These Rankings Do Not Suck

All right... NOW we're talking. I replaced the old X300 hamster in my desktop with a brand new X400 model, and it's made all the difference. It turns out the old rankings were placing far too much emphasis on blowout wins, resulting in Mizzou actually ranking higher than Texas, who had a significantly better SOS and, incidentally, beat the hell out of Mizzou two weeks ago. So what I did was to assign margin of victory points with a cap:

MOV
16+ (5 points)
9-16 (3.34 points)
1-8 (1.67 points)

The same ranges apply in the negative for losses. The rest of the formula stays the same.

The end result is much more reasonable.

Top 25 Rankings

1. Texas 8-0 (9.062) -- makes sense.
   
2. USC 6-1 (8.613) -- controversial, but they've blown out all but two opponents.
   
3. Florida 6-1 (8.163) -- save for the Ole Miss game, an impressive resume.
   
4. Boise State 7-0 (7.984) -- odd that they're ranked so highly, but they've allowed 7 points or less against five opponents.
   
5. Penn State 9-0 (7.958) -- weak SOS keeps them down. Only 2 wins over winning opponents.
   
6. Alabama 8-0 (7.780) -- see #5. Same story.
   
7. Ball State 8-0 (7.598) -- house of cards. Terrible SOS.
   
8. Texas Tech 8-0 (7.286) -- see #5. Again.
   
9. Utah 8-0 (6.971) -- see #5. This is getting repetitive.
   
10. Tulsa 7-0 (6.945) -- lots of points, lots of wins, excruciatingly weak SOS (#120).
    
11. Oklahoma 7-1 (6.596) -- surprisingly low, but the defense has been giving up too many points in recent weeks.
    
12. TCU 7-1 (6.446)
13. BYU 7-1 (6.324)
14. Georgia 7-1 (6.320) -- the only reason UGA is sitting down here is because of that I-AA opponent in Week 1. And because they let them score 21 points.
    
15. Oklahoma State 7-1 (6.174)
16. Missouri 6-2 (6.125)
17. Minnesota 7-1 (5.560)
18. Ohio State 7-2 (5.400)
19. Michigan State 7-2 (5.070)
20. Florida State 6-1 (4.794)
21. North Carolina 6-2 (4.782)
22. Georgia Tech 6-2 (4.457)
23. Connecticut 6-2 (4.223)
24. California 5-2 (4.015)
25. Maryland 6-2 (3.752)

Missing the cut: USF, Iowa, Nebraska, Boston College, Oregon

The only team in the YFTS rankings that doesn't appear in the top 30 vote-getters in the AP poll? Georgia Tech. Can't really explain that one. Shutting out Duke? Running a badass, old-school offense?

You'll see in the 11-13 spots, OU ranks above TCU, whom it beat, and TCU ranks above BYU, whom it beat. All three teams have identical records, but head-to-head match-ups factor into the positioning. Other examples of this are Ohio State above Michigan State and North Carolina over Connecticut.

Hamster version X400 is a keeper.