We are through five weeks of the 2023 college football season, and the usual poll shenanigans are in order. For example, after the “top” undefeated teams in the polls, it’s always an SEC team or Notre Dame that is the highest one-loss team—and that’s true this week, as Notre Dame is No. 10 in the Associated Press poll and the Alabama Crimson Tide is No. 10 in the coaches poll. Some things never change in the pollsters’ minds.

We’ve been checking the math versus polls this season to analyze the trends, and we always see overrated SEC teams and/or teams from the South. It’s a given, sadly, because that’s (oddly) where the money is in the sport, despite most of these states being among the poorest in the nation. Priorities, right? But we digress—let’s focus on this weekend’s poll and ratings numbers. This is what we found:

Most Overrated Teams:

  • Washington State (19 spots difference between math and polls)
  • Missouri (16)
  • Kentucky (9.5)
  • North Carolina (7.5)
  • Florida State (7.0)

No one is going to accuse pollsters of overrating the Cougars, but they did beat two then-ranked teams already, so that’s why WSU is so high in the polls. A good litmus test will be the Cougs’ first road game this next week against UCLA. As for the others, they fit the pattern we have seen for decades. Missouri and Kentucky are in the SEC, and that just means inherent bias from mediots and coaches. It’s a disease, really.

With the Tar Heels and the Seminoles, this is the way it goes after the SEC options are exhausted. Think back to 2000, when FSU was chosen for the BCS Championship Game—despite losing to Miami-FL, which in turn lost to Washington. The Huskies should have been in the title game based on head-to-head results, but instead, the mediots and the coaches polls ignored those results in favor of something more “popular”!

Nothing changes, really, sadly, in this corrupt sport.

Interestingly, one of the most underrated teams is one of WSU’s victims: Wisconsin. There is a 14-point difference between the Badgers’ position in math systems (21.5) and their position in the polls (35.5). Why is Wisconsin being punished so much for a loss on the road to a ranked team? Good question. We’re not fans of the Badgers at all, but we do believe in the math, so look for Wisconsin to keep winning and sneak up.