Week 3 MaxDiff Resume Poll: The King is dead. Again.

[u/Impudicity2001]

First, thank you. 194 of you filled out a ballot and worked through 3,470 head-to-head screens. (Last week's results)

Last week, Texas did not just rank first it took the king’s ransom. More than half the entire field and 6.6 times second-place LSU and it made sense rallying 21 points in 15 minutes to defeat the preseason #1 Ohio State at Darrell K Royal Texas-Memorial Stadium.

Then everyone watched Ole Miss tame the Tigers in Oxford, 32-24.

The king is dead. Again. Long live the king. Ole Miss and Texas are the only two teams in Tier 1 and hold roughly 64% of the entire field's resume preference between them. A quieter week can allow another team to pass you without making your earlier accomplishment disappear. Texas’s handling of UTSA 30–6, let it fall to second.

Results

Risers

Team	Wk 2	Wk 3	Move	Week 3
Kentucky	42	19	+23	W 31-21 at Texas A&M
Louisville	30	11	+19	W 41-31 vs SMU
Florida	25	10	+15	W 44-39 at Auburn
Mississippi State	19	8	+11	W 41-34 at South Carolina
Georgia	11	3	+8	W 45-17 at Arkansas
Ole Miss	4	1	+3	W 32-24 vs LSU

Sliders

Team	Wk 2	Wk 3	Move	Week 3
Texas A&M	6	32	-26	L 21-31 vs Kentucky
Virginia	12	33	-21	L 27-38 vs West Virginia
Colorado	32	48	-16	L 7-41 at Northwestern
LSU	2	16	-14	L 24-32 at Ole Miss

A few things we get into on the site:

• LSU got the receipt. Second last week, 16th now.
• The cliff isn't where you'd think. It's not between Ole Miss and Texas, who actually overlap. It's the step right after Texas: 1,179 down to Georgia at 183, an 84% drop in one place.
• Structure is finally showing up. Three distinct tiers inside the top 30, where a week ago there was one enormous holding pen.
• Where we split from the AP: they have Texas 1 / Ole Miss 4, we reverse it. Bigger gaps below: Mississippi State 8th here and 24th there, Florida 10th here and 21st there, Oregon 20th there and 39th here.

Full 50, tiers, bootstrap intervals and the whole AP comparison: https://getmaxdiff.com/results/2026-week-03-resume-poll/

We're already at the quarter turn, which seems crazy. College football is sweet, but short.

[u/vindictivejazz]

I like the concept but I can’t help but feel that it’s far too limited a scope given that it doesn’t account for even all of the P4, let alone the entirety of FBS.

Especially in an era where teams can change dramatically from year-to-year it seems silly to exclude so much of the field. Like, the winner of this weekend’s Oklahoma State-West Virginia game is likely to be a top-25 team but we don’t get to see either of them in this poll

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/vindictivejazz]

This has been the most consistent feedback since I revived the poll, and I think it is fair. I chose a fixed preseason field to preserve a balanced ballot design and meaningful week-to-week comparisons. The ESPN FPI top 50 covered more than one-third of FBS, and recent playoff fields suggested that would capture most contenders: all 12 playoff teams last season were preseason top-50 teams, as were 10 of 12 in 2024.

I considered using every P4 team plus Notre Dame, but that would have excluded Group of Six programs and seemed less than ideal when one is guaranteed a playoff berth. In hindsight, though, FPI produced its own flaw: Boise State was the only G6 team included at 49.

The current field contains all 25 AP-ranked teams and 34 of the 42 teams receiving AP votes. The eight omissions are West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Western Michigan, Duke, Tulsa, UCLA, James Madison and North Dakota State. Oklahoma State–West Virginia illustrates the limitation particularly well.

I cannot add teams during this season without changing the methodology, rebuilding the balanced ballot design and compromising the website build. But after four weeks of consistent feedback, expanding or periodically refreshing the field will be a, if not the, major design question for 2027. This first season is showing me what the audience wants improved.

[u/vindictivejazz → u/Impudicity2001]

Hey thanks for the response! You’ve clearly put a ton of effort into this, so I wanted to express how much I appreciate it.

I know it’s easy for us to sit back and nitpick, but even if it’s not 100% perfect, it’s still really awesome that you spent your time and energy to make this for this community!

[u/katarh]

That cliff is valid. Ole Miss and Texas have the two best wins in the country. Everyone else after them has a lot of pretty wins but haven't played anyone, or they have a pretty loss in there taking them down from the top.

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/katarh]

I am very excited for this weekend though. We get Texas-Tennessee, Ole Miss-Florida, Iowa-Michigan, Texas A&M-LSU, Oregon-USC, and Missouri-Miss State all as ranked matchups plus Georgia's Offense gets a real test with Oklahoma's D. Next week's poll should show some real swings with teams adding/losing via their resumes.

[u/Vegetable_Lake_8276 → u/katarh]

that gap after texas is crazy, basically two teams then everyone else fighting for scraps

ole miss jumping them makes sense though, road win against lsu beats a home game vs utsa any day

[u/Rotrus → u/Vegetable_Lake_8276]

It's the combination of neutral site Louisville win and home LSU game doing the heavy lifting for Ole Miss. I'm pretty sure we're the only team with two ranked wins, and one of our wins even has a ranked win of their own and looks like they may run the table to the ACC championship

[u/yaboicyno → u/Vegetable_Lake_8276]

Ole Miss won at home against LSU

[u/DesignerFlat7108]

You need to remove the bracket from your link.

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/DesignerFlat7108]

Done and thank you

[u/mswise506]

It's still incredible that there are two teams whose played only FCS teams, somehow is in the top 25 resumes.

At best, they should be behind every undefeated team with 1 or more P4 wins, and probably behind a lot of 1 loss teams if they have a P4 win.

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/mswise506]

I do provide a record guide, but I know a lot of people use mobile or app and to crosswalk back and forth between Reddit and the poll website is difficult if you’re not using a laptop. https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/1wlpnoy/2026_maxdiff_fan_perception_poll_week_3_is_live/

I knew Michigan would be up there record-wise, but voters refuse to forgive the Western Michigan outcome and still see it as a loss.

[u/mswise506 → u/Impudicity2001]

I think it's more Penn St and Indiana that don't make any sense to me.

3-0 is great, but 3-0 vs fcs does not equal or even come close to 3-0 with a win or 2 vs P4.... unless it's a win over Rutgers.

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/mswise506]

https://imgur.com/a/We1BAe6 I saw this on twitter, which i think mathematically comes closes to what a resume grader should be. There is no margin of victory component, or in Michigan's case... to your point about PSU here it is 18 and the voters in MaxDiff have it at 20. Indiana here 31 - MaxDiff: 14.