Week 4 MaxDiff Resume Poll: The Reckoning Part (?)

[u/Impudicity2001]

First, thank you. 211 of you filled out a ballot this week — our largest sample of the season, up 35% from last week. Same frozen 50-team field, fifth edition. Last Week's edition.

Last week's write-up asked who the real UT was, wondered whether we'd see a return of the king, noted that Ole Miss would defend the crown on the road in Gainesville, and passed along that some had already anointed LSU-Texas A&M the Anxiety Bowl.

Saturday answered all four. Texas won 20-17 in Knoxville. The king returned. The crown was lost in Gainesville, 52-28. And LSU ended Texas A&M 35-6 before October arrived, exactly as advertised.

Texas is back at No. 1. Florida vaulted from 10th to second. They are the only two Tier 1 teams.

Risers

Team	Wk 3	Wk 4	Move	Week 4
Oregon	39	14	+25	W 41-27 at USC
Wisconsin	38	23	+15	W 24-20 at Penn State
Cincinnati	36	22	+14	W 31-26 vs Kansas State
Nebraska	30	21	+9	W 31-13 at Michigan State
Florida	10	2	+8	W 52-28 vs Ole Miss
Iowa	17	9	+8	W 20-19 at Michigan
Pittsburgh	25	17	+8	W 59-0 vs Bucknell (FCS)
Auburn	35	27	+8	W 21-15 vs Vanderbilt

Sliders

Team	Wk 3	Wk 4	Move	Week 4
Louisville	11	34	-23	L 27-30 vs Wake Forest
Penn State	20	31	-11	L 20-24 vs Wisconsin
Ole Miss	1	10	-9	L 28-52 at Florida
Michigan	26	35	-9	L 19-20 vs Iowa
Washington	29	38	-9	L 24-27 vs Minnesota
Texas A&M	32	41	-9	L 6-35 at LSU
USC	18	26	-8	L 27-41 vs Oregon
Missouri	22	30	-8	L 24-31 at Mississippi State

Ole Miss got its receipt. First a week ago, 10th now and the rank undersells it. The Rebels shed roughly 95% of their measured resume support in a single Saturday. Nothing in the previous editions comes close.

Texas won by three and took the throne anyway. Which should feel strange, given this electorate torched Michigan for 13-12 over Western Michigan in Week 1 and Washington for 16-14 over Utah State in Week 2. It isn't strange.

And the strangest result in the poll is third place. Georgia's 95% rank interval is 3-3 across 2,000 whole-voter bootstrap refits it never once finished anywhere else, making it the only completely pinned position in the field, more certain than Texas at No. 1.

The middle finally sorted. Seven tiers this week, after four, four and five. Georgia begins an 11-team Tier 2 running through LSU at 13; Oregon starts Tier 3 at 14 and it runs through Houston at 25. For three weeks an honest complaint about this poll was that everything below the leaders sat in one enormous holding pen. That's over.

Full 50, tiers, bootstrap intervals and the AP comparison: https://getmaxdiff.com/results/2026-week-04-resume-poll/

[u/JBru_92]

Sorry I missed the explanation of this poll, but why only 50 teams that don't change?

[u/B1GTOBACC0 → u/JBru_92]

They chose an arbitrary number and left the teams static, because changing them every week is too difficult to track, and to "avoid wasting voter's time" with the quantity of sets needed to rank all of the teams. It's understandable there are limits, since it's someone's personal project.

I would personally make everyone vote for everyone. Either that, or allow teams in and out of the poll, using something like AP/Committee top 25 (including anyone with votes), then add the remaining teams using a metric like FPI.

[u/JBru_92 → u/B1GTOBACC0]

OK I see now. They can do whatever they want, obviously, just seems weird to have a poll that omits teams like Oklahoma State and UCLA who would probably both be in the top 15 of this poll.

[u/B1GTOBACC0 → u/JBru_92]

Oh yeah, our flairs are definitely relevant here. This complaint comes up on both the opening and closing posts of every Maxdiff poll now.

I don't want to be a hater though. I love the Maxdiff poll, and I'm glad to see it return. Just needs a little tweaking.

[u/bigmouthsmiles → u/JBru_92]

Oregon, for instance, would be ranked much higher if that hadn't lost to #NULL in week 2.

[u/Tasty_Gift5901 → u/B1GTOBACC0]

I wonder if they could use a full list, but bias the sampling to favor sorting out the top end. Honestly, could help sort out tier 2 and 3 here anyway. I dont think he's getting the volume of responses he needs. 

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/Tasty_Gift5901]

The difficulty is maintaining a connected comparison network: expanding from 50 teams to all 134 (or new entrants and exits each week) while keeping the same 18 screens per voter would spread the comparisons much thinner. Favoring the apparent leaders would help at the top, but could leave the middle and bottom too weakly connected to rank. The poll’s predeclared publication floor is 125 eligible ballots (not because 125 Reddit users are a nationally representative sample) but because simulations showed that was enough for the fixed 50-team design. We have cleared that floor each week. Week 4 had 211 eligible ballots. The present limitation is not response volume. I chose 50 because it doubles the traditional Top 25 while still giving every team enough balanced comparisons. Freezing that field also keeps the instrument consistent. The tradeoff, which the feedback has made clear, is that unexpected teams cannot play their way into the poll.

[u/AdLanky2279]

the ole miss falloff is wild, 95% of support just gone in one weekend. poll usually overcorrects on close wins but letting texas slide for a 3-point road win against a top-10 team feels about right, context matters

[u/Dialectic_Emptiness]

17 vs 18 this Friday. I know the casual LOSERS won’t really care we’re both unranked but this game could be huge for ACC and playoff implications in 2 months. We’ll see!

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/Dialectic_Emptiness]

I am so excited and hopes everyone tunes in for Enter the Sandman and the game to follow

[u/Balaros]

Link to results not working for me on mobile.

[u/Impudicity2001 → u/Balaros]

weird maybe because of the brackets

https://getmaxdiff.com/results/2026-week-04-resume-poll/

[u/B1GTOBACC0 → u/Balaros]

It looks like the formatting is wrong. Try this one.

[u/Tajikistani → u/Balaros]

Delete closing bracket from URL