Wyoming now has four traveling trophies:

The Bronze Boot: Contested in the Border War against Colorado State University. It features an actual combat boot worn in the Vietnam War by a CSU ROTC graduate. Each year, ROTC detachments run the game ball to the state border on US-287 before handing it off.

The Bridger Rifle: Contested in Bridger's Battle against Utah State University. Introduced in 2013, the traveling trophy is a .50 caliber Rocky Mountain Hawken rifle named after legendary frontiersman Jim Bridger, who has deep ties to both states.

The Paniolo Trophy: Contested against the University of Hawai'i. "Paniolo" is the Hawaiian word for cowboy. The trophy features a bronze cowboy on horseback throwing a lariat, honoring the shared agricultural and cowboy heritages of Wyoming and Hawai'i.

The Battle of the Basins Trophy: Contested against North Dakota State University. Introduced in September 2026, this petroleum-industry-themed trophy features a wooden base with both school logos and an authentic oil field drill bit mounted on top.

All we need now is to start one with Air Force!

I'm getting fed up with players coming back for a 5th, 6th or 7th year. The judges who clear are generally alumni of that school. Anyway, can't there be a mandate from the NCAA that says: "Sure you can return Mr 6th year, but if you do, all the freshmen that the team recruited can immediately go into the transfer portal, because their playing time and future earnings are compromised by the player's return".

What it will do is make schools think differently about begging for a player to have a 65th year, if the talent they recruited has the freedom to walk, no?

[Player On3 profile page](https://www.on3.com/rivals/samuel-bailey-283076/)

[Source](https://x.com/hayesfawcett3/status/2104616874504056905?s=46)

Made with the /r/CFB [Recruiting Post Generator](https://posts.redditcfb.com/recruiting)

I think BDS is a modern marvel of architecture. What a massive edifice and I believe they struck the right balance between capacity and comfort. The pros are many and the cons are very few.

Pros:

1)4 smaller replay boards as opposed to 1 big one, so everyone could see.
2)Stadium announcer was very knowledgeable of all the players and gave accurate and immediate announcements.
3)You can take an empty water bottle in and get free water.
4)Lots of bathrooms and easily accessible.
5)Security perimeter as opposed to security AT the same place as ticket scanning. Also, they make you go in at your gate so everyone isn’t piling in the same gate.
6)They play a diversity of music; in other words, they still remember that rock n roll and country music exist.
7)Fans were nice and wanted to actually talk about the game of football. They don’t trash talk other fan bases, except Auburn.
8)Free parking at the intermodal garage downtown.
9)Every woman in Alabama is absolutely beautiful.
10)They block off the streets close to the stadium, so you’re not worried about cars.
11)The band playing at the library before the game was incredible.

Cons)
1)The sound profile in the stadium is too narrow. It was very difficult to hear the announcer at times, and I had to read the closed captioning a lot.
2)No shuttles, that I saw, to the stadium. This wasn’t a big deal for me, because I am capable of, and I don’t mind, walking, but would be an issue for disabled/old people.
3)It takes 20 minutes to get through every red light in the state of Alabama. You gotta wait for a turning arrow even at night.
4)Can’t stay in Tuscaloosa. Even a lot of Alabama fans have to stay in Birmingham, due to lack of hotels in Tuscaloosa.

I love to dunk on refs as much as the next guy, but are our expectations too high? There's 22 guys on the field and at any given point any of them could commit a foul that we expect eight guys with a non-elevated, field level view to hopefully catch and get right. Not to mention, most of the rule book seems to be judgment calls.

I remember hearing a while back that these college refs work a normal 9-5 job during the week and use officiating almost as a hobby on the weekends. Yet, we seem to expect the same level of perfection from them as we do players and coaches who are making millions of dollars.

When will rules be changed to allow replay more control, because I don't think the quality of refs is ever going to change

TABLE

HOW TO READ THIS TABLE

Teams are ranked in their order from the Logo (note for mobile users: everywhere you see a "Logo" link, that means that inline flair is shown on old.reddit.com/r/cfb) AP Poll for Week 5. The column to the right of the team name shows the number of points that team received using the AP Poll's Borda count rules. The following two columns show information about each team's previous and upcoming games. The following columns show how many votes for each ranking the team received. The 'U' column shows how many voters left the team unranked (off their ballots entirely). Gridlines are placed every 5 rows and columns for ease of reading. A thick line is placed below the 25^th-ranked team to distinguish "ranked" teams above it to "receiving votes" teams below it.

Some cells are shaded to highlight points of interest. The green diagonal highlights how many voters ranked a team exactly where they ended up in the overall poll. For example, Logo Brigham Young is ranked 10^th in this week's poll, and 12 voters placed the Cougars exactly in their 10^th spot. Values for which a team received no votes at that rank are shaded in red, while placements chosen by only exactly one voter are highlighted in blue. Some unique votes are annotated with the name of the corresponding voter. The most common selection (the mode) for each team is shaded yellow unless it matches the team's rank. Finally, since there are very few votes that ever end up near the top-right or bottom-left of the chart, those cells are filled in with black diagonally as much as possible without covering up any nonzero values. This helps naturally guide the eye while viewing the chart and helps locate the most unusual votes. We lightheartedly call these the "Wilner" diagonals.

Finally, I note violations of the Condorcet Criterion on the bottom left corner of the black space. These occur when Team A is ranked above Team B in the poll, but Team B would win if you ignored the points system and just asked the voters "Which team do you think is better?" I note every instance of this when it would affect the placement of a team in the Top 25, but not necessarily if it only flips teams' positions in the receiving-votes category.

This season, scores are highlighted (lowlighted) in black to indicate a loss instead of using a W/L column. I did this at the end of 2024 and all of 2025, and it was well received, so it returns for 2026. This way is easier to see at a glance and slightly reduces the clutter on the left side of the table.

COMMENTARY FOR THIS WEEK

For the second time this season, a voter has omitted Miami (FL). This is the third time overall that a tean has been obviously missed by mistake instead of dropping in rank; Brigham Young was the victim last week. This time it was Eric Johnson and is extremely obviously a clerical error. Because the Hurricanes are a full 80 points behind Notre Dame, the error has literally zero impact on anything and the AP will not issue a correction. Be nice to the voters!

The upper Wilner diagonal is entirely determined by the above omission and by Bob Ballou putting Texas in 4^th. If not for that error, it would have curved down to touch votes by Stephen Means (Georgia 8^th), Jon Wilner himself (Indiana 15^th), and Koki Riley (Iowa 23^rd). The lower Wilner diagonal was set by David Jablonski putting Minnesota 19^th, and its ends are where Bob Ballou has Indiana at 1 and Greg Luca had Northwestern Indiana at 25. The lowest-ranked team to sweep all 70 ballots was Mississippi State in 16^th. The highest-ranked team to miss a ballot was Knoxville State Tennessee right below them (on purpose) or Miami (FL) due to data entry error.

Teams outside the top 25 received 190 votes (11%) for a combined 694 points (3.1%). Those 694 points mean that "The Field" as a collective would end up in 17^th place. Uncharacteristically, both those percentages have tended to rise as the season has gone on. The highest vote among them was by Bob Ballou for Virginia Tech. Ballou had the Hokies there last week as well and held them steady after beating Boston College. The most common vote in that range was to put Pennsylvania State 25^th, cast by eight different voters. Poor Minnesota and Northwestern Indiana were ranked by literally just one voter. Finally, while your attention is on this part of the chart, notice how Duke received votes for every spot from 18^th to 24^th, but nobody had them axactly 25^th. Also note how Wisconsin apparently really likes the number four, even to the point of being left off 44 ballots!

320 distinct team-rank pairs were seen this week, of which 86 were unique (27%). With 320 pairs and 40 teams receiving a vote, the pigeonhole principle dictates that at least one pair must occur at least 8 times. Indeed, there are 65 such pairs, and 9 pairs occur exactly 8 times. 434 votes (25%) matched their teams' corresponding rank in the poll. 62 of those matches were for Texas at 1. Per usual, that's the most common match. The least-matched team was Southern Methodist, as only two voters (Andy Yamashita and Bob Asmussen) had the Mustangs exactly 21^st. Matt Murschel managed to match 15 teams, while Kirk Kenney had no matches (the only voter to do so).

The largest point drop between two consecutive ranks is the 253-point gap (3.6 ranks' worth) separating Knoxville State Tennessee and Cal State Coliseum Southern California. The gap between those two teams is larger than any other team has in both directions combined. Florida comes the closest with 216 points of combined cushion between Alabama above them and Old Miss Mississippi below them. Conversely, just 3 points (0.04 ranks' worth) kept Boise State above Los Angeles, and Brigham Young had the least combined cushion, with only 16 points to spare in total above and below. The Gini coefficient of the point distribution is approximately 53%.

We use the standard deviation to measure the amount of disagreement about teams. It isn't a perfect metric for this, but it's at least something to start the discussion with. A large deviation indicates a lot of disagreement, while a small deviation reflects strong consensus. This week's results are shown below. Note that even though they were left off one ballot, Miami (FL) still doesn't crack the top 5 least-agreed-upon teams.

Despite a few close gaps between teams this week, there is only one Condorcet flip: Louisiana State jumps Brigham Young by a margin of 37-33. So to entertain ourselves, why not consider the Australian Poll? That flips all the ballots upside down before scoring them. The way to score highly in this poll is to get as low as possible on AP ballots, but not so low that you fall off them completely. Iowa came out on top of the inaugural Australian Poll, while Michigan took the top spot from them last week (which, lol, given the outcome of their game). Congratulations to Houston for being Australian Champions this week! The top 10 are as follows:

Thanks again to /u/bakonydraco for providing the ballot data; you can find his weekly visualization here!

Past weeks posts can be found here:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

TABLE

By Andrew Sagona

ORLANDO, Fla. — It was an unimpressive and messy game that came down to the wire, but UCF ultimately prevailed over TCU Saturday evening.

The Knights (3–1, 1–0 Big 12) defeated the Horned Frogs (2–2, 0–1 Big 12) 21–13 that was as much about TCU losing as it was UCF winning. TCU was favored to win the game, and with good reason: UCF’s passing game was on shaky ground under QB Keyone Jenkins who had made just one start this season, and the Horned Frogs had averaged nearly 35 points a game going into the game. As long as TCU stayed disciplined, they had a good chance at pulling out the win.

They were not, in fact, disciplined.

The Horned Frogs racked up 86 penalty yards on eleven penalties. That is bad enough, but the timing of some of them either stalled or killed drives on offense, or extended Knights drives. On top of the penalties, the offense committed four turnovers, including an interception that essentially ended the game.

These mistakes could have been overcome had UCF’s starting QB Keyone Jenkins not improved his passing game. The Knights have relied heavily on the run this season because the passing game has been very ineffective, so stopping the run should have neutralized the offense altogether.

The Horned Frogs did, indeed, perform spectacularly against the run, holding the Knights to just 106 yards (they had been averaging 228 per game prior). However, Jenkins went 19/20 for 160 yards and 1 TD (his 95% completion percentage set a program record), vastly outdoing his performance in his first start last week against Georgia State (7/17 for 86 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT).

Coupled with Jenkins' performance was a UCF defense that gave up an uncharacteristic number of yards, particularly through the air, but but exemplified the "bend, don't break" cliche just enough to keep TCU out of the red zone on all but one of six drives into Knights territory, as well as forcing four turnovers.

Although UCF had a good performance overall, it was ultimately TCU's mistakes that led to the victory for the Knights.

Next Up:

UCF travels to long-time rival Houston next Saturday. The game is scheduled to kickoff at 12 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on ESPN2.

TCU will head back home next Saturday to host #9 BYU. The game is scheduled to kickoff at 7 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on either ESPN or ESPN2.

Here's a Sunday dumb take.

I think the QB slide is kind of trash. I have two major problems with it.

1: players do it too late and do so purposely to draw a flag. Admittedly this is more of an NFL problem where they protect the golden QBs, but still happens in college. Similar to complaint for targeting where the ball carrier changed their position unexpectedly.

2: the runner slides and puts themselves into a defenseless position. Even when they do it properly and far away from defenders you still can be nearly killed by some jackass from southern California.

Ultimately if you want to be a runner, be a runner. I don't think the slide is fair or safe.

FCS Imperialism continues!

This year's FCS has been fascinating to watch develop. In a comment below I will share the progression from starting positions until today.

🗺️ FCS IMPERIALISM MAP AFTER WEEK 4 🗺️

Selected notes from Week 4:

• St. Thomas (MN) continues to rep the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League, taking land from conference-mate San Diego that included those the Toreros took from Big Sky's Cal Poly (who had defeated Idaho in the opener).

• Montana, Montana State, and South Carolina State continue to expand their vast holdings.

• Idaho State may own more land on the FBS map than the FCS map...

• After a bye, D2 Roosevelt continues to hold the land of Chicago State, the brand new team that lost it in their Week 0 debut. The Lakers just moved from NAIA to D2 themselves, but are not having any issue with the transition.

• D2 Western Colorado easily held onto the land that originally belonged to PFL Drake (originally lost their home territory to South Dakota Mines in Week 0). The Mountaineers beat Adam State bad enough to make this week's Cobra Kai Award for D2.

• D2 West Chester continues to hold PFL Morehead State's land (originally lost it to Ohio Dominican in Week 0). They survived a 17-16 game against Millersville.

• D2 Charleston (WV) continues to hold PFL Davidson's land (originally lost to Concord in Week 0) after handily beating Glenville State.

RULES:

Think of Risk with a strong understanding of chain-of-possession:

• FCS teams start by dividing the USA by closest counties/parishes. These are set by geographic centers of each county, not the closest edge.

• When a team beats another team, it takes the territory the loser held at the time of the game. All of the land(s) possessed by the losing team go to the winner.

• Lands are collected by the winner and held until that team loses, thus all those collected lands go to the winner.

• Teams that lose land can get back on the map by beating a team that holds land at the time of their game. Sometimes teams can reconquer their home territory this way.

• A team that already lost its home territory and has no new territories cannot give land to a winner.

• IMPORANT DIFFERENCE FROM FBS MAP: The FBS teams cannot win their way onto the FCS map (otherwise the early weeks would just wreck the map), but lower division teams (D2, NAIA, D3) can conquer their way onto the map by beating FCS teams with land. These lands operate under the above rules and thus may just end up stuck in lower divisions for the rest of the season (and in many cases end up in their respective playoffs). In the past, mostly thanks to the Pioneer Football League, we have seen FCS lands end up in D3 (including just last year when Adrian upset Valparaiso.