Here are my Week 9 results. 100% resume-based computer poll, so your ranking is determined based on your wins/losses compared to everyone else’s wins/losses. I’ve included my Top 35 this week so people can see who is on the cusp:

1. Florida State Seminoles (LW: 2) (+1)
2. Oklahoma Sooners (LW: 1) (-1)
3. Ohio State Buckeyes (LW: 7) (+4)
4. Michigan Wolverines (LW: 6) (+2)
5. Texas Longhorns (LW: 5) ( - )
6. Washington Huskies (LW: 3) (-3)
7. James Madison Dukes (LW: 9) (+2)
8. Alabama Crimson Tide (LW: 11) (+3)
9. Utah Utes (LW: 17) (+8)
10. Ole Miss Rebels (LW: 12) (+2)
11. Liberty Flames (LW: 13) (+2)
12. Air Force Falcons (LW: 14) (+2)
13. Penn State Nittany Lions (LW: 8) (-5)
14. Georgia Bulldogs (LW: 18) (+4)
15. Oregon State Beavers (LW: 15) ( - )
16. Missouri Tigers (LW: 19) (+3)
17. North Carolina Tar Heels (LW: 4) (-13)
18. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (LW: 16) (-2)
19. Oregon Ducks (LW: 25) (+6)
20. Iowa Hawkeyes (LW: 10) (-10)
21. Louisville Cardinals (LW: 20) (-1)
22. LSU Tigers (LW: 22) ( - )
23. Wisconsin Badgers (LW: 23) ( - )
24. Tulane Green Wave (LW: 26) (+2)
25. Georgia State Panthers (LW: 33) (+8)

26. Duke Blue Devils (LW: 21) (-5)
27. USC Trojans (LW: 24) (-3)
28. Troy Trojans (LW: 28) ( - )
29. UCLA Bruins (LW: 31) (+2)
30. Wyoming Cowboys (LW: 27) (-3)
31. Kansas State Wildcats (LW: 36) (+5)
32. Toledo Rockets (LW: 47) (+15)
33. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (LW: 34) (+1)
34. Minnesota Golden Gophers (LW: 37) (+3)
35. Tennessee Volunteers (LW: 30) (-5)

Thoughts on this week:

• I made some minor algorithm tweaks…it didn’t majorly affect anyone’s rankings but I think it improved results overall. The change gives a larger bonus to wins, as I felt some teams were being ranked too highly based on their “quality losses” compared to teams with good-not-great wins.
• My algorithm is designed to not be “sticky”, meaning each week is a completely fresh ranking based on not only this week’s results but back-calculating every week’s results so far this season. That’s why you see a lot of teams sliding around +/-5 ranks each week…this is intentional, for better or for worse. These small jumps usually slow down later in the season.
• The top 5 are all ranked very close together, and there is a pretty big drop after No. 8 Alabama.
• James Madison continues to creep up. Their match-up this week gives them another chance to rise (their opponent No. 77 Old Dominion outranks Washington’s opponent No. 114 Stanford), and another opportunity Week 10 with an epic Top 25 showdown versus (checks notes) No. 25 Georgia State. After that their schedule gets softer so they’ll have theoretically hit their ceiling. All that to be said…NCAA should do the right thing and let them go bowling, regardless of your thoughts on where they should be ranked in the Top 25, they deserve a post-season.
• Georgia’s descent-through-victory has probably ended, and their floor seems to be ranked 14. The +4 bump they got this week is due to the algorithm change I mentioned above. Going forward their schedule finally stiffens with No. 41 Florida this week, followed by No. 16 Mizzou and No. 10 Ole Miss. Now we get to start seeing what they’re actually made of.
• I’m looking forward to Michigan beating Ohio State and then Penn State beating Michigan, thus creating a highly ranked circle-of-suck atop the Big Ten East.
• The biggest loser this week was San Diego, who dropped 23 ranks after falling to Nevada. Biggest gainer this week was Virginia, who rose 30 ranks after pulling the upset over a Top 5 North Carolina.

My ballot. Computer poll. Michigan has drowned so many ferrets the computer has put them in a league of their own.

Here’s mine this week, I was planning on sharing my ballots once the first cfp ranking came out so I’d have something to bitch about. But I figure that I can share mine a week early to show where I’m leaning leading in.

1. Michigan
2. Georgia
3. Washington
4. Oklahoma
5. Oregon
6. Ohio State
7. Texas
8. Alabama
9. Florida State
10. Penn State
11. Utah
12. Notre Dame
13. Oregon State
14. Tennessee
15. Ole Miss
16. LSU
17. Duke
18. Louisville
19. Missouri
20. Air Force
21. Liberty
22. North Carolina
23. Iowa
24. Kentucky
25. James Madison

Again my ballot is strictly gut based. It doesn’t matter what the FPI rating for your o-line is, I wanna see you move the pile on 4th and inches. I don’t care if you’ve got the best passing attack in the country, can you score when you need to? I’ve certainly got my biases, remember I refuse to rate Tennessee lower than what I think their ceiling is while others need to prove a bit more to me. But overall I feel like my ballot is settling down a bit. Feel free to yell at me if you think I’m wrong.