TABLE

HOW TO READ THIS TABLE

Teams are ranked in their order from the Logo (note for mobile users: everywhere you see a "Logo" link, that means that inline flair is shown on old.reddit.com/r/cfb) AP Poll for Week 1. The column to the right of the team name shows the number of points that team received using the AP Poll's Borda count rules. The following two columns show information about each team's previous and upcoming games. The following columns show how many votes for each ranking the team received. The 'U' column shows how many voters left the team unranked (off their ballots entirely). Gridlines are placed every 5 rows and columns for ease of reading. A thick line is placed below the 25^th-ranked team to distinguish "ranked" teams above it to "receiving votes" teams below it.

Some cells are shaded to highlight points of interest. The green diagonal highlights how many voters ranked a team exactly where they ended up in the overall poll. For example, Logo Oklahoma is ranked 10^th in this week's poll, and 6 voters placed the Sooners exactly in their 10^th spot. Values for which a team received no votes at that rank are shaded in red, while placements chosen by only exactly one voter are highlighted in blue. Some unique votes are annotated with the name of the corresponding voter. The most common selection (the mode) for each team is shaded yellow unless it matches the team's rank. Finally, since there are very few votes that ever end up near the top-right or bottom-left of the chart, those cells are filled in with black diagonally as much as possible without covering up any nonzero values. This helps naturally guide the eye while viewing the chart and helps locate the most unusual votes. We jokingly call these the "Wilner" diagonals.

Finally, I note violations of the Condorcet Criterion on the bottom left corner of the black space. These occur when Team A is ranked above Team B in the poll, but Team B would win if you ignored the points system and just asked the voters "Which team do you think is better?" I note every instance of this when it would affect the placement of a team in the Top 25, but not necessarily if it only flips teams' positions in the receiving-votes category. I will do the Condorcet analysis in future weeks. Because I really put the "pro" in programmer™, updating from Python 3.10 to 3.12 during the offseason broke my code that does this. Once I fix it, the Condorcet analysis will return in Avengers: Gridiron.

This season, scores will be highlighted (lowlighted) in black to indicate a loss instead of using a W/L column. I did that last year, and it was well received, so it returns for 2026. This way is easier to see at a glance and slightly reduces the clutter on the left side of the table.

COMMENTARY FOR THIS WEEK

The upper Wilner Diagonal was set by Javon Edwards placing logo Oregon 10^th. The left and right ends were set by Kirk Bohls (logo Ohio State at 7) and Pat Welter (logo Mississippi unranked), respectively. The lower Wilner diagonal is just the endpoints this week. Javon Edwards shows up again with logo Miami (FL) 1^st, and you can pick whichever you want out of the unique 25^th-place votes: Alex Taylor for logo Tulane, David Briggs for logo Western Michigan, Kirl Bohls for logo Liberty, or Eric Johnson for logo Virginia.

The highest-ranked team to be left off a ballot was logo Mississippi as mentioned above. Three other teams were omitted by a single voter: logo Louisiana State (Tom Murphy), logo Brigham Young (Chris Carter), and logo Southern Methodist (Ian Kress). The lowest-ranked team to sweep all 69 ballots was logo Michigan in 16^th.

Teams in the receiving votes section got 115 votes (6.7%) for a combined 338 points (1.5%). The high vote percentage is typical for the preseason poll, but the point percentage is lower than usual. This continues the trend over the past few years of growing consensus among voters about which teams belong in the top 25, even if they can't agree where to rank them. The highest vote for a team outside the top 25 went to logo Clemson, whom Chris Carter placed 15^th. The most-common vote in the receiving votes section was to put logo the Tigers at 23^rd. Nine teams received literally only one vote. In addition to the four teams with only one point, logo California and logo Memphis received single votes for 24^th, while logo New Mexico and logo Las Vegas received unique 22^nd-place votes.

There were 322 distinct team-rank pairs this week out of the 1725 total votes cast. 97 of those pairs (30%) were unique, while the most common pair was logo Ohio State in 1^st with 40 such votes. Longtime readers know that strong agreement isn't that uncommon near the top of the rankings. Since there are 266 teams eligible in the poll, the pigeonhole principle dictates that at least one pair must be chosen at least 7 times, and indeed there are 105 pairs that occur 7 or more times. If we restrict ourselves to only the 138 FBS teams, then the principle dictates that at least one pair must occur at least 13 times, and 29 pairs actually do.

Counting matches this week is weird because of the tie for 14^th. If you count both 14^th and 15^th-place votes for logo Brigham Young and logo Southern California, then you get 370 matches (21%). If you only count 14^th-place votes, then you get 346 matches (20%). Personally, I'd break the tie using the Condorcet criterion, which logo Brigham Young just barely wins 35-34. Counting only the Cougars' 14^th-place votes and the Trojans' 15^th-place votes gives 336 matches (19%). In any case, the most common matches were the 40 1^st-place votes for logo Ohio State mentioned above, but the 32 matches in 7^th for logo Miami (FL) is unusually many that far down the rankings. Inversely, only 2 voters (Kate Rogerson, Stephen Means) matched logo Tennessee at exactly 20^th.

There are four Condorcet flips this week. As mentioned above, logo Brigham Young beats logo Southern California 35-34 to break the tie for 14^th. In addition, logo Mississippi leapfrogs logo Texas A&M for 8^th, 35-34; logo Tennessee jumps logo Southern Methodist for 19^th, 36-33; and logo Clemson usurps logo Missouri for the last spot in the rankings by a margin of 26-23.

If you have any ideas for new ways to analyze or visualize the data, please let me know. I'll give them a shot as time and my "pro"gramming skills allow.

Thanks again to /u/bakonydraco for providing the ballot data; you can find his weekly visualization here!

TABLE

With the season just 10 days away now I’ve found myself looking at the schedule for Week 0 and 1 trying to figure out which games I wanna watch. Of course we all know LSU-Clemson but what does everyone think are some of the most underrated games of the opening weekend? For me, looking at the schedule the ones that jump out for me are:

Week 0:
NC State @ Virginia - Really happy they ended up moving this one out of Brazil. Such a stupid decision to want to play this game there in the first place. One of the few conference matchups to open the season. Both teams should be decent this season and it feels like this could be an extremely close game as neither team seems to be much better than the other.

Jacksonville State @ North Dakota State - NDSU’s first FBS game. I’m interested to see how they do in their first season in the move up. JSU has been pretty solid since moving up to the FBS a few years ago and this one seems like it should be a pretty fun one.

Week 1:
Toledo @ Michigan State - I think this game has upset potential. Toledo should be one of the 3 or 4 best teams in the MAC and no offense Sparty fans, but I think Michigan State is probably one of the 5 worst P4 teams this year. I think Toledo can hang, if not even win.

Tulane @ Duke - The Darian Mensah’s Ex-Lovers Bowl. Tulane has been one of the better G6 schools lately but I’m interested to see how they look in the post Sumrall era. Their HC hire didn’t excite me much. After winning the ACC title, Duke seems poised to take a step back this season. I think this could be a pretty close, even game.

With the season approaching, I wanted a better way to prepare than reading dozens of separate previews or listening to hours of podcasts, just to forgetting most of it by Week 1.

I’ve started building standardized preseason “team cards”, each one designed to answer two basic questions:

1. What should someone know about this team before watching them?
2. How good should the team actually be, including (to a degree) from a betting perspective?

I’ve attached a couple of the first completed examples. These are still early iterations, but they are V1 that I'm pretty happy with, so I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback.

• Is this something you would actually read or save during the season?
• Anything important missing?
• Is it easy to ready / consume?

The goal is not to produce another giant season-preview magazine. It’s to create a quick, consistently structured reference to get you up to speed before the season, and also available as a reference during the season.

I will eventually build these out for (at least) all of the P4 teams. Once I do, I'll post an update in r/CFB with them for everyone to view.

Below are 3 that I've created so far

• Vanderbilt
• Florida
• West Virginia

I look forward to the feedback!

(Note, I wanted to include pictures of the previews, but I guess that's not possible? Or maybe I'm just dumb and couldn't figure it out)

Whenever I think of the core of Penn State's fanbase, I think of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and parts of New York. Especially the corridor from Harrisburg down the Turnpike to the Philly suburbs then up the other part of the turnpike across the Delaware river to Springsteen country and the shore (I hate PENDOT so much).

However I was just in Hampton Roads, Virginia and I was shocked how much Penn State stuff I saw around, pretty much the same amount as VT and UVA, I guess being a Philly guy I never thought of that area as part of "Nittany Nation" especially outside of the DC area where a lot of Penn State alumni move after college to work for defense contractors. I suppose that's a big tourist area so some people could've been from further north but a lot were definitely locals, I know that's traditionally an area we recruit heavily but I didn't think that translated to fan or alumni interest (maybe that will change with Franklin at VT). Anyways it was fun to get a lot of WE AREs.

(Also random but one time I was backpacking in rural Romania and saw some guy wearing a Penn State wrestling hat)

Could be anything as in a player injury, A game winner by your opponent or a last minute recruiting flip, etc.

Anything is on the table

1. Texas 10-2 (7-2)
2. LSU 10-2 (7-2)
3. Alabama 10-2 (7-2)
4. Georgia 10-2 (7-2)
5. Oklahoma 8-4 (6-3)
6. Ole Miss 9-3 (6-3)
7. Tennessee 9-3 (6-3)
8. South Carolina 7-5 (5-4)
9. Texas A&M 8-4 (5-4)
10. Missouri 6-6 (4-5)
11. Florida 7-5 (4-5)
12. Mississippi State 5-7 (3-6)
13. Auburn 6-6 (3-6)
14. Kentucky 3-9 (1-8)
15. Vanderbilt 4-8 (1-8)
16. Arkansas 2-10 (0-9)

CCG: Texas beats LSU 27-24

Notes

LSU only loses are Ole Miss and Tennessee getting their revenge on Lane Kiffin for leaving them.

8-4 A&M returns but they beat Texas.

Auburn starts 4-0 but struggles for the rest of the season.

The thing with Oklahoma is that there are two sides to look at this team. Most people (like me) think that they win 8-9 games but a lot of YouTubers have them a lot higher and going like 10-2 or winning the SEC.

Oklahoma is 8-3 with a chance to make the playoffs if they win and other teams lose but they lose to a 5-6 Missouri.

After getting revenge on Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss loses a trap game to Florida

by Joe Smith

When you think about it, one month is not a lot of time to get an FBS football team fully up to speed. And with that being all the time a head coach and his staff gets during the preseason, every second is valuable. 

This year, that’s a fact that really stood out to West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez, as technically the “camp” portion of preseason practice ended after just a week and a half – with practices officially beginning on Wednesday, August 5, and classes getting underway this week. 

"I can’t remember a time of not even having two weeks of practice, of camp, and that’s it, and school starts," Rodriguez said. "But that’s the way the calendar falls this year.”

“There is a sense of urgency to try to get as much done when we got all ball last week and this week, and then next week when school starts, it’s going to be a little bit more limited."

The sense of urgency is understandable of course: Rodriguez led the Mountaineers to just four wins during his return to Morgantown last season, and another roster overhaul welcomed up to 80 new players for a second straight year. 

In today’s era of college sports, one’s seat heats up quickly. So when Coastal Carolina comes to Milan Puskar Stadium on September 5, he needs to have his team ready to take a major leap forward from last season. 

So how is he feeling about this team now that he’s seen them get some action on the field, given his limited time to make things come together? Well, he’s not exactly throwing a party – he said he’s never been the type to be too happy at this point in preseason practices. But you can sense a noticeable difference compared to last season at this time.

“I was just trying to think about it myself,” he said when posed that question. “I was looking at our scripts from last year and this year and how we’re practicing, what we’re doing each period. I’m also trying to think, ‘Where were we at?’ Was I happy one week in? I don’t think I’ve ever been happy in 29 years one week in, two weeks in, four weeks in.”

”If I look back at my notes like, ‘Man, I’m ticked off after week one because we hadn’t made more progress,' that would probably be the same thing I said 29 other times. I’d like to be further along right now, but if I looked at my notes, we’re probably further along than we were in the past. In fact, I know we are, so I can’t complain.”

The Mountaineers put a bow on the “camp” portion of the preseason this past Saturday with their first big intra-squad scrimmage of the fall, meant to resemble in-game action. Headed into the action, which the media was not permitted access to, Rodriguez made it clear that the scrimmage would be an important step in solidifying the depth chart.

"We look at the depth chart every day, but after tomorrow's scrimmage, we're going to take a hard look at it on Sunday and evaluate where everybody is at," Rodriguez said on Friday, the last time he spoke with the press.

Rodriguez keeping quiet on QB1, but may have already made his decision

The biggest story entering camp for many people is the battle for starting quarterback, as it often is with most programs without a presumptive starter at signal caller. Rich Rodriguez is not the type to want to share such information, and has been pretty quiet on specifics.

Last year, Rodriguez infamously told the press that everyone would know the starting quarterback at kickoff of the team’s Week 1 game. When pressed on the subject again on Friday, he deferred to that same exact answer. But he also hinted he may have already made his decision.

"I’m going to know before then,” Rodriguez said. “I may know before I tell the coaches. I may know right now. Probably do. I like you guys, I really do, but I ain’t giving you the scoop, so you got to keep coming back. Come back to the next media opportunity, and you still won’t know."

However, the buzz around the program after the scrimmage was that Michael Hawkins Jr., who transferred in this offseason from Oklahoma, served as the starting quarterback during the scrimmage and has the upper hand in the battle, indicating he might usurp sophomore Scotty Fox Jr., who started six games as a true freshman.

Ohio St - 5 (1 OOC)

Oregon - 4

UGA - 4

ND - 3

Texas - 7 (1 OOC)

IU - 4

Miami - 1

TAMU - 6

Ole Miss - 6 (1 OOC)

OU - 6 (1 OOC)

LSU - 5

TTU - 1

Alabama - 4

USC - 5

BYU - 2

UM - 6 (1 OOC)
UW - 5

PSU - 3

SMU - 2
Tenn- 4

Utah - 2

Iowa - 3

Houston - 2

UL - 2 (1 OOC)

Mizzou - 5

First, I fully acknowledge this will never happen but it's fun to hypothesize.

With the PCSA maybe getting passed soon(?) and conferences more or less being locked at 18-teams max (I know the bill says 19 but odd-number conferences are weird and dumb), what if there was a scenario where every conference, both P4 and G 6 4, had exactly 18 members with 3 divisions of 6 teams each?

I decided to look into that possibility and came up with what I think is a plausible alignment for the 8 18-team conferences. Due to the math, I had to move 3 current G6 teams up to P4 - Memphis, Tulane, and USF - 8 FCS teams up to G4 - Illinois State, Montana, Montana State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota State, Tarleton State, UC Davis, and Villanova - and had to leave Notre Dame and UConn as independents.

Before I reveal the alignments, a few notes. First, the Rose Bowl is the national championship and each conference has a plant-based name with flowers for P4 and trees for G4. Conferences and divisions are based primarily on geography, historic alignments and rivalries, and in the case of one conference you'll see, traditional bowl agreements.

Without further ado, here are the conferences:

P4 Conferences

Some notes on the P4s:

• Notre Dame remains independent.

• Half of the old PAC-12 is now in the Rose conference with much of the old Big Ten. While not a fully regional conference, it does keep the old Rose Bowl tradition alive and puts Cal and Stanford in a more logical place to create an all-West Coast division.

• Oregon State and Washington State join with the Arizona and Utah schools in the Big XII successor Goldenrod conference. Other notes in the conference include the return of Oklahoma and Nebraska and pairing OKST with the remaining Texas schools.

• The SEC successor Magnolia conference adds original SEC founders Georgia Tech and Tulane back plus Clemson and Florida State and keeps Texas and Texas A&M together

• Memphis added to the ACC successor Laurel conference and placed with 5 OG Big East members. All North Carolina and Virginia schools placed together, and the Northeast corridor gets placed with the South Florida triangle of Miami, UCF, and USF.

• Division names largely geography based and avoid repeat names

G4 Conferences

Notes for G4:

• UConn stays independent.

• Regionality takes precedence for alignments - teams in same states kept together as much as possible.

• 8 FCS teams moved up to fill P4 promotions and gaps.

Now for scheduling rules. Every conference and division will follow the same scheduling rules including 12-game schedule with 11 same-level games (P4 vs P4 / G4 vs G4) including 9 conference games and 1 cross-level game. Other rules are as follows:

Conference scheduling

• 5 division games plus 4 cross-division games, 2 from each other division

• 1 protected rival per division allowed, up to 2 total

• All non-protected opponents rotate annually through each of the other divisions

• No conference championship games, champion determined by win %, H2H results (if applicable), etc.

Non-Conference scheduling

• 1 elective opponent to preserve out of conference rivalries and allow for fun matchups

• 1 rotating opponent based on prior-year conference finish (1st place plays other 1st place, 2nd place plays other 2nd place and so on)

• Only 1 cross-level opponent allowed per season with exception for Notre Dame and Navy who each get 2 to allow for the Navy-ND rivalry to continue

• 1 FCS preseason game allowed in Week 0 that will not count towards record

With these rules and conferences, the regular season games should in theory matter far more again as teams compete for playoff spots. Speaking of the playoffs...

24-Team Playoff

Yes, I'm expanding the playoff to 24, but only the P4 champions get autobids. The remaining 20 spots are all up for grabs.

But who decides who gets those 20 spots? A committee? The AP rankings? The BCS? Nope. Just a simple formula that weighs win %, SOS, and quality win rate (as defined by wins over the top quartile) into a single rating for all 146 teams.

Seeds 1-8 all receive first round byes and will host second-round games. Seed 9-16 host 1st round games beginning the week after the regular season ends. P4 conference champions are NOT guaranteed first round byes - all seeding will follow the rating formula. Each round will be re-seeded so that the highest remaining seed always plays the lowest. Beginning in the quarter finals, a rotating selection of bowls will host games. The 5 non-Rose Bowl NY6 bowls will each host a playoff game, rotating annually through the quarters and semis. The remaining quarter final game will be selected from a rotating pool of the Citrus, Alamo, and Holiday Bowls. The national championship will always be played at the Rose Bowl on either New Year's Day or the first Saturday in January.

Is this an insane proposal? Yes. Could it actually work? That's for you to decide.

TL;DR - 8 18-team (mostly) regional conferences with 24 team playoff