2025 season · through week 15

Use your own rules on the same games.

Think a blowout should count for more. Think an unbeaten team should never finish behind a team with a loss. Move a lever and the same season ranks itself again, beside the published one.

Every number behind this poll

Every number behind the 25 on the board, on one page, with nothing to click.
#teamrecordhow unlikely1 in this manyexpectedwins this schedule asked forbeat that bypowerrating (rank)gapplaces from the pollrangein 90% of replays
1Indiana13-01 in 1,6858.3+4.730.0 (2)+30.01 to 24
2Oregon11-11 in 887.3+3.726.2 (5)+10.61 to 35
3Georgia12-11 in 848.0+4.022.6 (10)+12.82 to 44
4Ohio State12-11 in 808.3+3.729.4 (3)+7.21 to 24
5Texas A&M11-11 in 677.5+3.522.7 (9)+13.62 to 44
6BYU11-21 in 457.6+3.419.8 (15)+12.84 to 61
7Texas Tech12-11 in 458.8+3.231.1 (1)+4.31 to 21
8Ole Miss11-11 in 278.0+3.017.8 (19)+15.85 to 68
9Oklahoma10-21 in 157.2+2.820.2 (13)+8.13 to 52
10Alabama10-31 in 117.4+2.620.1 (14)+6.03 to 56
11Notre Dame10-21 in 97.7+2.328.0 (4)-0.91 to 28
12Miami10-21 in 87.8+2.224.4 (7)+2.22 to 43
13Vanderbilt10-21 in 87.8+2.223.0 (8)+3.62 to 45
14James Madison12-11 in 710.0+2.018.7 (17)+9.43 to 55
15Texas9-31 in 77.0+2.017.2 (22)+8.16 to 71
16Utah10-21 in 78.0+2.024.5 (6)+1.31 to 38
17Tulane11-21 in 59.1+1.910.9 (47)+13.517 to 96
18Navy9-21 in 47.6+1.410.9 (48)+14.214 to 89
19Michigan9-31 in 47.5+1.517.4 (20)+4.96 to 73
20USC9-31 in 47.6+1.421.2 (11)+1.13 to 58
21North Texas11-21 in 49.6+1.419.4 (16)+2.94 to 56
22South Florida9-31 in 38.0+1.020.4 (12)+0.13 to 50
23Arizona9-31 in 28.3+0.715.7 (25)+3.37 to 73
24Virginia10-31 in 29.4+0.615.5 (26)+2.87 to 72
25Houston9-31 in 28.4+0.612.7 (37)+5.712 to 92

What the alternatives cost

The decision record behind the three named value systems, in the words it was written in.

The price, stated plainly

docs/adr/0011-recipes.md

1. **Two of the three recipes are not tuned and do not claim to be.**
   `just-win`'s `C = 1` sits far outside anything either campaign searched:
   campaign 1's grid opened at 18 and campaign 2 only widened it upward. It is a
   value judgement taken to its logical end and nothing here claims it predicts
   well.
2. **No recipe has been backtested end to end as a system.**
   [`demo/2023-recipes.md`](../../demo/2023-recipes.md) is one season's final board,
   which compares outputs and does not evaluate them. `cfbpoll backtest` scores
   orderings, and a recipe as a whole is outside what it scores.
3. **The gate is not applied per recipe.** `[gate]` is written against the
   published poll, so an alternate lens publishes no gate verdict and its
   methodology document says why. A page showing three rankings and one verdict
   would be less honest than one showing three verdicts, and the second does not
   exist yet.
4. **Selectable value systems are a rhetorical risk.** "Here are three rankings,
   pick the one you like" is the opposite of what this project is for, and the only
   thing separating this feature from that sentence is the labelling: one recipe is
   published, the other two are lenses, and each one carries its own costs in its
   own words on the same page as its ranking. If the site ever presents the three
   as equals, this ADR should be reopened.
5. **`full-merit` is an ordering this project rejected on the evidence and still
   rejects.** B lost the résumé axis in 16 of 16 season × surface cells and ranks
   teams with losses above unbeaten ones. Shipping it as a selectable lens does not
   relitigate ADR 0005. It makes ADR 0005 checkable: "we measured it and it lost"
   was a claim a reader had to take on trust, because B was the one candidate the
   pipeline could not be pointed at.

Where this decision is weak

docs/adr/0011-recipes.md

- **Three recipes is a curated set and curation is a value judgement too.** The
  axis has infinitely many points on it and this project picked three, including
  its own. Anyone can add a fourth: `configs/recipes/` takes a file, and the
  refusals in `recipes.load` are the only gatekeeping there is.
- **The manifesto prose is versioned by nothing.** `recipe_config_sha256` changes
  when a constant changes; editing a manifesto changes no hash anywhere.
- **One season of comparison.** `demo/2023-recipes.md` is 2023. The structural
  claims (`just-win` can never rank a beaten team above an unbeaten one;
  `full-merit` routinely does) are properties of the orderings and hold in every
  season; the specific movers are one season's.
- **2025 is untouched and stays locked**, under every recipe. `EVIDENCE_KEYS`
  includes `backtest.holdout_seasons` and `backtest.holdout_locked` precisely so a
  recipe cannot be the thing that opens it.

None of these was scored

Every poll here is a real run of the same model on the same games, and not one of them argues for anything. The bar this project publishes is written against the published poll, and nothing behind these levers went near it.

The published poll for this week, and the same season ranked three other ways →