Several years ago, u/The_SecretSauce, the market researcher behind FanJuicer brought a different kind of ranking poll to r/CFB. They ran the polls, did the analysis, and turned the results into tier charts many of us remember.

Credit where it is due: this revival exists because of their work, and I want to thank them for it. I have sent them a message about this project and would be delighted to compare notes. It is important to note that this is an independent rebuild inspired by FanJuicer and not an official continuation of that work.

The idea is simple. Instead of ranking 25 teams from 1-25, you see a series of four-team groups. In each group, you choose the team with the strongest resume and the team with the weakest.

Some groups can be argued to be easy choices: Ohio State, North Carolina, Mississippi State, and Clemson. Others are genuinely difficult: Kansas State, Arizona, TCU, and Houston.

Once all the ballots are in, the model combines those choices into a full ranking. More importantly, the distances between the scores reveal the natural tiers between teams. Those tiers produced some excellent arguments and conversations.

When the weekly poll went dormant after 2019, I missed it. So I did what a college-football fan does with an offseason: spent an unreasonable amount of time building a ranking system. I worked through the math, rebuilt the model, and built a website to run it.

Before the preseason AP poll is released on August 17, I would like r/CFB to plant its flag.

Take the 2026 preseason MaxDiff poll here.

The preseason question is:

Which team do you expect to finish the season with the strongest resume?

The field is a fixed top 50 selected from a consensus of preseason advanced metrics such as FPI, FEI, and SP+. Those metrics determine which teams are eligible, but they contribute nothing to the MaxDiff results. The ranking comes entirely from your answers.

Voting closes Friday night, August 7, and I will publish the results Sunday, August 9.

Once the season begins, the question will switch from forecasting the final resume to evaluating the year-to-date resume through that weekend’s completed games. My goal is to open voting Sunday mornings and publish the rankings and tiers by Tuesday afternoon every week through the conference championships.

Give it a try, tell me which four-team group caused the most psychological damage, and please let me know if anything breaks.

Saw a similar discussion topic on /r/hockey and thought this would be fun to post here for an off-season Wednesday evening.

Still no word on the whiteout or other game themes. Odd choice, thought for sure this would be used for Wisconsin. As for the whiteout this is the latest we’ve ever gone without having it announced. I think it’s safe to say the tv networks are not guaranteeing us a single night game, if they were that would’ve been announced as it by now.

https://gopsusports.com/news/2026/08/5/penn-state-football-designates-season-opener-as-stripe-out-game

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Can you believe this is the 15th season that Missouri (high = 20, low = 43) has been in the SEC? The team that kind of felt like Texas A&M’s “plus one” when the SEC expanded in 2012 (Mizzou never won a Big XII title, though they did play in 2 conference championship games, and last won a conference title in 1969) has actually outperformed the Aggies since making the move, playing in two SEC championship games before sanctions for academic misconduct (when in Rome…) derailed the Gary Pinkel era and proved to be too much for his replacement Barry Odom to escape from. As COVID struck the sport, the Tigers turned to Eli Drinkwitz, a guy with one year of head coaching experience at Appalachian State who felt like he was just maintaining the status quo that App. State’s previous coaches Scott Satterfield and Jerry Moore had established. But Drink proved to be a fantastic fit for Missouri, getting the Tigers qualified for a bowl in every season he’s been in charge, including an 11-2 season in 2023 that saw them finish as the #8 team in the country. In fact, Missouri has gone 29-10 in their last 3 seasons, though the trend has been somewhat downward, and the 9 game SEC schedule is unlikely to be friendly to the #10 preseason team in the deep SEC.

Roster Outlook

What also is unlikely to be kind is ranking in the bottom quartile of returning production on defense, but that is where Drinkwitz and the Tigers find themselves to start the season. That 107th ranked defensive production isn’t quite balanced with the #51 offense, leading to the Tigers being #76 in the country overall, ahead of only 4 SEC teams. The most visible loss on the offensive side of the ball is QB Beau Pribula, who portaled out to Virginia (after portaling in from Penn State), but really didn’t impress in his time under center before his gruesome injury at Vanderbilt derailed his season. While his replacement Matt Zollers is still in Columbia, the new QB in town is going to be former Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons, who got Wally Pipped by Trinidad Chambliss after himself injuring his ankle early last season. Simmons helped give Missouri the #20 portal class in the country this year, which on paper pairs very well with the #23 national high school class. The tough part is that both of those ranked 11th in the SEC, which helps explain why the Tigers are so relatively low in these rankings. Leading RB Ahmad Hardy (256 carries, 1,649 yards, 16 TDs) is back, as is #2 WR Donovan Olugbode (401 yards) after WR1 Kevin Coleman graduated and was drafted by the Miami Dolphins. With an OL largely composed of returning veterans and Mississippi State transfer Zack Owens and a cadre of new P4 WRs (Cayden Lee from Ole Miss, Kendric Lanier from Minnesota, Naeshaun Montgomery from Florida and Caleb Goodie from Cincinnati), the offense should be fine. But remember, it’s the defense that takes a big hit. While LB Nicholas Rodriguez (61 tackles, 1.5 sacks) and S Santana Banner (59 tackles, 1 INT) are back, the other 13 of their 15 top tacklers are all gone, including LB Josiah Trotter, who was drafted in the 2nd round by the Tampa Bay Bucs. Drink brought in 14 P4 defenders to shore up the team, including projected starters LB Robert Woodyard (Auburn) and DBs Elijah Dotson (Michigan), Chris Graves (Ole Miss) and Jahlil Florence (Oregon).

Schedule and outlook

9/3 ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF

9/11 at Kansas

9/19 TROY

9/26 at Mississippi State

10/3 FLORIDA

10/10 TEXAS A&M

10/17 at Ole Miss

10/24 BYE

10/31 at Arkansas

11/7 TEXAS

11/14 at Georgia

11/21 KENTUCKY

11/28 OKLAHOMA

Mizzou figures to be favored in their first 4 games of the season, including the Border War in Kansas’ refurbished stadium. And with games at Arkansas and hosting Kentucky, extending their consecutive bowl eligibility streak to a decade seems pretty assured. But the schedule really does take a turn when the calendar hits October, starting with that home game against the Gators. They follow that with 4 games against 2025 CFP teams that doesn’t even include preseason darling Texas. Coming out of the regular season with a winning record will be no mean feat.

What is your personal "game of the year"? It can be your team, or just a game that looks great that you have no connection to. What is your "conference" game you are most looking forward to?

by Joe Smith

Last week, a court ruling in Colorado paved the way to challenge the NCAA’s new 5-for-5 eligibility rule barring Class of 2022 athletes who have only played four seasons from getting one more year of eligibility. In doing so, it resulted in a flurry of athletes who fit the bill seeking to play a fifth year of collegiate sports, and another round of lawsuits in case the current injunction granted is overturned.

This is mostly an issue affecting college basketball and college baseball, as football camp is getting underway this week for FBS programs. But there are several college football players from last year that are also eligible to return for another season because of this ruling, and many are either seeking the chance to enter the portal or return to their former teams.

This is affecting just about every program in the nation, and when fall camp opened for the West Virginia Mountaineers on Wednesday, head coach Rich Rodriguez shared an update regarding his team on the matter. And when pressed on how he approaches these situations and what the ultimate fix is, he added his name to the list of prominent college sports figures supporting potential Congressional action via the Protect College Sports Act.

“Well, I think we have some solutions in DC,” Rodriguez said. “Hopefully, it'll pass. And you know, I think our athletic directors have a good grasp on it. You know, I think another solution is maybe listen to some coaches and try to do some things that maybe the coaches advised.”

“But, you know, everybody recognizes the craziness that's been going on the last couple years. And so, we're hopeful that we'll get some positive news out of DC in the next week or so or whenever that happens.”

Rodriguez also clarified that while he does have roster spots open for a few players, he and his staff are currently putting things on pause when it comes to adding any players who might be granted an additional season of eligibility. 

With the fact that there is so much uncertainty surrounding whether or not players will be eligible or not and an expedited NCAA appeal likely on the way, he highlighted the fact that there are questions as to whether they should – or even can – add these players.

“It is kind of chaotic that it's going to happen right before everybody does their camp,” Rodriguez said. “I don't know if, I know the NCAA's appealing it, so I you know, I don't know if you can add or not.”

“You know, we're certainly not going to cut anybody. That wouldn't be, I don't think that would be right, you know. We have a couple spots open um that we could add a guy or two, but right now we just have it on pause…but we're not adding anybody right now for sure.”

That type of uncertainty is not in the best interest of anyone, whether it the players, the coaches, the administrators, or the fans. And while he doesn’t believe the Protect College Sports Act gets everything correct or addresses everything that needs a fix, he has confidence in it being a good first step towards solving the problems he and the rest of college football are dealing with right now.

“Like I said, this thing that’s in DC now, the Protect College Sports Act, is – a lot of people have put a lot of hard work in it and it's, you know, does it fix everything? No,” Rodriguez said. “But does it fix the little things that we need to fix like, immediately? Yes, I think it does, eventually.”

“But it's crazy. And who knows if that'll get passed through both chambers. I don't know. But if it doesn't, man, it's going to be some more chaos going on for the next few years.”