I got tired of college football rankings when I was 15, about when Michigan lost its fourth consecutive bowl game, and so I instead became obsessed with college academic rankings. I got a hold of one of the encyclopedic college guides, all paper of course, and pored over it religiously, learning each state’s top colleges, the top state universities in the Midwest, and all of the snotty colleges in the northeast. This was somewhat off brand for me, as I was an indifferent student, but for a while I cared very much about where I might ultimately go to college. It’s not too surprising really, given that I grew up in Ann Arbor, America’s snottiest college town then and now.