Before I really get into this week's ratings, I want to make a special note on the Sagarin ratings I used to get them. This week's are, shall I say, off by quite a bit on a few teams. Normally, Sagarin doesn't allow the overall ratings to move by very much, this early on. However, a failure of whatever measures he normally uses, combined with some pretty extreme results in both FBS and FCS games, caused some pretty big leaps and falls.
I noticed that his GOLDEN_MEAN ratings are close to the previous ratings, although there was still some movement. I'm using those ratings in FredRank this week; I plan to go back to using the overall ratings soon.
A couple factors are still yet to update for the 2019 season. These would be CPI, Warren Nolan's Pythagorean expectation and the Wolfe ratings. This means that the ratings can't go all the way up to 1.000; it's probably closer to 0.750.
At this point, I've made choices based on how I believe a committee would, rather than what my ratings would dictate. One rather extreme example: a 7-5 Montana outranking a 10-2 Mercer, even before factoring in a playoff loss for the latter.
As time goes on, I plan to put more of myself into my projections by prioritizing my ratings over win-loss records. However, I'm waiting for the ratings and records to start aligning. If Mercer is really going to get to 10 wins, I expect they'll continue to move up in the ratings. If not, they might stay where they are, or even fall a bit.
Related to that last note is my decision to give the 8 seed to Furman over Montana State or Central Arkansas. In my opinion, an undefeated conference championship deserves to have some perks. It also happens to help the location-based deciding of first- and second-round matchups in the FCS playoff.
On the other hand, South Dakota State is seeded ahead of Nicholls and Kennesaw State because of a superb strength of future schedule, and because they would win against either of those teams head-to-head, home or away.
What do you guys think? Who's overrated and underrated? Be sure to leave any thoughts in the comments here, and don't forget to subscribe if you think you'll enjoy keeping track of college football this year with me.
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