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hokies220 Ballot for 2016 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 6, 2016, 11:34 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I know this will end up on the controversial list because I will not rank a team that's 0-1 (apologies to ND, Ole Miss, and LSU) and I also will not reward teams for playing FCS teams. So teams that I did have ranked in preseason I won't have ranked here if they played an FCS team. I choose instead to give credit where credit is due, especially to teams that had big upsets for their program. As well as rewarding P5 vs P5 wins regardless of what I actually think will happen later down the road because all we can go by is the results of one game. So here it goes.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide USC could end up only winning 3 games or so and being terrible, but for now this is the most dominant team to take the field.
2 Florida State Seminoles First half FSU is bad, second half FSU is fucking unstoppable. We all knew this going in and Fisher continues making the best half time adjustments. New QB looked great and the defense had several key turnovers.
3 Houston Cougars Raise your hand if you thought UH would win by double digits and generally just look in control for much of the game. Now put your hand down, liar. Tom Herman continues to produce amazing results and Greg Ward Jr to Dunbar could become the stuff of nightmares for teams down the line.
4 Georgia Bulldogs I know I'll probably be the only person with UGA this high and that's fine. They deserve credit for having one of the better wins this weekend and for having a gameplan and sticking to it. Eason wasn't asked to do much and Chubb was back to his old self, amassing 200+ yards and really sealing the game late in the fourth.
5 Ohio State Buckeyes I know I know, I said P5 wins deserve more credit than G5. But did you see what the Buckeyes did to what many thought would be one of the better G5 teams? BGSU might be bad this year, but now Urban has one starter at QB and you know OSU is the type of team that reloads and doesn't rebuild. Freakishly good athletes and a proven coach and QB gets them this high.
6 Wisconsin Badgers Probably the most surprising win to me. I thought they would get blown out and they not only won, but looked to be the better team for a lot of the game. Defense is nasty. Offense looked efficient enough. The B1G West is wide open and for all of us who didn't consider the Badgers a real threat before the season are eating our words.
7 Clemson Tigers Well, they won. Auburn couldn't figure out how they wanted to run their offense and that was great for Clemson. Auburn's defense did much better than I expected against Watson and company. Overall though it's a good win and with probably the best QB in the country I'm not too worried that Dabo will get them back to last year's pace.
8 Texas Longhorns So the thing about UT is that they could win 5 games as easily as they could win 10. They did finally figure out how to use a two QB system and the offense looks fantastic. They didn't quit when they lost the lead and when ND tied it with that unbelievable kick2. Credit for a big win and seeming like the Longhorns are back. Time will tell if they really are.
9 Texas A&M Aggies A close win over what should be a good UCLA team. The comeback to tie it should be attributed to who they were playing and not solely blamed on the defense. I don't mean to feed into early season hype for the Aggies, but this was also one of the better wins in week 1. 
10 Michigan Wolverines It was just Hawaii, but holy crap. Michigan killed a guy. Defense gave up a field goal. Offense was dominant. They get UCF at home as the next sacrificial lamb. The game against Wisconsin in a month looks way more appealing now than it did a few days ago.
11 BYU Cougars Nearly let Arizona complete the comeback, but what a big first win for new HC Sitake. Both Hill and Magnum are still healthy heading into their rivalry week against the Utes. Cougar defense was fantastic. I'm admittedly way too high on them right now especially with such a tough schedule this year, but they could really make some waves if they start of 3-0 or better.
12 West Virginia Mountaineers A solid win over a questionable Mizzou team. They get a gimme game against Youngstown before BYU and conference play.
13 Stanford Cardinal Questionable non-calls or not it's still likely that Stanford would've won the game against KSU. McCaffrey got bottled up a bit, but still busted a good TD run to seal it, and had the ridiculous return that got called back. Need to see if the offense can develop more outside of just #5. Although if not it doesn't seem to be too big of a deal.
14 Washington Huskies I had to remind myself that Rutgers is in fact a P5 team. Washington did what they were supposed to and utterly dominated a much inferior team. We really won't know exactly how good this team is until week 4-6.
15 Iowa Hawkeyes They played a G5 team that most likely won't be very good, and they did everything they were supposed to in a solid win. Rivalry game against another bad ISU team then North Dakota State will attempt to knock off yet another P5 team.
16 Louisville Cardinals Charlotte is bad. Louisville is good. They better not sleep on Syracuse this week if they're looking ahead to FSU. Jackson looks like the real deal, and whatever faults Petrino has as a person he's a good coach and the Cardinals are great.
17 Nebraska Cornhuskers Big, emotional game and they won big by pulling away in the second half. With nearly 300 yards rushing they didn't need to rely on Armstrong Jr's arm. Look out though, Craig Bohl might have Wyoming wanting to prove themselves. Another case of don't look ahead to the big week 3 game.
18 Western Michigan Broncos What else can you say about PJ Fleck that hasn't been said already. Terrell looked great, they controlled the ball for nearly 40 minutes. What a huge win for Western. They have a tough week 3-6 but if they're somehow 6-0 with two P5 wins they should be ranked about here in everyone's poll. Credit to a Mac upset of a B1G team.
19 Colorado Buffaloes I went back and forth on whether to put Florida or Colorado here. Ultimately though Colorado was way more impressive against a better G5 team. They deserve some love for that. We'll see how long it lasts as they do play @ Michigan in two weeks. BTW did y'all see that catch by Bobo?
20 Tennessee Volunteers I debated not even ranking the Volunteers at all after needing luck to pull off the win over a Sunbelt team in OT.  Maybe I shouldn't have as it goes against the grain of most of my rankings. But App State is a good team and Tennessee did get the W. However any team that could possibly be considered top 15 should wipe the floor with a Sunbelt team.
21 Minnesota Golden Gophers It's only Oregon State and plenty of things could use some work. Leidner looked ready to lead the offense though and if they can not get three targeting penalties a game the defense should improve. Mostly though I just have the Gophers here because I respect playing a P5 team OOC more than FCS. Which of course they play next week. 
22 South Carolina Gamecocks Underdogs to Vanderbilt. New and somewhat controversial HC. Absolutely nothing expected of them this year. 1-0. Once again though this is just me adhering to my own rules of including P5 over P5 wins.
23 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets The game winning drive looked great. The rest of the game didn't. I don't know what to expect from GT this year but for right now they're 1-0. My own rules are making me rank teams I don't exactly want to.
24 Southern Miss Golden Eagles Down big against Kentucky and came back and won. Big win for Southern Miss who isn't long removed from an 0-12 season. Huge turnaround for the program and tons of respect and credit to this team for this win. Enjoy it, Eagles.
25 South Alabama Jaguars Yet another team that was down big to a SEC team and came back and won. Biggest win ever for the young program. They were talks about how Miss State and Mullen would be contenders in the SECW this year, and while that could still happen, right now they're a team that got beat by a seven year old Sunbelt team. Enjoy the spotlight, USA!

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