The season has begun. Results are in, and outside of one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, nobody is disputing any of them! This is great news for a couple of different reasons. The first is that, after spending all offseason discussing what we think will happen, we have actual results to help us determine what we may have been right about, or what we might be wrong about. The second reason is that it means we just got to spend an entire weekend watching football, and who doesn’t love sitting on the couch watching football for an entire holiday weekend?
Still, while that second reason is great, the first one holds more sway here. Notice how I said what we MAY have been right or wrong about? We shouldn’t draw any conclusions about one game, especially when it’s the first game of the season. In fact, when it comes to power ratings, we shouldn’t draw definitive conclusions at any point.
A quick reminder for the 5% of you reading this part who didn’t skip to the rankings below: power ratings aren’t meant to rank teams based on what they’ve done this season. They’re designed to rank teams based on what they’re predicted to do going forward. The wins and losses don’t matter as much as the performances. In short, you’re trying to strip away the random craziness that can take place in a college football game (a bouncing ball squeezing through four different sets of arms, or an extra second being added to the clock, for example) to find the data that matters. It’s the process sportsbooks use to set lines, and gamblers use to try to beat those lines.
They’re not infallible. Every week, I go under the hood and look at new data to see what needs to change. So, as you peruse this week’s rankings and every set for the rest of the season, remember that the picture is constantly changing, but not in the same reactionary way you’ll see in the AP Top 25, Coaches Poll, or even the College Football Playoff rankings.
Title odds via DraftKings