Well that was an absolute banger of a season. Upsets, playoff controversy, heartbreak, ecstasy and whatever the hell CU was doing. This poll will likely stay open for a week or two to let people who may not visit a cfb community as much in the postseason still have a chance to submit a ballot. It has been an absolute pleasure hanging out with this tiny community, and hopefully it continues to grow. Speaking of community, shout out to @1hitsong@lemmy.ml, who very nearly predicted the final score of the NC game with a prediction of 35-17, you can almost pick my lottery numbers anytime.
My final ballot. Computer poll. Who’s got it better than Michigan? Evidently absolutely nooooobody. But it’s pretty standard that my poll puts the CFP winner ahead by a wide margin (a notable exception being when it declared an OSU as the national champion in 2017).
I know it’s weird that Oregon finished ahead of Washington, although it’s really close. Keep in mind this is essentially a power rating – put those 2 teams on a neutral site tomorrow and I’m sure Vegas would still favor Oregon despite the H2H. For the record, I personally don’t but I tried to eliminate as much bias as possible from the algorithm.
Also, pretty happy with Texas at number 5. It was a good season.
Bonus musing: Since I’ve ran the last 9 CFB seasons through the same algorithm, I was curious how this Michigan team compares to other top teams. Turns out the 2023 Wolverines rank number 4 out of 1,106 FBS teams1, trailing only 2022 Georgia, 2019 LSU, and 2021 Georgia (in that order). Also, if any sickos are wondering who the worst team was, it’s likely 2020 UMass (or 2019 UMass if you want to exclude the COVID year).
1Apparently half my data for the 2018 season got wiped somehow, but fortunately it kept the top 70 teams. I’ll have to crunch that season’s numbers again at some point, but at least it won’t have any bearing on the comparison of elite teams. Also, in 2020 I only ranked 127 teams since 3 opted out, and that season in general had a slightly adjusted formula for obvious reasons.
Full ranking: