r/CFB • u/Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu11 Michigan Wolverines • Akron Zips • Sep 13 '26

News AP Poll Week 2

https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll#000001a0-257a-d09f-a9e4-75fbb1b90000
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33

u/OnionKnight73 Alabama Crimson Tide Sep 13 '26

I don’t understand rankings. If you really think that Texas is the best team in college football as the rankings indicate, and last week you thought the best team was Ohio State, then how do they drop to 6 after a 1-point loss in Austin? Georgia has two wins and no losses, but a one-point loss at the best team’s stadium is more impressive to me than beating Tennessee State and WKU by a million. It’s never clear to me what these polls are actually supposed to measure

8

u/TheNittanyLionKing Penn State Nittany Lions Sep 14 '26

It makes no sense. Michigan went from ranked to unranked and now back to ranked. Should Oklahoma really be punished that heavily for losing a one score game in a tough road environment to what is now a ranked team?

2

u/OnionKnight73 Alabama Crimson Tide Sep 14 '26

Schrodinger’s Wolverines. Simultaneously bums that justify punishing Oklahoma for losing to them at the Big House, but also the 19th best team in the country

1

u/redshirt_diefirst12 Texas Longhorns Sep 14 '26

I assume single-game volatility is much higher at the start of the season than at the end. They will roughly revert to some kind of mean over time.

I imagine what happened to Michigan (harsh drop followed by slow creep back up) will happen to Oklahoma in some form as season progresses and they (presumably) accumulate wins.

4

u/dalr3th1n Alabama Crimson Tide • SEC Sep 13 '26

They don’t want /r/cfb to whine about quality losses.

9

u/Automatic-Nerve-3625 Sep 13 '26

It’s because AP voters don’t understand ranking either. They don’t rank based on who they actually think the top 25 teams are. They rank based on an old school method where you move down if you lose and you only move up if others lose in front of you or you beat a team with a better ranking. It’s dumb

6

u/Shadow-Knows15 Texas Longhorns Sep 13 '26

That slide down was too far. Should be #2 or #3.

2

u/duecesdueces Sep 13 '26

our AI overlords have already calculated the best percentage of a Texas -tOSU rematch in the playoffs

5

u/SigmaLance Miami Hurricanes • Florida Cup Sep 13 '26

It’s most likely that they choked. Big time. Had it been a close game the entire game then a 1 point loss would have looked better.

3

u/ClevelandSteamers757 Ohio State Buckeyes Sep 14 '26

How does that make any sense lol

1

u/ReasonableBuy3703 Sep 14 '26

Blowing a 20 point lead and losing by 1 is a lot worse than losing by one in a back-and-forth game

1

u/ClevelandSteamers757 Ohio State Buckeyes Sep 14 '26

It’s the same thing lmfao

2

u/ReasonableBuy3703 Sep 14 '26

Except it's not. At all.

The latter shows a complete meltdown in coaching and lack of discipline and complacency.

The optics are completely different than had they traded back-and-forth scores and lost on the last drive.

1

u/ClevelandSteamers757 Ohio State Buckeyes Sep 14 '26

I disagree

1

u/SigmaLance Miami Hurricanes • Florida Cup Sep 14 '26

This is what I am saying, but the salty boys are coping.

-4

u/SigmaLance Miami Hurricanes • Florida Cup Sep 14 '26

Ohio blew a 20 point lead. If they had been neck and neck all game the loss would have been viewed differently.

3

u/ClevelandSteamers757 Ohio State Buckeyes Sep 14 '26

Ohio didn’t play last night

1

u/Damille9 Virginia Tech • /r/CFBRisk Veteran Sep 13 '26

Vibes. Man. Vibes.

1

u/Porcupineemu Sickos • Pac-12 Gone Dark Sep 13 '26

Winning is indeed better than losing.

1

u/morelibertarianvotes Virginia Cavaliers Sep 14 '26

It actually makes plenty of sense. You need to consider that rankings are evaluations based on limited information. Prior to the game, you might've thought Ohio st would win 60% of their matches vs Texas and rank them that way. After the game, you actually know they lost, and that means they lose all 60% of that win likelihood as far as this season results go.

You don't get to play everyone against everyone to get to the point where you can granularly rank them that way, you need to text to the limited information you get.

-1

u/SpaceAngel2001 Sep 13 '26

It’s never clear to me what these polls are actually supposed to measure

The AP poll is a measure of the voter's IQ. Thats why they don't make sense.

2

u/JohnWickStuntDouble Texas • Georgia Tech Sep 13 '26

Ty Hildenbrandt from the Solid Verbal is easily the best and highest IQ voter. He has OSU #2. Can’t believe he is just now getting a vote

1

u/RNG_randomizer Notre Dame Fighting Irish Sep 13 '26

It’s an IQ test where no one knows the answers but everyone knows some answer are definitely wronger than others

-3

u/Dr_Ifto Georgia Bulldogs Sep 13 '26

If alabama was #2 you would say different.

7

u/Worried-Turn-6831 Alabama Crimson Tide Sep 13 '26

If Alabama was 2 we’d think the voters were high