Week 10 AP Poll vs Rankings Right Now

We are retiring the AP poll algorithm and moving over to the Playoff Committee algorithm! For the last time, let's check to see how close the AP algorithm was to the full Week 10 AP results

“It has been a privilege and an honor to serve your needs”

- Rankings Right Now AP Poll Machine Learning Model

The first full season of the AP poll machine learning model was a success. Did it make some obnoxious predictions at times that everyone knew was wrong? Absolutely. Did it struggle to predict new teams to break into the AP Top 25? Almost every week.

But the goal of this was to see if people would be interested in in even knowing the rankings of the AP poll. Now that the AP poll is essentially for sports talk shows and barber shop debates, I really didn’t know what to expect for these first few weeks of the season. Turns out, people still love the idea of knowing things ahead of time. It’s like gossip. Everyone loves to hear about it, but might not want to actively participate in it. You’re hearing rumors of where the AP poll will be before it starts to spread.

Before we move full time to the next algorithm everyone will argue about, let’s see where the AP model matched up with the real rankings results leading into Week 10.

Head To Head Results

Here are the results of the Week 10 AP poll compared to the Rankings Right Now predictive model. As a reminder for how to read this chart, the Off By value is looking at the AP poll ranking for the team in the row, and finding the ranking of that same team in the Rankings Right Now column.

For example, the AP poll had Notre Dame as #8. For #8, Rankings Right Now had Texas A&M. If we look for where Notre Dame is in the Rankings Right Now column, they were #13. If you do 13 - 8, you get off by 5.

Reactions

Going off on a high note. A lot of green is good. Personally, I think the model does an overall good job if at least 15 of the 25 are in the green. Some people might have higher standards than 60%, but for the first year of this (and based on the flaws I’ve picked up as the year has gone on), anything worse than that would be just be a bad quality.

Here were the main things that struck me about how the poll voted:

• Algorithm once again really good up top. Predicted flip between Miami and Texas correctly which I found to be pretty cool.

• Notre Dame made a huge leap from where the algorithm thought they'd be. Bad prediction, but also somewhat surprising that they got that many votes.

• Texas A&M was predicted to have a huge jump based on their stellar win against LSU, but the AP didn't give them as much as anticipated. The newsletter discussed how LSU wouldn't drop as much as the prediction, which ended up being true.

• As mentioned in today's newsletter, #10-#15 was going to be the big question for the AP poll. Alabama had a very convincing win, where Indiana and BYU had wins but not nearly as impactful as pitching a shutout against Mizzou. Seems the AP still values BYU’s undefeated start, and is hesitant to pull Alabama back into top 12 contention

• The model predicted Tulane and Memphis to be ranked in this round. Even though they weren't, according to the expanded AP results, they ended up being #27 and #28.

Four Weeks, Four Winners

New contestants, new winners!

After a strong start, kcarnahan is now in shambles. This week’s winner is RealistMarc! They dominated with a score of 142, second place finished with 109. Swag your way when I get some t shirts with some red and green arrows all over it.

We do this challenge each week. Make sure you get your picks in by noon (ET) kickoff on Saturday to risk nothing it all for being crowned the King of Rankings.

What’s Next

• We’re onto the College Football Selection Committee poll starting this week!

• Another good round of high profile matchups that can have big ranking implications

  • #1 Oregon vs Michigan

  • #13 Indiana vs Michigan State

  • #10 Texas A&M vs South Carolina

  • Louisville vs #11 Clemson

  • #18 Pittsburgh vs #20 SMU

• Updated matchups and new Rankings Right Now predictions on the website and social media will be out late Monday night

• Newsletter Friday morning going over all of the huge matchups and how the rankings might look once it is all said and done

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