Connectivity report · 2025 week 3
Nobody knows anything yet. Here is exactly how much.
The poll opens in Week 5. That date was published before the season and does not move. This is week 3, and what follows is a description of what is not yet knowable.
Every other poll is publishing a top 25 this week. It is built from reputation, because there is nothing else to build it from yet. This page is the alternative: a measurement of how little the schedule has told the model, published in the open, with the date the real poll opens fixed in advance.
The schedule graph
Diagnostics
| teams in the fitEvery team with at least one game against an FBS or FCS opponent. | 294 |
|---|---|
| games played | 397 |
| connected componentsSeparate islands of the schedule graph. Two teams in different components have no chain of results connecting them at all, at any length. | 1 |
| largest componentShare of the field that is mutually comparable through played games. | 294 teams (100.0%) |
| bridge gamesSingle games whose removal would split the graph in two, each holding at least two teams on. Every rating on the far side rests on that one result. | 5 |
| fitted λ₂ (results core)Chosen by cross-validation every week. λ is a ratio of variances, a statement about how much the model does not know, containing no team-specific information whatsoever. It is large when the data is thin and falls as the season accumulates. Regularization stays a statement about variance and never becomes a reputation prior. | 4.000 |
| median 90% rank-interval widthOut of 136 ranked teams, from 1,000 replays of this exact schedule. This is the number that says whether the season has settled. | 110 places |
| teams whose interval spans the league90% interval at least 90% as wide as the whole field. | 30 |
| teams no closer than three hops to the top tenThey have not played a top-ten team and share no opponent with one. Their position relative to the top of the poll is an extrapolation. | 204 |
These are the measures for the weeks before the poll opens, published whether or not they are flattering. The one worth understanding is the penalty the model puts on itself: chosen fresh every week by testing, identical for every team, and carrying nothing about any particular one. Pulling an unknown team toward the middle is a statement about the model’s own ignorance, which is why it can produce a number in week 2 without being told which conferences are supposed to be good.
Bridge games
A bridge is a game whose removal would split the graph in two. Every rating on the far side of one rests on that single result, rather than on a body of evidence, on one Saturday afternoon. There are 5 of them holding at least two teams on right now.
- Valparaiso at Western Illinois (week 3). Western Illinois against Valparaiso is the only game linking 3 teams to the other 291. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
- Stetson at Chattanooga (week 3). Chattanooga against Stetson is the only game linking 3 teams to the other 291. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
- Butler at Northern Iowa (week 1). Northern Iowa against Butler is the only game linking 3 teams to the other 291. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
- North Dakota at Montana (week 3). Montana against North Dakota is the only game linking 2 teams to the other 292. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
- Drake at South Dakota State (week 3). South Dakota State against Drake is the only game linking 2 teams to the other 292. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
What would have to be true
The graph is welded: every team is connected to every other through some chain of results. That is the condition under which a ranking is a measurement rather than an extrapolation, and it is why the opening week is week 5 and not week 1.
Western Illinois against Valparaiso is the only game linking 3 teams to the other 291. Undo that one result and the graph splits in two.
Every one of these is worth more to this poll than its television slot suggests. They are the games that turn two separate islands of results into one comparable field, and no ranking that exists today will tell you which they are.
The provisional table
The estimator runs from week 1. The headline poll does not. What is behind this click is real output from the real model on the real schedule, and it is not the poll. It is labelled provisional on every row, on purpose, because the difference between computing something and being willing to publish it as a ranking is the entire point of this page.
Show the provisional table: 136 teams, ranked by schedule oddsPROVISIONAL. THE POLL OPENS IN WEEK 5. SEE docs/constraints.md.
| # | teamunderline: 90% rank interval · league median width 110.5 | how unlikely1 in this many |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GeorgiaSEC | 0.7311 in 5 |
| 2 | OklahomaSEC | 0.6661 in 5 |
| 3 | UtahBig 12 | 0.6581 in 5 |
| 4 | NC StateACC | 0.6511 in 4 |
| 5 | MemphisAmerican Athletic | 0.6481 in 4 |
| 6 | LSUSEC | 0.5581 in 4 |
| 7 | Ole MissSEC | 0.5541 in 4 |
| 8 | Iowa StateBig 12 | 0.5491 in 4 |
| 9 | HoustonBig 12 | 0.5401 in 3 |
| 10 | Texas A&MSEC | 0.5341 in 3 |
| 11 | Mississippi StateSEC | 0.5181 in 3 |
| 12 | TulaneAmerican Athletic | 0.4801 in 3 |
| 13 | CaliforniaACC | 0.4691 in 3 |
| 14 | NavyAmerican Athletic | 0.4601 in 3 |
| 15 | AuburnSEC | 0.4571 in 3 |
| 16 | IllinoisBig Ten | 0.4541 in 3 |
| 17 | VanderbiltSEC | 0.4411 in 3 |
| 18 | Georgia TechACC | 0.4281 in 3 |
| 19 | USCBig Ten | 0.4061 in 3 |
| 20 | NebraskaBig Ten | 0.3861 in 2 |
| 21 | IndianaBig Ten | 0.3851 in 2 |
| 22 | OregonBig Ten | 0.3721 in 2 |
| 23 | North TexasAmerican Athletic | 0.3491 in 2 |
| 24 | Ohio StateBig Ten | 0.3481 in 2 |
| 25 | MarylandBig Ten | 0.3331 in 2 |
Top 25 of 136. The full table, the résumé column, the schedule receipts and the sort controls arrive with the week 5 launch.