The Revision · 2025 week 2

Anybody can show you what they said in week 2.

This shows you what week 2 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 2 · the same 25 teams, ranked twice

as published in week 2

once the season finished

1California
2South Florida
3Illinois
4Temple
5UNLV
6Texas State
7Memphis
8Utah
9App State
10Houston
11Tulane
12Ole Miss
13Iowa State
14Vanderbilt
15Wyoming
16Mississippi State
17Auburn
18Georgia Tech
19LSU
20North Texas
21Fresno State
22South Carolina
23Florida State
24Nebraska
25TCU

Iowa State1
South Florida3
LSU6
Florida State7
Mississippi State10
North Texas11
Illinois14
Texas State15
Ole Miss16
Nebraska19
Houston20
Tulane21
Auburn22
Utah26
Georgia Tech27
UNLV28
South Carolina31
Vanderbilt34
California40
TCU44
Wyoming45
Memphis49
Fresno State57
App State58
Temple71

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, 25 ended up somewhere else and 0 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 2 · e524ef50

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

18.88places the average top-25 team moved. Across all 136 ranked teams the pipeline publishes 18.26

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 2, 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.

Temple4 to 71
Nothing about Temple’s 2-0 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-0
schedule odds
1 in 5
rank key
0.67
power
-0.2⁶⁴
résumé
60.0
gap
+60.2
90% rank range
31 to 133
Kentucky107 to 43
Nothing about Kentucky’s 1-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
1-1
schedule odds
1 in 1
rank key
0.03
power
-0.3⁶⁶
résumé
-9.0
gap
-8.7
90% rank range
11 to 125
Baylor97 to 36
Nothing about Baylor’s 1-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
1-1
schedule odds
1 in 1
rank key
0.04
power
0.7⁵⁷
résumé
-1.2
gap
-1.9
90% rank range
10 to 123
Western Kentucky34 to 89
Nothing about Western Kentucky’s 2-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-1
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.23
power
-3.8¹⁰³
résumé
14.8
gap
+18.6
90% rank range
45 to 135
Army95 to 42
Nothing about Army’s 1-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be harder than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
1-1
schedule odds
1 in 1
rank key
0.04
power
0.4⁵⁹
résumé
0.8
gap
+0.4
90% rank range
8 to 121
Boston College62 to 114
Nothing about Boston College’s 1-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
1-1
schedule odds
1 in 1
rank key
0.09
power
6.5²⁴
résumé
4.3
gap
-2.2
90% rank range
9 to 133

And inside the published top 25

App State9 to 58
Nothing about App State’s 2-0 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-0
schedule odds
1 in 4
rank key
0.60
power
3.9³⁴
résumé
60.0
gap
+56.1
90% rank range
34 to 135
Memphis7 to 49
Nothing about Memphis’s 2-0 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-0
schedule odds
1 in 4
rank key
0.63
power
-1.1⁷⁶
résumé
60.0
gap
+61.1
90% rank range
24 to 132
California1 to 40
Nothing about California’s 2-0 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-0
schedule odds
1 in 9
rank key
0.96
power
-1.8⁸¹
résumé
60.0
gap
+61.8
90% rank range
56 to 134
Fresno State21 to 57
Nothing about Fresno State’s 2-1 changed. The schedule turned out to be easier than it looked at the time, so the same results are worth a different amount.
record
2-1
schedule odds
1 in 2
rank key
0.35
power
-11.4¹³³
résumé
20.9
gap
+32.3
90% rank range
48 to 135

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 2 said and what week 2 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 →