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Blooblod Ballot for 2018 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 4, 2018, 1:31 p.m.

Overall Rationale: My week 2 poll is still largely based off my preseason team evaluations, with major week 1 outcomes being factored in. Starting in week 4 my poll will be based off results and those preseason evaluations will be thrown away.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide Little to no movement.
2 Clemson Tigers Little to no movement.
3 Ohio State Buckeyes Little to no movement.
4 Georgia Bulldogs Little to no movement.
5 Auburn Tigers Auburn has the best win of the season so far, bumping them up six spots to the top of this tier (what I consider to be teams ranked 5-11). The offensive line looked a bit shaky, but it did early on last season too. The defensive line is as good as advertised.
6 Wisconsin Badgers Little to no movement.
7 Oklahoma Sooners Little movement. The defense looked like it was potentially improved a little bit. I was expecting Lincoln Riley to keep this offense humming, good to see that was the case on Saturday.
8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Alohi Gilman is a dude. His addition to the Fighting Irish defense made a huge difference. Brandon Wimbush looked better passing the ball, but his receivers also bailed him out a lot. They have what looks to be the second best win at this point, bumping them up four spots to #8.
9 Washington Huskies Trey Adams is expected to miss most of the season which is a huge hit. This o-line couldn't handle Auburn's d-line at all. I still have faith that the Huskies can win double digit games this year. For all the off-season concerns about the receiving corps, I thought they looked pretty good--especially Aaron Fuller.
10 Penn State Nittany Lions Penn State drops a little bit due to the OT scare against App State, but I'm not going to overreact to much.
11 Michigan State Spartans Like Penn State, Michigan State looked unimpressive against a team they probably should've blown out--but to be fair they did at the beginning of last season to and they went on to win double digit games. Not going to overreact here.
12 Stanford Cardinal Little movement. I was an off-season believer in J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, but if you told me Bryce Love would've been held to 29 yards and 1.6 ypc and Stanford STILL won I wouldn't have believed it. I'm not concerned about Love long-term, so it was good to see that this offense isn't one-dimensional.
13 USC Trojans Little to no movement.
14 TCU Horned Frogs Little to no movement.
15 Mississippi State Bulldogs Little movement. Mississippi State jumps up four spots, but a lot of that was just due to bad losses by Miami, Michigan, and Florida State.
16 LSU Tigers LSU was the first team out of my preseason top 25, and the biggest reason for that was Coach O. I'm still not convinced he's a great long-term head coach, but this team definitely convinced me that it's talented enough to win anyways.
17 West Virginia Mountaineers I was even lower on Tennessee than most people this off-season--I had them pegged as the fifth worst P5 team in the country. So a blowout win from WVU doesn't show me a whole lot, but wow did Will Grier and the receivers look good. Whether or not Kenny Bigelow would start to live up to his potential on the d-line was one of the biggest things I was looking for in this game. He looked like he might do just that this season.
18 Oregon Ducks Little movement. I liked this defense in the off-season, especially being coached by Jim Leavitt, so giving up 24 to Bowling Green is a little concerning but I'm not going to overreact yet.
19 Boise State Broncos Boise State SMASHED Troy in what many people thought would be one of the best G5 matchups of the season. Troy lost a lot in the off-season but they still have a great head coach in Neal Brown and are one of the more talented G5 teams.
20 Boston College Eagles Little to no movement.
21 Virginia Tech Hokies I think Bud Foster is the best DC in the country, but before this season began I thought it would take a while to get this defense rolling with how much off-season attrition they faced. Then they held FSU to three points in their season opener. Now, a lot of that was probably due to FSU's o-line, but still an impressive feat by Bud Foster and the brand new Hokies defense. Ricky Walker is every bit as good as Christian Wilkins.Also, side-note: I have a ton of respect for Deondre Francois. He may not be one of the best QBs in the country, but he's definitely one of the toughest.
22 UCF Knights Little to no movement.
23 South Carolina Gamecocks Little to no movement.
24 Miami Hurricanes So far it looks like I'm striking out hard on my prediction for this defense, but it's still way too early to know for sure. Malik Rosier looked horrible. Jeff Thomas might be one of the best slot receivers in the country.
25 Iowa Hawkeyes A lot of this ranking stems from how high I am on NIU this season, so this might be a bit premature. I had Iowa State ranked #25 in my preseason poll, so this week's matchup between the two will probably determine a lot. I said in the off-season that this is one of the most slept-on d-lines in the country and in week one they smothered NIU's o-line. Iowa looks like it'll be another 8-5 team that's an absolute nightmare matchup for teams with conference title or playoff hopes.

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