SOS input population: FBS-involving finals plus captured FCS games. The 1,213-game input set is not a complete census. Full FCS schedules and original completion/publication timestamps remain unverified.
FBS captured nov 08, 2026 at 04:55 am mst. FCS capture Nov 08, 2026 at 04:53 AM MST. Current retrospective SOS uses 1213 captured provider finals in the current input set, including 19 with kickoffs on the capture UTC date. Observation times are knowledge bounds, not exact completion/publication times. Reconstructed and strict as-played rules remain unchanged. Venue, availability and charting adjustments remain unfitted.
How hard was the road?
Independent opponent ratings built from completed results, with diminishing returns for blowout margins. Compare the full-view retrospective with a chronological reconstruction.
Higher mean opponent ratings indicate a tougher observed schedule. Rating units are not points or win probabilities.
| Rank | Team & opponent detail | Mean opponent rating | Games | Observed inputs |
|---|
Formula, source coverage and limitations
The result model fits regularized additive opponent ratings to tanh(score margin / 21). Schedule difficulty is the mean rating of opponents actually faced. The experimental ridge is 4. No poll or conference label enters the fit. Venue is shown, but no venue, travel, injury or weather coefficient is applied. Prior-only inputs and incomplete schedules are visible; sample counts are not calibrated uncertainty intervals.
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