The Revision · 2025 week 14

Anybody can show you what they said in week 14.

This shows you what week 14 should have said. On the left is the ranking that got published that Sunday. On the right is the same week, rebuilt once the season had finished and every opponent had shown what they were actually worth.

Nothing about a team’s own results changes between the two columns. Only what its opponents turned out to be worth.

2025 week 14 · the same 25 teams, ranked twice

as published in week 14

once the season finished

1Indiana
2Ohio State
3Oregon
4BYU
5Texas A&M
6Georgia
7Ole Miss
8Texas Tech
9Alabama
10Oklahoma
11Notre Dame
12Vanderbilt
13Miami
14Utah
15Texas
16North Texas
17James Madison
18Navy
19Michigan
20USC
21Tulane
22Virginia
23South Florida
24Arizona
25Houston

Indiana1
Ohio State2
Oregon3
BYU4
Texas A&M5
Georgia6
Ole Miss7
Texas Tech8
Alabama9
Oklahoma10
Notre Dame11
Miami12
Vanderbilt13
Texas14
North Texas15
James Madison16
Utah17
Navy18
USC19
Michigan20
Tulane21
Virginia22
South Florida23
Arizona25
Houston28

Read a line’s angle as the size of the mistake. Flat means the week held up. The right-hand column is each team’s place among all 136 teams once the season was over, so a jump in those numbers is a team from outside this 25 moving in ahead of them. Of the 25 teams published that week, 10 ended up somewhere else and 15 stayed exactly where they were.

counts and the mean below are a tally of the published rank_delta field over the rows shown · 2025 week 14 · d0f03a30

10 of 25teams in the published top 25 were in the wrong spot, measured against the finished season

0.56places the average top-25 team moved. Across all 136 ranked teams the pipeline publishes 0.97

Both figures are about the same week. The top 25 is the part people argue about. The whole field is the part that would catch this model out, and it goes up every week whether it flatters anybody or not.

The receipts, team by team

These are the six teams the finished season moved furthest in week 14, and most of them are outside the published top 25. A poll that only ever showed you its own top 25 would never have to show you that.

Troy55 to 60
Nothing about Troy’s 8-4 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
8-4
schedule odds
1 in 1
rank key
0.04
power
2.3⁹¹
résumé
9.5
gap
+7.2
90% rank range
36 to 123
Iowa30 to 26
Nothing about Iowa’s 8-4 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
8-4
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.25
power
16.5²³
résumé
17.3
gap
+0.8
90% rank range
7 to 79
Utah14 to 17
Nothing about Utah’s 10-2 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
10-2
schedule odds
1 in 6
rank key
0.80
power
24.6⁶
résumé
25.8
gap
+1.2
90% rank range
1 to 38
Houston25 to 28
Nothing about Houston’s 9-3 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
9-3
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.30
power
12.7³⁸
résumé
18.4
gap
+5.7
90% rank range
12 to 92
Illinois27 to 24
Nothing about Illinois’s 8-4 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
8-4
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.29
power
12.2⁴¹
résumé
18.2
gap
+5.9
90% rank range
14 to 97
UNLV31 to 34
Nothing about UNLV’s 10-2 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
10-2
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.23
power
8.5⁵⁹
résumé
17.4
gap
+8.8
90% rank range
22 to 107

And inside the published top 25

Vanderbilt12 to 13
Nothing about Vanderbilt’s 10-2 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
10-2
schedule odds
1 in 8
rank key
0.91
power
23.2⁸
résumé
26.9
gap
+3.6
90% rank range
2 to 44
Miami13 to 12
Nothing about Miami’s 10-2 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
10-2
schedule odds
1 in 8
rank key
0.90
power
24.5⁷
résumé
26.7
gap
+2.2
90% rank range
1 to 41
Texas15 to 14
Nothing about Texas’s 9-3 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
9-3
schedule odds
1 in 6
rank key
0.80
power
17.2²²
résumé
25.2
gap
+8.0
90% rank range
5 to 71
North Texas16 to 15
Nothing about North Texas’s 11-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
11-1
schedule odds
1 in 6
rank key
0.79
power
20.6¹⁴
résumé
27.7
gap
+7.1
90% rank range
3 to 50

It is supposed to shrink, and here is whether it did

September should move a long way when January grades it, and less every week after that. If it ever stopped falling, the weekly poll was never worth reading, and this is the table that would show it.

In week 5 the average top-25 team was 5.24 places out of position. By week 15 it was 0.44. A near-flat figure late in the season is not a boring page. It is the divergence curve doing its job.

week	top 25 moved	mean \|Δ\| top 25	mean \|Δ\| all 136	max \|Δ\| all 136
5	25 of 25	5.24	7.18	28
6	25 of 25	4.00	5.79	25
7	23 of 25	3.88	5.96	23
8	21 of 25	3.24	5.40	24
9	19 of 25	2.28	4.03	18
10	17 of 25	2.40	3.78	17
11	17 of 25	1.64	3.15	13
12	19 of 25	1.60	2.34	13
13	16 of 25	0.80	1.72	8
14	10 of 25	0.56	0.97	5
15	8 of 25	0.44	0.91	5
16	10 of 25	0.48	0.91	5

columns 2 and 3 are a tally over the 25 rows each week published · columns 4 and 5 are printed from 2025/divergence.json

What the two columns measure

Nearly every rankings page carries a plus-minus column, and on screen it looks exactly like this one. That column is the distance between this week’s list and last week’s. This is the distance between what week 14 said and what week 14 should have said, and the two are different measurements that happen to render as the same arrow.

Any ranking that rebuilds the whole season each week is already re-ranking its own past. That is how it works rather than a scandal. Keeping the old answer around is cheap. Publishing the gap is not, and this is the page that does it.

Move one of the settings behind this and watch the board answer →