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atchemey Ballot for 2016 Week 5

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 25, 2016, 11:39 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I missed last week due to Going-To-Disney-Syndrome, and completely lost track of time. I made a rough ranking during the middle of the week, and used that as my starting point for week-by-week comparisons. Unlike many others, I opt for a total re-evaluation of the quality of each team, rather than a sequential "they were ranked here before, here is the change from this week," method. I find that it helps reduce my initial poll bias as teams (*cough* looking at you, ND) start well-underperforming.As of week 5, I have a small amount of expectation for the season still baked in, but I'm mostly looking at strength of record and the film I see - grad school means that every year I can re/watch fewer games, but I try all the same.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide (Change:) 0Still the best right now. Saban went to Kent State as a young fellow, but he showed no mercy.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes 0Bye
3 Louisville Cardinals +1They have a better offering than Houston, my old #3, and looked convincing again.
4 Stanford Cardinal +1The score is really 16-13, the last touchdown didn't count. They have the hardest schedule, so far, by my count. They struggled a little at times with UCLA, but I mostly attribute that to the road environment and a few calls I felt were questionable.
5 Wisconsin Badgers +4They made a good decision switching to Hornibrook, and out-chessed MSU this week. Their lines are powerful enough to take on any foes. They took advantage of inaccurate QB play from the Spartans, and pounded. Corey Clement didn't look 100%, but he didn't have to be.
6 Houston Cougars -3Not a judgement, just a float, others more deserving moved ahead for now.
7 Michigan Wolverines 0As expected, they beat up on PSU. Franklin's not a good game-day coach.
8 Texas A&M Aggies +4Not a bad game at all, I liked what I saw from their lines.
9 Clemson Tigers +2Georgia Tech can be sneaky, but Clemson played great assignment defense. Their offense was a little sluggish, but I wonder how much of that was just conservative playcalling.
10 Tennessee Volunteers +3They got the monkey off their back, but didn't look too impressive doing so. Still, they got another quality win.
11 Nebraska Cornhuskers -1They were better than Northwestern in every phase, but the Wildcats still put up quite a good fight. They float this week.-
12 Washington Huskies -6Arizona is not good this year, and overtime is not a good look. The coverage AZ put out confused their young QB, and he struggled to get in a rhythm all game. The Huskies looked exposed - I expect them to drop a bit now. This is partially a devaluation of the Huskies, and partially a float, as better teams move up.
13 Florida State Seminoles +3Another day another dollar.
14 Baylor Bears +8I was low on them because of the patented Baylor-Non-Con-"Schedule"(tm), but after a solid win over CMU, they get bumped up for now.
15 Utah Utes 0USC isn't good, they barely beat them, but they didn't have any fundamental flaws.
16 Wake Forest Demon Deacons NewThis is probably an overreaction, but they're going ~~bowling~~ to the CFP. Honestly, they outplayed IU in every phase, and have a solid schedule so far. I bet they won't rise too far from here, but they deserve 16 for now, based on record.
17 North Carolina Tar Heels NewPitt is a decent team, and if they had won, I bet the Panthers would be at 17, too.
18 Michigan State Spartans -10Well. Shit.I thought we'd turned a corner, but VERY questionable defensive playcalling exacerbated a bad situation. Tyler O'Connor looked like he did in the 4th Quarter against Notre Dame, and was very shaky. He was missing open men left and right, and either underthrew (picked) passes at 20 yards or overthrew his receivers (into the sideline) by 10 yards. The OL got nothing done, and LJ Scott was fighting to not get hit before the Line of Scrimmage. An LJ Scott fumble really sealed the game in the start of the second half. Stupidly conservative playcalling in the first half got us behind quickly, so we were one-dimensional in both halves (constant middle runs in the first half, desperate passes in the second half). On defense, our corner coverage was loose and BAD - good passing attacks will get 7-8 yards every down. Our MIKE LB was out with an injury, and his subs made a couple decent plays, but nothing special. Our DL was almost entirely negated by uninventive playcalling. The DL we have is designed to be fast and aggressive and coordinated with multi-LB blitzes on many standard downs, but we didn't ever really bring pressure.  As it was, 5 OL > 3-4 DL.We could very easily lose to Indiana, and we will if our offense plays like it did this week.
19 Miami Hurricanes -4Bye/float
20 Iowa Hawkeyes -1Rutgers has a new offense and can be sneaky good, but only scoring 14 on their shaky D is concerning.
21 Arkansas Razorbacks NewThey should have been ranked before, it was an oversight on my part. This is partially a reaction to TCU looking better than before, and partially liking some of the fundamentals I saw in A&M. It isn't a "quality loss" thing, at all, it's a re-evaluation of their whole record to date.
22 TCU Horned Frogs NewThey overpowered SMU, and looked damn good doing it. 3-1 is enough to get them in here.
23 Western Michigan Broncos -3Floating, GA Southern isn't all that special. They look good, though.
24 West Virginia Mountaineers New3-0, over BYU, not looking bad.
25 Georgia Bulldogs -7I had their loss to Miss as a worse loss than Florida losing to Tennessee, but I put them in here because of the fact that they have 3 P5 games so far, 2 of which were wins (technically Mizzou counts as "P5" and a "win"). You're going to love my next 5:  26) Miss (New, 2-2 just doesn't cut it, no matter what.)  27) UF (-10, they had no answers in the second half.)   28) AzSt (New, decent.)  29) VT (New, ECU isn't bad, and they put some new pieces together.)  30) Cincy (New, Houston loss is decent, and they look good.)

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