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WhiteBaseCoat Ballot for 2017 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 5, 2017, 11:22 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I'll be honest, I've got an ugly one for you today. First of all, don't even look at my preseason poll - no, stop it, I see you mousing over that drop down list up there and I don't appreciate it in the slightest. I've completely revamped the approach I took to talent and returning production between then and now. Some of this is going to seem like I'm way overreacting to Week 1, but in reality I've just been tossing everything out of the window, like a burglar with a trampoline. See, I'm trying quite hard to ignore the media narratives and create a relatively unbiased foundation of A. returning production (based heavily on Bill Connelly's offseason calculations on the matter), B. the 2017 247 talent composite - not necessarily the rankings but the actual three-digit (well, hopefully three-digit) score that the team is given, C. how experienced their QB is, and D. whether a coach can potentially count on a year 2 boost (something also examined by Bill Connelly, it's a common effect). This is different from last week, where I had a similar idea but did some odd things in analyzing the numbers (this week is different, because I've got a veritable cornucopia of brand-new oddness on display). The problem with this poll is that I've heaped on a steaming helping of E. the on-field performances from Week 1. Considering that the wins for many of the teams that I'm looking at amount to all of "look ma I showed up," this has proven quite difficult. I've further unnecessarily complicated this by refusing to place any teams that are 0-1, which is to say about half of them (though hopefully less than half of the good ones). As I said earlier, I'm trying not to let the preseason narratives bias my opinions, and that involves being pretty resume-based, or as resume-based as I can be knowing what we know about these teams right now. Note that this does not at all mean that I will rank every team in nice little tiers of undefeated, then one-loss, then two-loss and so on going forward in the season - technically Colorado State is 1-1, but there is no world in which I would rank them before Florida State, and that will work itself out in the coming weeks. It just means that I'm trying to treat this as "which teams "deserve" to be ranked right now?" Of course, I still have to devote a lot of emphasis to talent and experience in the process, because how am I supposed to know whether Penn State or Clemson more impressively beat up their hapless Ohioan victims of choice? The resulting poll is a great deal of meaningless nothing, an odd Brunswick stew of hot takes and seeming overreactions and various emotional impulses, one that doesn't quite taste good or bad but certainly doesn't taste right. It's an ongoing process. Probably.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide I hate Alabama.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes I have mixed feelings on Ohio State. Their defensive line looks incredible - it did not pass me by that Indiana completely gave up on running the ball at some point - and their defense seemed to crack down on Indiana's passing game eventually, perhaps because Indiana completely gave up on running the ball at some point. I feel that J.T. Barrett leaves a lot to be desired, but they did pull off a bit of an Alabama effect as the game wore on, ultimately pounding away with the run game either because of fatigue or halftime adjustments or both. And I do think that Indiana will have a surprisingly strong defense this year, just looking at their experience. To summarize, I wasn't overly impressed with the Buckeyes, but they were playing on Thursday night and they had the common decency to play a team whose best quality is not "it could be worse, we could be FCS" or "it could be worse, we could be Division II." Combine that with their talent and experience and I have a hard time seeing how anybody else deserves this spot.
3 Stanford Cardinal I realize that you're probably wondering if I confused Rice with a better Texas team, like - well - look, are we sure Rice isn't the best team in Texas right now? But no, I am not slapping Stanford in my playoff because they beat up on the Owls like malicious birdwatchers. The truth is, Stanford is talented and experienced and I trust David Shaw quite a bit, but I didn't realize just how well their overall talent and experience sets them up until recently. Their offensive line may be suspect, but I think the team is better than most people are feeling (and that's saying something, because many people are reasonably high on them). I may be trying a little too hard for a "here's a team that's different!" pick, it's just one of those gut feelings that I'm banking on. If I'm wrong, Stanford-USC will set me straight pretty quickly, but I'm oddly confident about the outcome of that game.
4 Penn State Nittany Lions I was recently watching a condensed version of the Rose Bowl from last year, and I have two observations. There's a moment where the Nittany Lions' defensive line completely floods USC's pocket in the red zone, and I swear that Sam Darnold starts trying to crawl his way out of the throng in an attempt to throw the ball like he's Jon Snow struggling for air in the Battle of the Bastards. The other thing I took away is that every time Trace McSorley gets the chance to set up in the pocket for a deep ball, all I can think of is in the Dark Knight Rises when Batman shows back up and that one grizzled veteran officer tells the uppity rookie that he's in for a show tonight. (I realize that scene is originally from The Dark Knight Returns, but I don't really like that comic and this poll is about my controversial and misguided opinions on college football, not comic books, thank you very much). Ball gets thrown, ball gets caught, you can't explain that. This pretty much summarizes my thoughts on Penn State football.
5 USC Trojans I do have to admit that I'm docking USC because of their Western Michigan performance. I get that week 1 can be weird, and they did blow up at the end, but that's still a concerning result for such a talented and relatively experienced team. I just don't know how much I trust Clay Helton right now, and I'm willing to hold off putting them in my playoff until I see more out of them (read: until they do or don't beat Stanford).
6 LSU Tigers LSU lost a lot, but they're very talented and they return their QB, who is - well, he's - look, he's certainly a quarterback, if nothing else. Probably. Plus, they blanked BYU, who despite their lackluster Week 0 showing ought to be a more meaningful opponent than some of the other cupcake-feasts going on throughout Week 1. I don't trust Ed Orgeron all that much, but I do trust both of his coordinators, and I liked what I saw out of Matt Canada's offense. I don't have a lot of concerns about LSU right now.
7 Michigan Wolverines Like LSU, Michigan is not experienced, but they are very talented, and they return their QB. Plus HARBAHUFGH. They also played and soundly beat a team that doesn't suck, no matter how much I stab my Jim McElwain voodoo doll. That being said, Speight did throw two pick-6s, and it's not like Florida was putting any world-beaters out there under center either to challenge Michigan's young defense. It's something to keep an eye on, and I'm only cautiously optimistic, but I have a feeling that Michigan is going to have a bit more of a reload than a rebuild - they won't reload with Alabama-level effectiveness, don't get me wrong, but who does?
8 Clemson Tigers I purchased a PS3 over the summer to catch up on a bunch of old games that I never played, and that included NCAA 14. I started off as Georgia's defensive coordinator, lost a heartbreaking national title to Ohio State in year 2 due to offensive ineptitude (gee, Georgia having a great DC and a woeful OC, where have I heard that before?), and took over Kent State. In year 3 as the head coach of the Golden Flashes, I played in this game, defeating #2 ranked Clemson 21-10 with my newly founded MAC powerhouse. That is not what happened this weekend. (I really want to end on that, but I feel that I should explain that the only reason Clemson isn't higher is because they have a freshman QB. That's pretty much it).
9 Oklahoma Sooners Baker Mayfield is great, and Oklahoma has solid talent and experience. However, I'm worried about their defense, I'm not sure how well they'll replace Mixon and Perine, and I don't know what to expect from Lincoln Riley. This ends the most lazy, cold-take, Big 12 analysis I could possibly have written about OU.
10 Wisconsin Badgers I have a feeling this could be a very Wisconsin team, even more than most Wisconsin teams are very Wisconsin teams. Their experience line up pretty well in that regard. They don't have a ton of talent - they're sitting a little ways outside of the top-25, overall - but they don't need a ton of talent, and in fact I think it's quite possible that talent is fundamentally detrimental to Wisconsin's success. No, seriously. Go through the 247 composite recruiting rankings, back through 1999 or whenever it was that the first rankings were posted on that website. Wisconsin posted one top-25 class in that ~20 year stretch. It was 2001. Wisconsin has missed a bowl once in the same period. It was 2001. Wisconsin has lost to Minnesota twice in that same period. One was 2001, and the other was 2003, when that top-25 class was maturing into the backbone of the team. In summary, Wisconsin panics when it has too much talent. Wisconsin has a very specific comfort zone, and it will not be leaving that comfort zone this year, and that probably means that it will win many games.
11 Washington Huskies Washington lost a lot on defense, and they don't have quite enough talent for me to expect them to fix that quickly. They certainly had some struggles against Rutgers, though that was a Friday night game and week 1 and yada yada yada. I also don't know if Jake Browning is as good as he's been advertised in the past - a lot of programs would love to have him, don't get me wrong, and he's by no means a bad quarterback, but I feel like he doesn't have great pocket presence, among other quibbles. However, he's been with the offense a few years now, and it's Chris Petersen, which means I still trust this team more than everybody from Auburn on down.
12 TCU Horned Frogs I joked about the state of Texas' football teams earlier - I mean, how could I not - but I actually really like how TCU is shaping up. Gary Patterson is a great coach, they're going to be very experienced, and they're not entirely wanting for talent (not that a Patterson team needs to have a ton of talent). I didn't watch all that much of their game against Jackson State, but I got the feeling that this was just an extremely fast team on both sides of the ball, and given that Texas just gave up 51 points to Maryland, it's almost certainly going to come down to TCU or Oklahoma for best defense in the Big 12.
13 Auburn Tigers Auburn's offense didn't look spectacular in week 1, but it's week 1. They're talented and experienced and they have a quarterback who is probably better than anybody Florida can drum up, which is a comparison I make only so I can at least bash one rival while complimenting another. Malzahn is... well, I don't know how I feel about Malzahn, really, but he's probably fine, just fine, and I think there's still a little more fuel in the Gus Bus, despite consistently being brought up in hot seat conversations.
14 Virginia Tech Hokies I've been worried about Virginia Tech's offense, but they seem to have found a good quarterback with the potential to be great one day, and that day could be coming this season. Their defense should be extremely good, and Justin Fuente is in year 2, which means that he could be looking at a lot of improvement. I'm not quite on the Hokie Hype Train yet, but I'm staring forlornly at it from the station as it slowly but surely picks up speed, weighing if I should try to leap on my noble steed and catch up with the caboose like the ending to a romantic Western. Or, like, The Polar Express.
15 Oklahoma State Cowboys Mason Rudolph throws such a pretty ball. It's gorgeous. It's just so good. I could watch it for hours on end. Their defense... don't worry about their defense. Just look at that spiral Rudolph throws. Just look at it. It's so gentle, so thoughtful, so thoroughly made with love, as if he's trying to safely toss a newborn baby forty yards through the air. I bet that beautiful S.O.B. could do it, too.
16 Georgia Bulldogs I've said it before and I'll say it again, nobody is in a better position this year than Georgia when you look at both talent and experience, and it's not particularly close. Like, if Richt was still with this team (and no, stop it, you put those I-told-you-so's away, the reason the roster looks like this is because of Kirby's recruiting and because a handful of NFL prospects bought into him enough to come back and trust that he'll develop their draft stock), the Bulldogs would be getting extraordinary preseason hype, so much so that it would likely result in the destruction of the program and the disbandment of all Georgia sports teams at every level of competition. Even the little league teams. Especially the little league teams. There are reasons Georgia isn't reaching these near-apocalyptic expectations, however. Richt isn't coaching this team, Kirby Smart is, and his report card from last year was a resounding meh-to-poor with a handful of "oh hey that wasn't bad" scattered throughout. He is in year 2, which means he could see a bump, but that's not necessarily something you can depend on. Also, Jacob Eason is out indefinitely. Jake Fromm may be good enough to carry the team, but he's a true freshman, so that's not exactly reassuring. Also, the #2 team on that list of "teams whose combination of talent and experience sets them up perfectly" is Texas, so let's just keep sticking with with the wait-and-see approach, yeah?
17 Oregon Ducks Speaking of a very good combination of talent and experience, I quite like the look of Oregon right now. I think their defense is going to be much improved this year - it's one of the most experienced units in the country - but it's year one for Willie Taggart, who posted USF's worst record in school history in year 1 at that school, beating the record set the year before. Oregon went 4-8 last year. There are some concerns.
18 Mississippi State Bulldogs Mississippi State has Nick Fitzgerald, has some talent, and has some experience, which means they're probably gonna be pretty alright. I would also like to take this chance to say that I have always pictured Dan Mullen and Mississippi State's relationship like they're Ryan and Kelly on The Office. That's all I got.
19 Miami Hurricanes Miami is mainly this low because they don't return quite as much as I would like them to. I do trust Richt, it is year two for him, and they're a relatively talented team, but I need to see some strong on-field results before I'll be ready to shout out from the rooftops and declare "Miami is BACK."
20 Kansas State Wildcats I've been juggling Kansas State and Washington State back and forth between these two spots, and ultimately it comes down to the fact that Kansas State has been more consistent. Both teams have good (maybe even great) coaches and both teams return their quarterbacks, but both teams are also not very talented at all, and that means that their on-field results are going to weigh a lot more for me. They're here because I think they've earned it by having recent success with teams that on paper shouldn't be all that good, but it can be a bit of a crap-shoot when you're not loaded with blue chippers, and I need to see more from each of them to know that this year is going to be a good one.
21 Washington State Cougars (see above)
22 Louisville Cardinals I'm assuming that by this point you've ignored my wishes and looked at my preseason poll, and so you'll know that I was super-super-super high on Louisville. I have come to understand that this was probably a mistake. Did they deserve to drop this far for struggling with Purdue? Maybe not. I tend to think that Jeff Brohm knows what he's doing. However, he's doing it with Purdue. Thus, I've sent Louisville to the meaningless dungeon that is the 20's.
23 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame sneaked on here more or less because I restricted myself to teams with at least one win. I don't particularly like the look of any of the G5 (or P6) teams right now, not enough to trust them, and I probably gave a little too much credit to my boy Mike Bobo and his Rams in the preseason, so I looked around for another option, and Notre Dame became sort of the "eh, they'll do" of this ranking.
24 South Carolina Gamecocks Hey - no - stop - hey, just - calm down - just - I can explain - yes, I understand that I literally just learned my lesson for randomly jumping on the Louisville bandwagon, and yes, I realize this puts my SEC quota at 6 and makes it looks like I'm being a conference homer, but seriously, I do think South Carolina is going to exceed expectations like crazy this year. They're pretty talented, they're extremely experienced, their defense is being coached by Will Muschamp, in general it's Muschamp's second year, they just racked up a solid win against NC State, and they've got Jake Bentley throwing to Deebo Samuel - a Muschamp team, but with offense! Can you imagine the possibilities?! South Carolina was actually several spots higher on this list at one point, as I worked on my rankings at three in the morning, slowly appeasing the Gamecocks as if they were a band of South American guerrilla communists whom I was secretly funding with weapons and resources, giving more and more, telling myself that it was what their country needed, even if I didn't agree with their ideals, even if I hated their ideals, eventually spiraling into a cavalcade of self-doubt only to awaken in the cold light of day and pull my hair out at sleep-deprived, militaristic-coup-supporting past me, and promptly - well, look, this metaphor got away from me. Point is, I just said "screw that" and put them at 25. Except that's not where they ended up, because reasons.
25 Maryland Terrapins So I was originally reserving spot #24 for the winner of Tennessee-Georgia Tech. I just kind of assumed that they'd look decent enough for me to justify it as I scrounged for teams to place. Thing is, they both looked kinda sucky throughout, and then the team that arguably played better lost. Meanwhile, cheeky Maryland is over here, casually upsetting an extremely experienced, extremely talented team helmed by Tom Herman. And DJ Durkin, who I happen to think is an amazing coach, is in year two, and Maryland is actually surprisingly talented - 28th in the nation, in fact. They're not inexperienced, either. Sure, they lost like probably half their team to injuries in this past game, but whatever, it's been a long day and I just want to go to bed. So congrats, Terps, you earned this one. And congrats, Vols and Jackets, you made me do this.

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