College football’s polls rank teams even before the season starts, speculating about how good teams will be before they ever play a down. But the Anderson & Hester College Football Computer Rankings (which I co-created) reward teams for what they’ve actually done this season, and only this season, so they just premiered this week. And so far this season, the team that has accomplished the most is (6-0) Texas A&M, which hasn’t yet cracked the top-5 in either the A.P. or coaches polls.
A&M survived in double-overtime at College Station on Saturday versus #6 (in the A&H Rankings) Tennessee, handing the Volunteers their first loss on the season. Tennessee is another team that the polls are shortchanging. The (5-1) Vols, who have played by far the nation’s toughest schedule to date, have played four teams in the current Anderson & Hester top-25. That’s one more than the top five teams in the polls (#1 Alabama, #2 Ohio State, #3 Clemson, #4 Michigan, and #5 Washington) have combined to play. The Vols won three of those four games (only one of them at home), yet they aren’t even ranked in the coaches poll’s top-10.
Interestingly, the #1 team in both polls, defending national champion (6-0) Alabama, plays Tennessee and Texas A&M over the next two weeks. With wins in both of those games, the Crimson Tide will actually earn their #1 ranking.
To be clear, the poll voters are mostly rating teams based on what they think those teams can accomplish, not based on what they actually have accomplished to date. The Anderson & Hester Rankings are based entirely on accomplishments to date—in terms of winning games against good opponents—and not at all on what teams may (or may not) be able to accomplish in the future.
In terms of giving teams too much or too little credit, other oversights in the polls include their ranking (3-2) Mississippi (#31 in the A&H Rankings) ahead of (5-0) Boise State (#10 in the A&H Rankings); the A.P. poll’s ranking (3-2) Oklahoma (#40 in the A&H Rankings) ahead of (4-0) West Virginia (#8 in the A&H Rankings); and the coaches poll’s ranking (5-0) Baylor (#19 in the A&H Rankings, with the 127th-toughest schedule out of 128 teams) in the top-10 (at #8).
At the same time, there’s also plenty of agreement between the subjective polls and the objective Anderson & Hester Rankings. All parties agree that the teams that made up the top-3 last season—Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State—are once again in the top-5. And all agree that the mighty (6-0) Washington Huskies (who may or may not be the author’s alma mater), who have averaged a painful 7 losses per year since their 2001 Rose Bowl triumph (which the author may or may not have witnessed firsthand), are once again in the top-10 (woof, woof, woof!).
Oh, and all parties agree that (2-4) Notre Dame isn’t anywhere near the top-10, or the top-25. The Irish got no votes in either poll and are #107 in the Anderson & Hester Rankings, four spots behind #103 (3-2) Army.
And speaking of the service academy teams, (4-1) Navy is #20 in the A&H Rankings, and (4-1) Air Force is #34. But Air Force, which beat Navy in Colorado Springs, is in the driver’s seat for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy—which will be handed out next spring, by someone.
