HX 2026.7

How the rating is built

HX is a preseason composite: each feature is z-scored across FBS, then weighted. Georgia opened 2026 at +7.89. A replacement-level Group of Five team sits near 0. Head-to-head uses Elo seeded from that composite.

Weights

Walk-forward Top 25 balanced ≈ 0.646. Only talent and prior rating beat season-to-season noise. QB continuity, coach tenure, and SOS were tested and zeroed — they made the score worse. A separate Connelly-residual term moved ten new-HC ratings on this board. Tenure stays zeroed.

Recruiting talent1.5
CFBD team talent composite (247 recruiting strength of the current roster). Real signal — ablation +0.052.
Prior-year rating1.5
Blend of last season’s SP+, Elo, and SRS, each z-scored first. Real signal — ablation +0.037.
Recent win-trend1.0
Weighted win% over the previous four seasons (0.4 / 0.3 / 0.2 / 0.1). Inside the noise band; kept at modest weight.
Roster retention0.5
CFBD returning production (percent PPA + usage). Inside noise. Not the two-deep talent composite.
Portal net0.5
Incoming transfer ratings minus outgoing, this offseason. Inside noise. Roster talent already counts who is actually on the two-deep.

Matchup engine

Each team starts at 1500 + 55 × HX. Home-field is 60 Elo points, dropped on a neutral floor. Win probability is the standard Elo logistic; spread is a quadratic on that same gap. Calibrated on 2019–2025 FBS games at 70.8% straight-up.

Elo     = 1500 + 55 × HX
P(home) = 1 / (1 + 10^(−(EloΔ + HFA) / 400))
d       = EloΔ + HFA
spread  = 0.050835 × d
        + 4.5795×10⁻⁵ × d × |d|

The old linear map compressed blowouts; this curve was fit on 2019–2023 FBS actual MOV (holdout 2024–2025), not on this week’s Vegas.

Run any pair on the matchup board.

2026 notes

The board is the full 136-team FBS set from the HASHMARK database — recruiting, portal, returning production, SP+/Elo/SRS, and 2026 rosters. Two-deeps are the listed TWO·DEEP charts for all 136 programs (thetwodeep.com, refreshed 2026-09-07). HX talent z-scores stay on the prior listed/projected mix until a talent recompute is cleared.

Indiana is fifth on the Week 1 AP ballot after a national title. HX has the Hoosiers eleventh. Talent composite is league-average; the model withholds credit when the roster does not match the résumé.

Georgia and Ohio State are 1–2 here. Week 1 AP has Ohio State first and Georgia second. HX keeps Georgia first because Georgia’s talent z-score is the strongest in the pool. Texas Tech’s résumé (prior +1.99) outruns its talent (+0.66), so the Red Raiders sit eighth in HX — above their Week 1 AP rank at 13th, short of a playoff lock on last year alone.

Offensive-line mass is on the talent Size board as a measurable. It is not a term in HX. The talent composite is the depth-weighted 247 of the two-deep, transfers included.

Ten 2026 coach changes carry a Connelly residual on the rankings board (κ = −0.25, 15% OC bump). Ole Miss drops to 8th; Florida climbs to 24th; Virginia Tech to 49th. Week 0 matchup win% is frozen at the pre-move HX, including Hawaiʻi at Stanford (Hawaiʻi 53.8%, HAW −1.4).