One continuous board across every accredited season, and Pat's 49-10 win over Stew still doesn't touch No. 1.
New format. Same belt. Let me explain what you're looking at before you start arguing about it.
Every power rankings we've run up to now has been a season poll — reset the board, rank the 29 teams playing that year, repeat. That's not what this is. CK Rankings is one continuous board, across every season of the accredited cycle, ranking coaches, not teams. You don't get reset to a fresh preseason ranking because a new year started. You climb it, you fall down it, and mostly you move an inch at a time. Résumé is the anchor — titles, title-game runs, Final Fours, years of sustained results — and this-week's box score is the thing that nudges you, not the thing that flips the board. Strength of schedule counts for real: beating a contender is worth more than beating a team that's 0-3, and losing to the champ costs you less than losing to the guy in the basement. Newcomers start at the bottom and climb by winning, same as everybody did.
Here's the worked example, because it happened this exact window and it's the cleanest illustration we're going to get: Ole Miss 49, Oklahoma 10, Week 9. Pat just handed Stew the worst loss of his Oklahoma tenure. On a season poll, that's a seismic re-shuffle. On this board? Stew is still No. 1. Two rings in two seasons doesn't get erased by one Saturday, however ugly the score. Pat moves. He does not leapfrog him. You take the belt by beating the man in the bracket, or by out-résuméing him over time — not by winning one regular-season game, no matter how loud the final score is.
Two championships, two seasons, one loss on the résumé that actually mattered — and it happened before this window, not during it. Stew holds the belt because there's no realistic argument that anybody else has done more with more on the line. The 49-10 loss to Pat is real. It's also a Week 9 regular-season game, and this board doesn't hand out belts for those.
LT sits at No. 2 for the same reason he's sat near the top of every board we've ever run: two conference titles, two national championship game appearances, both ending against the same man. Being that good and still finishing second twice is its own kind of résumé.
Behind him: three coaches who've all been one round short of the belt without ever holding it. States made a Final Four off the back of a Big Ten title, and just backed up a Week 7 loss to Bowzer with a 42-14 demolition of Curt the following week. Dre owns a Final Four appearance of his own from Season One and right now has the best active record in the league — 4-0, nobody within thirty points of him the last two weeks. Curt has been to a semifinal and lost two conference title games by a combined seven points; a 42-14 loss to States in Week 8 is the kind of result keeping him from climbing further. And Tayne — his Season Two semifinal loss to Stew, a 63-57 classic where he outscored an entire playoff bracket 140-70 and still went home, remains one of the signature games in this league's short history. Notre Dame hasn't taken the field since Week 3, so he holds at No. 6 on reputation until he shows back up.
This is where Pat lands, and it's worth being honest about why: a QF appearance a year ago plus the single best win anybody produced against the champ all season gets you into this tier, not past it. He's got company. Bowzer is quietly 4-0 again — same as every season, same lack of attention — and this stretch's version includes a 31-14 Game of the Week win over States' Penn State that's not nothing. Lute put together the cleanest four weeks in the league not named Pat or Bowzer: 3-0, capped by a 36-0 shutout of Florida State. TBO is still riding the best rise this board has ever tracked — 29th to Big 12 champion in six weeks last year — and he's 2-1 picking up where he left off. Purp has made the playoff field in back-to-back seasons without ever getting the credit for it, and just beat Georgia by 27 before surviving a 45-42 shootout with Alabama. Work owns the single biggest resume line most people forget — a 52-49 win over Stew in the Season One SEC title game — even if his current form (1-4 since Week 2) doesn't back it up right now. Silingi has a Big 12 title that's starting to feel like ancient history, and Polo is treading water at .500 off a Season Two quarterfinal trip.
Ice Man, Cell, and KJ all have a real accredited-season achievement to lean on — a playoff trip, a conference title game appearance — that's currently doing more work than anything happening on their schedule right now; KJ in particular hasn't posted a verified result all of Season Three. Below them sits a cluster with no résumé and mixed form: Bawce and Frank have found some wins, ZBO, Gooch, Bhog, Cozy, Jason, Teeric, TV, Thrash, and Quan are still hunting a signature anything. Quan's 0-3 mark and a 36-0 loss to Lute in Week 8 is the low point of the whole board right now.
JT and Fields close it out, and that's not a knock — it's the format. JT took over Nebraska from Jarvis in Week 3 and is 1-3 finding his footing. Fields inherited an Auburn program that's been CPU-held since Season Two and hasn't posted a verified result yet. Newcomers debut at the bottom of this board no matter who they are. Proving it is the only way up.
That's the board. Résumé got you here, this window nudged a few of you, and the belt didn't move an inch. See you next advance.
