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WhiteBaseCoat Ballot for 2017 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 11, 2017, 6:58 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Well, I made hard shift in my philosophy, getting away from the preseason expectations and trying to go off of resume. I thought I was putting together a nice little offbeat poll for myself, and then I realized somewhere along the way that things were going very, very wrong. I think there's some subconscious part of me that really wants to make that most controversial poll list. Basically, this poll is attempting to be 100% resume-based. It can't be, of course - obviously you have to draw on some outside information to know which wins, roughly, are good and bad - but I'm trying really hard to focus solely on wins and wins and alone. Note that I'm not really even accounting for losses, as long as they're not bad losses - I'm literally just looking at "who have you beat," which sort of accounts for the losses anyway. I'm not too concerned with how the game was won - struggles against FCS teams and really low tier G5 teams are a red flag, but overall I'm not trying to look at "oh well Team A beat up this team harder than Team B beat up this other team so I should put Team C higher." I just think games are too random to focus really hard in on anything but the end result for a resume-based ranking (there are a few exceptions on this list). I'm also basically throwing out FCS games, and even games against lower-tier G5 teams that have lost to FCS teams - in my analysis, I'm essentially considering Auburn as winless, even though I do acknowledge that they're a good win for Clemson because of what we know about the team's roster in general. It's a merit ranking, not a power ranking, and I fully acknowledge that it's an extraordinarily weird mix. The lack of hard data made this a really interesting and ultimately extremely frustrating challenge, and I do think it'll work itself out into something far more reasonable as the season goes along. Of course, I've said that about the last two polls...

Rank Team Reason
1 Oklahoma Sooners I've got Oklahoma at 1. Yup. Fight me. I do have an actual rationale though, more than just "I don't want to put Bama at 1" like in my preseason poll. See, Oklahoma beat Ohio State on Ohio State's home field, which is an awesome win in and of itself, but there's a nice little chain here where Ohio State also has a good win over Indiana, who I think is going to be pretty solid this year. Indiana has another win over Virginia, who I think is going to be better than people might expect (if not necessarily good). Again, I'm trying really hard to look solely at the wins, and this is one of the few scenarios where I can actually look at wins that the losing teams have collected to boost up the winning teams. Of course, I'm already saying "I think so and so will be good/better than expected," which is why this whole thing is kind of futile at the moment, but it's an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.
2 Alabama Crimson Tide Meanwhile, Alabama is sitting pretty on their big win over Florida State, who has yet to play any other games and thus unfortunately doesn't really qualify for my ranking yet. I expect that when the Seminoles get back on their feet in a few weeks they'll quickly right the ship. Stay safe, everybody.
3 USC Trojans USC may have struggled with Western Michigan, but I honestly think their win over Stanford is the third best win of the season so far. Stanford is talented and experienced and it didn't really matter to USC. I'm a little wary because of the WMU game, but it's not like WMU is awful, and considering how USC played in week two I'm willing to chalk that up to first game jitters.
4 Clemson Tigers You could certainly make the argument that Clemson's win against Auburn is better than USC's against Stanford, I'm just worried about Auburn's offense to the extent that I trust Stanford a little more. Plus, WMU is better than Kent State, so USC gets some points for that win. If we want to take this even farther, then you can consider that Stanford beat up on Rice, who in turn put away a lesser opponent in UTEP; Auburn beat up on Georgia Southern, who proceeded to take a bad loss against an FCS team. A good FCS team, mind you, but I feel like the chain looks a little better for USC than it does for Clemson.
5 Michigan Wolverines Michigan vs Clemson is interesting; Florida is probably solid but not as good as Auburn, while Cincinnati should be significantly better than Kent State. Ultimately I'm trying to look harder at each team's best win, but this wasn't a completely easy decision. This ends the "yeah I guess that's a little bit reasonable" portion of the rankings.
6 Georgia Bulldogs Look, I know Notre Dame went 4-8 last year, but they lost soooo many one possession games, and they're very talented and pretty experienced. I promise this isn't me trying to bolster up UGA - you can look at my last two polls, I'm not really into that. This is a testament to the extreme dearth of good wins from this point forward, not me trying to be a homer. Plus, Appalachian State should be a decent team.
7 South Carolina Gamecocks WOOO MUSCHAMP TOP 10 HYPE TRAIN but yeah I put South Carolina here because they're literally the only team with two P5 wins. No seriously, go check, I'll wait. You did this to me, all other teams. (but really NC State should be a solid team and SCar's defense did a great job against Missouri's offense. They're not bad wins, though I can't imagine that South Carolina will be hanging around up here for long).
8 Virginia Tech Hokies WOOO HOKIE TOP 10 HYPE TRAIN but yeah Virginia Tech has a solid win against West Virginia. I'm probably a lot lower than most people are on West Virginia, but Will Grier might be able to do some great things with that team, and overall I'd probably say this win is a tick better than either of SCar's wins, it's just that there's not a huge distinction and SCar has two of them.
9 Penn State Nittany Lions Oh look, a team that would actually be in the top 10 in any respectable ranking. Akron's no good but Pitt should be a solid team - I'd put that win in the same general boat as SCar's over NC State and Missouri win, but again, SCar has two of them.
10 Iowa Hawkeyes WOOO IOWA TOP 10 HYPE TRAIN but yeah Iowa State should be alright this year, and Iowa also notched a solid win against a Wyoming team who should compete for the MWC title. Good stuff Hawkeyes.
11 TCU Horned Frogs WOOO TCU TOP 11 HYPE okay but seriously this is the kind of hot take hill I would actually die on in a more legitimate manner of ranking. I like the way TCU looks a ton right now, and I think they're going to have a great shot at the Big 12 title this year. That's not really what I'm ranking at the moment though. TCU just has the one win over Arkansas as far as significant wins go, but Arkansas is talented and, well, they're talented. TCU, UCLA, and Maryland all have wins over talented teams that should be pretty good... except that their wins over said teams has kinda screwed up that whole theory for the time being.
12 UCLA Bruins Texas A&M is pretty talented. We all know about that legendary UCLA - Texas A&M game, and most of us probably know about Texas A&M struggling with Nicholls the following week. Conclusion? Heck if I know. Hawaii is more talented than you think, though - according to the 247 composite, they're actually the second most talented G5 team behind UCF, and it's a very small difference. UMass is... less talented, but they are decently experienced, and Hawaii pulled off the win against them. Overall Hawaii is a solid win for UCLA, and combined with the confusingly talented dumpster fire that is Texas A&M, I'm willing to chuck UCLA up here a little bit.
13 Maryland Terrapins When you look at talent and experience, not to mention head coach, you would expect Texas to have a really good bounceback season. So far they're 1-1 with just that cute little win over San Jose State. Maybe Maryland is just that good? Probably not. Though they are sneaky talented. That's beside the point. I'm still having to work off preseason expectations, so I'll go ahead and call this a good win for the Terps.
14 Washington State Cougars I like that Boise State win a lot. Boise State took care of business against a Troy team that ought to be solid, which is good; Wazzu's win over Boise State was a little wonky, and I'm not sure if you can necessarily claim that Boise State is better than Colorado State/Nebraska/Indiana/so on and so forth, but they're a proven program and I'm willing to trust them and so, by extension, trust Wazzu.
15 Colorado Buffaloes Colorado has a really good win over Colorado State, who has a solid win over Oregon State (who probably won't be very good, but still, that's a nice P5 win to stick in the belt). Again, it sort of comes back to who is more proven - Colorado State may not be better than Nebraska/Indiana/etc., but they've got that win, which is all I can really go off of right now.
16 Oregon Ducks I don't know how good Nebraska is this year. They could be real bad. But I still say this is a good win for Oregon. Idk people, this stuff is quickly devolving into a mess and I've got 10 spots to go.
17 Tennessee Volunteers Georgia Tech should be a good football team, so Tennessee's win over them is good. I've made a terrible mistake. The floodwaters of mediocre wins are beginning to slowly drown me. Send help.
18 Ohio State Buckeyes Ohio State manages to grab a handhold rather than hurtle into the abyss of the unranked because I happen to think that Indiana is going to perform well above expectations this year. Again, I don't want to use preseason/personal expectations quite this much, but on paper the Hoosier defense should be really good, and they seem to have a really strong passing game. They've got a lot to prove, but I'm willing to say this is a good win for Ohio State at the moment.
19 Duke Blue Devils Northwestern should be a solid football team, so Duke's win over them is good. Oh god I have so many more spots to fill
20 California Golden Bears North Carolina should be an alright football team that is maybe possibly better than Virginia so California's win over them is good and is better than Indiana's win over Virginia. we
21 Indiana Hoosiers Virginia should be a better football team than people might be expecting, so Indiana's win over them is good. all
22 LSU Tigers BYU should be a football team so LSU won over them and that's a fact. float
23 Utah Utes BYU should be a football team so Utah won over them although not as much as LSU won over them and that's a fact. down
24 Washington Huskies Rutgers should football so Washington yay here
25 Minnesota Golden Gophers Oregon you'll float too State team win football go Gophers

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