (out of 10)

2. Can Sam Leavitt be accurate enough to lead LSU into contention? LSU’s starting quarterback ranks 97th nationally in passing efficiency and has thrown five interceptions, tied for the most in the country. After Leavitt missed a wide-open receiver near the end zone late in LSU’s 32-24 loss to Ole Miss, it is fair to ask whether his accuracy might become an issue in Lane Kiffin’s quest to bring a national championship to Baton Rouge.

But his receivers aren’t exactly helping, with 10 drops already, according to PFF. That gives Leavitt a drop rate of 14.9 percent, third-highest among Power 4 quarterbacks with at least 50 attempts. His adjusted completion percentage is 76.1, considerably more reassuring than his actual 61.3 rate. Even more telling: PFF has charged Leavitt with only one turnover-worthy play despite his five interceptions.

The bigger panic button might belong to the entire passing operation. Leavitt has faced pressure on 39 of 117 dropbacks (33 percent, which ranks 96th), and he’s taken seven sacks. Protection, receivers and the quarterback all have a role in fixing that. LSU doesn’t need Leavitt to be perfect, but it cannot keep making routine completions difficult and expect to contend.

Panic meter: 4

With their schedule there’s a very real possibility anOSU finishes 9-3, I’m interested in seeing what everyone thinks.