One person, seven rounds.
Thirty teams, seven rounds, six teams at a time. You order what you see and the board fills from the top.
Seven rounds, six teams a time
The committee rebuilds its top 25 from scratch every week and works down from the top. So each round here fills the top of what is left.
Thirty teams are in play each week, picked by the site’s strength-of-record ranking. A team outside the thirty never appears.
Each round shows you six anonymous teams. Order them first to sixth. You only have to place five. The sixth is whatever is left.
The top four of your six become the next four ranks on the board. The last three rounds lock the top three instead.
The teams you leave out move into the next round, joined by new teams. The board builds one round at a time.
That is 4+4+4+4+3+3+3, so 25 of the thirty end up ranked. Five do not. Two never appear at all.
Where the teams come from
The simulated BCS decides who enters each round and roughly where they start. It combines six computer ratings with the AP and Coaches polls, using the old BCS formula. Your picks move teams off their BCS spot.
Each card also carries four stats. They are context for your eye and never order the board.
- Strength of record. How unlikely those wins are against that schedule.
- Offense. Points added over an average defense.
- Defense. Points removed from an average offense.
- Game control. How much of each game was held, not the final margin.
Where it stops
Twenty-five of thirty finish ranked.
Seven rounds, six teams a round. Four lock in each of the first four rounds, three in each of the last three.
What this is not
This is one person’s opinion, run through a procedure built for thirteen people in a room. It is not the committee’s ranking, a projection or a power rating.
- The BCS decides who you see and when. A team it rates low arrives late and cannot finish near the top.
- Five of the thirty go unranked. Nothing demotes a team. It just never locks.
- A team kept in play for several rounds is judged more often than one that locks first time. Exposure is not equal.
- No adjustment for injuries or weather.