Greetings fellow fans. In one of my first posts, I said there would be no formal rankings published until September 22. The reason for that is the teams that have only played one or two games. In the past years, before the blog, I published week 4 because every team had played at least 2 by then. The problem was in the denominator – if a team has only played once, their denominator is 1 and if their opponent had played 3 games it skewed the SOS substantially. This type of problem is actually good. Before last year, I did not have the capability to have teams play twice – so I stopped the rankings pre-championship week. I was never satisfied with that, but couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Last year, Liberty moved into the FBS expecting to be part of Conference USA, but the feeling was not, shall we say, mutual. So they became an independent and was scrambling for games. At the same time, the Sun Belt and New Mexico State parted ways and as a new independent, the Aggies were begging for games too. The partial solution was a home and home series between the two of them. In reality, if I only counted one of their games, it was not going to materially impact the GCR (they are not known for their football prowess normally), but it would be incomplete. I had to solve the problem, and I did. The solution allowed me to a) simplify the program which was nice in and of itself, b) include all December and January games, and c) increases the number of teams that I track – so this year I was able to add FCS teams. The blog came pretty naturally after that (and some prodding from Mr. French). But back to the issue, adding the FCS presented a new problem – the Ivy League plays its first games September 21st. The problem is some of them will win and potentially by a substantial margin – that team (those teams) would be unfairly calculated because of the denominator of 1 (just to be clear that’s not the only thing in the denominator, but it does impact the calculation a lot). So, like Liberty and New Mexico State last year, I was forced to figure out a solution or wait until October to publish (that seems WAY too late). Last week, I solved it and beta tested with very active member and great friend Mr. Larsen. Now it’s ready.
Before we get to the ranking, I will post an analysis blog later tonight. There are a few teams/conferences I want to call out now. The best FCS team is North Dakota State so far ranked a pretty impressive #6 overall. Before we get in an uproar, once conference schedules begin there will be a lot of movement. They are the defending FCS national champion and are really good – #6 good at the end of the season? I doubt it, but the GCR makes teams earn their ranking and right now, they have performed very well. Overall 7 conferences plus Notre Dame are represented in the Top 25 and 6 more in top 50. Just for fun, the worst FBS (and Power 5) team is #247 out of 256 Vanderbilt Commodores. Yes, they are even worse than Tennessee (#161). More analysis later. Here you go – please comment, share, invite others, question, discuss, etc. From Ohio State to Long Island University:
