The table that appears on the web page for each season is a summary of the comparison between the final Rewards rankings that were computed after all postseason bowl games were completed, and the average ranking of the final sportswriters' (AP) and coaches' (USA Today, or UPI before 1991) polls. If the two human polls disagree, e.g. the AP picks one team as #1 and another as #2, and the coaches poll has these two teams reversed, then the average rating for both teams would be 1.5. If the Rewards system ranked both those teams as #1 and #2 in some order, they both would have a 0.5 difference, and rankings that differ from the average poll ranking by 0 or 0.5 are counted in the "=" row. OBO stands for "off by one" and so that row holds the number of teams whose Rewards ranking differs by 1 or 1.5 from their average ranking in the polls. The average of the ranking differences, and the "=" and OBO counts for the "top" 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 teams, appear in the table where the polls' average ranking is decide which teams are included in the top N teams. Any team that was excluded from the coaches' poll because of being on probation  is also excluded when the average ranking for the polls is determined. If a team that is on probation is ranked as #15 in the AP's ranking then, for the purpose of the tables on this Rewards web site, the team ranked as #16 will be considered the #15 team in the AP poll, and likewise for all the teams ranked #17 and higher.

(This page last modified September 05, 2006 .)