rankings that later prove to be wildly inaccurate.

A lot of those games would draw much smaller audiences if they were played today, instead of early in the season — mostly because one or both teams involved turned out to not be very good, even though they were highly ranked in preseason. USC, utah, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Oklahoma State come to mind.

Conversely, there are games that didn’t get many viewers early in the year, because one or both teams involved were thought to be bad or mediocre, based on preseason rankings — but the teams turned out to be pretty good after all.