There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli never saw a football game, but he apparently knew more about it than ESPN, which updated its Football Performance Index after Week One in college football, only to come up with the most preposterous ranking ever.
The update was issued before AP No. 10 Miami's 27-24 win over No. 6 Notre Dame.
FPI purports to be "The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is."
It ranks all 136 teams based on 20,000 simulations, but something about their data or calculations is haywire.
ESPN’s FPI has been updated following Saturday of Week 1. No one can take this seriously ever again pic.twitter.com/IVzsX7meNk
— The Buckeye Nut (@TheBuckeyeNut) August 31, 2025
Seriously, how can an 0-1 team be No. 1? With an offense that managed just seven points in its opener?
The resulting rankings tilt so heavily toward the SEC that it's utterly ridiculous. Texas remains No. 1 despite losing 14-7 to Ohio State in Columbus Saturday. Ole Miss and USC jump ahead of Oregon, the Trojans vaulting eight spots after beating Missouri State 73-13. The Rebels dumped Georgia State 63-7.
It'd be easy to dismiss this as so much "garbage in, garbage out" except the College Football Playoff Committee has added a new strength of schedule metric, and playoff rankings at the end of the year will be partly based on the perceived strength of schedules, which derives from ESPN/SEC nonsense like this.
It helps create a world where who you lose to matters more than winning games. The only defense is to win them all and avoid the debate about rankings and resumes.
ESPN owns the rights to SEC games, and it colors everything they do in terms of coverage and rankings.