TJC Rankings
Computer College Football Rankings
Tracking how the college football schedule connects teams into a single network through common opponents
The game that connected all FBS teams into a single network:
Think of each team as a node in a graph. Every game creates an edge connecting two nodes. As the season progresses, these edges link teams together into larger clusters.
Early in the season, teams that haven't played common opponents form isolated "islands." The keystone game is the one that finally bridges the last two islands, making the entire schedule one connected network.
This matters for rankings: before the graph is connected, some teams have no path of comparison to others, making early-season rankings less reliable.