re: Tennessee ranked #7 pre-season on CFB Matrix

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I've never heard of CFB Matrix.

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It's a stats site that is actually pretty good. The main thing that goes into how they weight things is returning starters (total not specific), whether or not a team returns a kicker and punter with each counting differently (reason for that is oddly enough returning your kicker has turned out to be more important when analyzing data over all teams than a returning QB - go figure), coaching rating (forget what it's called but basically it assigns a score based upon overachievement (winning games you shouldn't) as well as underachievement (losing games you shouldn't), and your 4 year talent score (basically it averages out talent over the previous four years to get a feel for the talent on any given roster) and a few other items.

They're usually pretty damned good about picking the top teams, in particular but they make mistakes like any other site because teams don't always perform to their talent, injuries happen and in general over the course of a season "shite happens."

IOW, take the whole poll as a general guide not something set in stone but compared to others they have a pretty good record.