The poll
SEC teams losing to SEC teamsEvery other loss
Why so many losses?
The champs
AP Top 25 · ESPN data
The Chaotic Times
All the news that's fit to pull for Team Chaos
Circles of suck
Hangover watch
Blown leads
Risers & fallers
The Kiffin bowl
Upsets
2026VegasPast years
Poll vs. FPI
Parity watch
Ranked teams upsetWhat Vegas expected
The poll
SEC teams losing to SEC teamsEvery other loss
So what's behind it?
Every explanation I could think of, checked against 25 seasons of polls and scores.
AP rankESPN FPI, same or betterESPN FPI, worseScoreboard rank
How often a team ranked in the first half of the season ended up outside the scoreboard top 25 by year's end (2005–25), by conference. The tick is how often teams ranked in the same spots flop in general, so a red bar past its tick means voters rated that conference's teams too high.
How I figured this
Upsets
2026 upsetsWhat Vegas expected2005–25 seasons
Earned: the underdog outplayed themToss-upFluke: the favorite outplayed them and lost
The flukes
Who's upsetting whom
2026 upsets by the winner's conference (rows) and the ranked loser's (columns). The small number in each box is a normal year.
Get upset a lot? You were probably over-ranked
How often they got upsetWhat Vegas expected
The Team Chaos ledger
Every team's chaos record, after the agent-vs-victim chart on cfb-chaos. Up means a team has pulled upsets (an agent of chaos); right means it's been upset (a victim). Switch views to see how many of those upsets were for real, or who's been good vs. lucky.
How I figured this
Circles of suck
Teams in the loopAlso caught in the web
UpsetHigher-ranked team won
How I figured this
The champs
The last four games
Each chart is ESPN's live win probability for Indiana, play by play, with the two biggest swings marked. A play "works" if it gains about half the needed yards on 1st down, 70% on 2nd, or all of it on 3rd or 4th.
Share of plays that worked, game by game (FBS opponents only). The dashed line is a typical team.
OffenseDefense (lower is better)
How I figured this
Trends
Ranked teams lose more than they used to (and Vegas knows it)
Ranked teams upsetWhat Vegas expected
More big nonconference games again, and more cupcakes too
vs. another power-conference teamvs. an FCS team
The biggest moves since the preseason poll
Preseason AP rank → this week's, with where each team ranks by scoreboard this year and where it finished last year.
Every top-10 team (this point in the season, 2006–26) that finished the year before ranked 50th or worse by scoreboard.
Share that won their next game, every season
Ranked teams that lost a game where ESPN gave them a 90%+ chance to win at some point in regulation, by season (win probability data starts in 2016).
This year's collapses
How I figured this
The Kiffin bowl
Each game's final margin minus the margin the betting line expected. Mint bars beat the line; red bars fell short.
How I figured this
This week
Every ranked game, likeliest upsets first
From bdharvaNYC
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