What this is
The CFB Wire is built around a college football rating system that produces two outputs from a single engine: the Wire Power Ratings (WPR) and the Wire Poll (WP).
The WPR is a pure measure of team strength. It tells you who would be favored on a neutral field. It doesn't care about wins and losses — it cares about how well you play.
The WP adds a resume layer on top. It rewards quality wins and penalizes bad losses, mirroring how the College Football Playoff committee thinks. When the WPR and WP disagree, that's the interesting conversation.
Why build this?
Every existing model has a feature I wanted to fix. SP+ and FPI cling too tightly to preseason expectations deep into November. The AP poll is a beauty contest. The CFP committee's rankings come out too late in the season to be useful for predictions.
So I built something that aggressively trusts the current season as it unfolds. By midseason, what a team did last year barely matters. By November, my rankings are almost entirely driven by what teams have actually done this year — but weighted by the quality of their opponents.
What makes this different
I'm going to be completely transparent about the methodology. Every weight, every formula, every change I make during the season — it's all going on this blog. If Oregon drops five spots, there will be a post explaining why. If I change a weight, you'll know about it before the next rankings come out.
The goal isn't to replace SP+ or FPI. It's to offer a different lens on the same sport, built by someone willing to show their work.
Welcome aboard.