Only results count. No polls, no preseason rankings, no recruiting, no eye test, no margin of victory.
Every game is one line on a team's ledger. A win is worth +1 to +2 and a loss costs -1 to -2, depending only on the opponent's record in their other games. A team's rank is the sum of its lines.
Everything is recomputed from scratch every week, so a September win over a team that turns out to be good gains value in November.
Playoff wins earn a bonus for going deep. Exact ties are broken by a fixed ladder: head-to-head, schedule strength, quality wins, capped margin, common opponents, road record.
Every rank comes with a receipt. Open any team on any week's page and the math for every game is there.
A college football ranking with no polls, no preseason opinions, and no "eye test." Just results.
Everybody starts at zero. No preseason rankings, no recruiting classes, no "they were good last year." Week 1 is a blank sheet for every team.
Every game you play adds one line to your ledger. Win, you gain points. Lose, you lose points. Your ranking is your total. That is the whole system.
How many points depends on how good your opponent is, and "good" means exactly one thing: their record in their other games. Not their poll ranking, not their reputation. Their wins and losses, not counting the games they played against you.
Beat a team that is undefeated everywhere else: +2.0 (the max).
Beat a team that is winless everywhere else: +1.0 (the min).
Lose to a team that is undefeated everywhere else: -1.0 (the least painful loss).
Lose to a team that is winless everywhere else: -2.0 (the most painful loss).
For the math people: win = 1 + opponent's win%, loss = -(1 + opponent's losing%), using only their other games.
The whole thing is thrown out and recomputed every week. Nothing is locked in. A week 1 win over a team that turns out to be great gets more valuable in November. A week 1 win over a team that collapses gets less valuable. Nobody's opinion is ever consulted.
In week 1, everybody's opponent is a coin flip. Nobody has a record yet, so every opponent counts as .500. Every winner gets +1.5, every loser gets -1.5, and half the country is tied for first. That is on purpose. Strength of schedule does not exist yet, so nobody gets credit for one.
FCS opponents are all lumped into one team called "FCS." Its record is how FCS teams actually do against FBS teams. Beating an FCS team is worth about the minimum. Losing to one costs about the maximum.
Playoff games count like any other game, plus a bonus for going deep: +0.5 for the first round (a bye counts, you earned it), +1.0 quarterfinal, +1.5 semifinal, +2.0 for winning the title. Losing a playoff game is just a normal loss. Conference championship games and regular bowls are normal games with no bonus.
Margin of victory does not count toward points. Winning by 50 is worth the same as winning by 1. Running up the score gets you nothing. Home, away, or neutral does not change the points either. Both only appear as tiebreakers, below.
If two teams have the exact same points, tiebreakers go in this order, and the first one that separates them wins:
Head-to-head (only if the results settle it cleanly; a three-way circle skips this)
Strength of schedule (average quality of everyone you played, the same number as rule 3)
Quality wins minus bad losses (wins over teams with winning records, losses to teams with losing records)
Average margin of victory, capped at 21 points per game
Record against common opponents
Road record (true away games only)
If they are still tied after all six, they share the rank.
Every ranking comes with a receipt. For every team you can see every game, the opponent's record, and the exact math for that line, plus which tiebreaker rule placed them. If you think a team is ranked wrong, you can point at the exact line you disagree with.
Things this system never looks at: AP or Coaches polls, committee rankings, preseason anything, recruiting rankings, betting lines, last season, or who "looks like" a good team.