Next Tuesday brings the first College Football Playoff ranking. I will probably skip the show, let Reddit tell me what happened and watch Ohio at Akron to see whether any wildlife gets loose on the field.

By this point in most seasons, we think we know where the field is headed. I do not believe that is true this year. That uncertainty makes for compelling television: the conference races remain open, and many teams still control their paths.

Miami is the seventh different team to hold our No. 1 résumé in nine editions. Texas has occupied the spot three times, but no team has kept it for more than two consecutive polls. Miami now leads Ohio State by the slimmest of margins, 753.0 to 739.8.

The Dirty Sodas went down to Florida

Week 8 begins with BYU’s trip to UCF. The Bounce House shook for more than three hours and two overtimes before the Knights emerged with a 39–31 victory. Bear Bachmeier’s final pass fell incomplete in the end zone, and BYU became the latest holder of our No. 1 resume to lose on the field. Spookier still, it was the third consecutive week in which an AP top-two team lost to an unranked opponent.

Do you hear the whispers of 2007?

BYU fell from first to seventh and left Tier 1. But that was not the weekend’s harshest consequence. Oregon dismissed offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer after losing to Illinois, while Baylor dismissed Dave Aranda after its loss to Kansas. Those are the two coaching changes that affected teams in our fixed field; Dave Doeren and Mike Locksley also lost their jobs as the coaching carousel began spinning again.

Two polls, the same top two

For the first time this season, the MaxDiff and AP polls have the same top two in the same order: Miami, then Ohio State.

They arrived there differently. Miami took the traditional route by remaining unbeaten, although its defense may need more Hail Mary practice. Ohio State held second during a bye week.

After Ohio State’s loss in Austin, I argued that voters seemed to treat its record as closer to 1.5–0.5 than 1–1. That was an editorial metaphor, but the larger point has held. Below the top two, the polls separate again. Georgia is third in the AP and fifth here. Indiana and Notre Dame complete the AP top five; they are sixth and eighth here. Utah is sixth in the AP and fourth here.

And then there is Kentucky.

Will Stein’s Wildcats are third

Two weeks ago, Will Stein went for two to end a second consecutive overtime game. Voters responded by moving Kentucky from 21st to eighth.

The Wildcats followed that with a 34–17 win over Vanderbilt. Now they are third.

The AP has Kentucky ninth. That six-place difference is the largest among our top five. AP voters can weigh how strong a team looks alongside what it has accomplished. MaxDiff asks only which team has assembled the stronger year-to-date résumé.

Power ratings have an important place when we want to estimate how a matchup might unfold. College football standings, championships and playoff bids must still rest on what happened on the field. Kentucky’s placement reflects voters taking those results seriously.

The top tiers

Two weeks ago, Georgia broke the chart. The Bulldogs held more than half of the entire index and forced me to change its scale. Miami leads this week with 753 points, or about 15% of the full index. That is the smallest first-place index of the season, and Ohio State is only 13.2 points behind.

Tier 1 contains Miami, Ohio State, Kentucky, Utah and Georgia. Together, they hold 63.6% of the index up slightly from last week but with a 5th team. Georgia is our constant. The Bulldogs have remained in Tier 1 for four consecutive editions, even as Texas, Alabama and BYU have entered and left it.

The top two tiers account for about 94% of the index. Tier 2 runs from sixth-place Indiana through 19th-place Wisconsin.

That is quite a way to end a tier. USC traveled to Madison and got taken to the Midwestern woodshed. Wisconsin, quiet for several seasons and repeatedly disrupted at quarterback, now has a chance to turn this into a special season.

This is why the poll emphasizes tiers more than individual positions. The bars provide an estimated order. The tiers show where the clearest divisions hold.

The field is still murky, but it is no longer shapeless. Miami and Ohio State lead. Five teams share the strongest group. A deep second tier follows. Beyond that, the game of musical chairs for 12 playoff spots is accelerating.

Next week brings Miami at North Carolina, Ohio State at USC, Utah at Cincinnati and Georgia–Florida in Atlanta.

Certainty? Certainly not.

How our FBS Resume MaxDiff poll works

Each voter saw 18 unique four-team groups and two separated repeat screens, choosing the strongest and weakest year-to-date resume in each group. Balanced forms distributed comparisons across the field, with randomized card order. Voters could skip unfamiliar groups instead of guessing.

After the poll closed, eligible choices were fit with the frozen symmetric MaxDiff model. Uncertainty and tier stability were estimated by resampling whole voters 2,000 times. Familiarity skips and repeat screens were not treated as additional preference choices.