Never. Gets. Old.
Bill C over at the SBNCFB hub has cranked out some post-NSD S&P+ rankings for 2018. His formula has been tweaked somewhat from years past:
The preseason S&P+ projections are a simple mix of three factors: recent history, returning production, and recruiting. To come up with 130-team projections, I create projected ratings based on each factor. Here’s how the process works:
Recruiting is easy. I create a rating based on these two-year recruiting rankings. The recruiting-based projection makes up about a quarter of the overall S&P+ projection.