Week 8 AP Poll vs Rankings Right Now

The official Week 8 AP Poll has been released, how did the Rankings Right Now model do in comparison?

Oct 14, 2024

This is the second to last week of comparing the AP poll to the Rankings Right Now AP model. Starting with Week 9, Rankings Right Now will switch over to the College Football Selection Committee ranking algorithm, which is where everyone will be much more locked in on the top 12.

Until then, let’s file the weekly report to show the AP model isn’t just a bunch of randomness.

Go To Rankings Right Now

Head To Head Results

Here is the comparison between the AP Poll and the Rankings Right Now AP poll model predictions. As a reminder, the goal of the Rankings Right Now algorithms are to be as close as possible to the actual results of the AP poll (and later, the CFB Selection Committee Poll).

Reactions

When I see a good amount of green, preferably dark than light, I’m happy. The point of this algorithm is to use it as a tool. When I see something that doesn’t make sense, I ignore it, but overall we want the model to be a good indicator of what to expect. The closer it is to reality, the better experience everyone will have in real time on Saturdays.

The model was correct in keeping Texas at #1, Oregon moving up to #2, and Penn State up to #3
Of the top 10 ranked teams, nine of them were overlapping
- Iowa State was a big surprise compared to the algorithm’s prediction. To all the Iowa State fans that gave me hell on this prediction, we will improve!
12 of the top 15 were dead on or within one ranking slot from being right
Ole Miss was predicted to drop way too low, this was not a surprising bad prediction. This was a known bad prediction
Tennessee was a big question mark going into the rankings release based on how they played against Florida, and the AP poll dropped them due to their underwhelming performance at home
- This will be one of the main points of focus in the offseason when tuning these algorithms. The algorithm is weak when it comes to anticipating teams falling in the rankings even when they win
Army and Navy, FINALLY!
Mizzou had a nice bounce back win, but the AP poll doesn’t seem to be very convinced they are as impressive as initially thought this season

The King Is Dead

I asked, you delivered.

I am more than thrilled to announce the NEW winner of the College Rank Em challenge, asorensen89. You are my hero! Once I get in some Rankings Right Now swag, I’ll send some your way for winning what some people are saying is “A competition of elite minds”.

We will play again every week. If you have any feedback on how to make it more fun, please throw my way.

What’s Next

Next week has another good round of high profile matchups that can have big ranking implications
- #5 Georgia vs #1 Texas
- #6 Miami vs Louisville
- #7 Alabama vs #11 Tennessee
- #24 Michigan vs #24 Illinois
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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