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xelphin Ballot for 2018 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 5, 2018, 9:13 a.m.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide Showing up for week one and absolutely demolishing a decent P5 opponent is always going to work well, and is consistent of Alabama. Tua Tagovailoa also showed what he was made of, and could easily be a Heisman frontrunner.
2 Georgia Bulldogs Blanked Austin Peay. While this win certainly does not hold quite the prestige of beating a P5 opponent like Bama did, UGA very obviously found a rhythm and scored the vast majority of their points before the half, and took their foot off the gas in the second half. Despite pulling back, they STILL didn't allow a score.
3 Clemson Tigers Didn't blank Furman, but absolutely showed they had stamina all game. It really looked like they held back a bit. Furman also scored in garbage time to ruin the shutout.
4 Oklahoma Sooners Dunked on FAU all game, putting up one of the highest scores of week 1 in the process. I won't lie, I really thought Kyler Murray wasn't going to live up, but if he can show up all year like he did against FAU, he will do very well.
5 Ohio State Buckeyes Emerged victorious from the battle of the OSU's with an extremely high score of 77. Despite having 31 scored against them, Ohio State did this while playing a surprisingly competent (at least on Offense) Oregon State. Without the insane plays that Ohio State was able to pull out, this could have been much, much closer.
6 Auburn Tigers Auburn definitely showed they could hang with the big boys by handing a loss to #9 ranked Washington at a neutral site. I think a lot of people were expecting Auburn to not show up, but their Defense shone bright. 
7 LSU Tigers Holy shit.
8 Wisconsin Badgers A bit slow to start, but certainly showed they have some tools to work with this season. I'm interested to see if they can keep up the same kinds of plays when playing much larger and faster defenses.
9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame came out swinging and before the half scored enough points to eventually win it. Coming out against Michigan as a season opener was an extremely bold move, but they came out on top at home to prove they have the chops.
10 TCU Horned Frogs RIP Southern. TCU came out and showed they have some extremely good talent on Offense, and I'm very excited to see how they fare against inter-conference foes.
11 Virginia Tech Hokies Walking into Doak for a night game against a powerful conference opponent is daunting enough, but the Hokies didn't even seem the slightest bit phased. 5 sacks, 14 tackles-for-loss, and 5 turnovers made the Seminoles look like nobodies. The VT Offense was also nothing to scoff at, but it seems the only squad FSU seemed to get it together for was the Defense.
12 Penn State Nittany Lions They did pull out a win, but not before nearly dropping a home opener to the kings of upsets, Appalachian State. I really want to believe that Penn State is extremely good and that App State is just very very good this year as well, but we will have to see in the weeks coming.
13 UCF Knights One of the announcers put it best: "What a well oiled machine." UCF put up 14 points every quarter, and did not seem to lose momentum for a second. Their defense leaves a bit to be desired, but if they can clean up just a bit on that side, UCF is going to be a monster again this year.
14 USC Trojans I think we all expected a bit more than for USC to be only a few points ahead of UNLV going into the 4th quarter. They absolutely showed up in the 4th to make it look better than it was, but they are going to need to prove they can do that early and consistently before they can move up much higher in the polls.
15 Mississippi State Bulldogs The Bulldogs are going to be an interesting team to watch going forward. Keytaon Thompson put up some insane numbers while taking Stephen F Austin to the woodshed. MSU also managed to hang tight all game and score consistently while keeping the 'Jacks out of the endzone entirely.
16 Washington Huskies Losing to Auburn had to hurt, but they lost by 5 points in a neutral-site game to a great opponent. This kind of quality loss will drop them quite a few places, but it would be irresponsible to put them too low.
17 Michigan State Spartans
18 West Virginia Mountaineers
19 Stanford Cardinal Absolutely has some scary talent at WR and QB, but seemed to need a kick in the teeth early in the game by SDSU before they woke up and began to make plays. 
20 Michigan Wolverines Lost on the road, but to a pretty good looking ND squad. Let's see if Harbaugh can pull it together for conference play.
21 Boise State Broncos Not too much to say, but they had consistency through all 4 quarters and were able to put points on the board consistently to run away with it.
22 Northwestern Wildcats A surprisingly good first-week matchup against a conference opponent, and Northwestern came out early and finished the first half with 31 points. Though they didn't score in the second half, they were still able to win by virtue of their defense, but I think that's also because Purdue is going to be secretly good this year.
23 Miami Hurricanes Got absolutely destroyed by LSU. They scored 14 in the 4th quarter when the game was about over to make it look better, but it was 33-3 going into the 4th quarter and LSU very obviously took their foot off the pedal instead of going for the execution.
24 Iowa Hawkeyes Only slightly biased, but if this game would have ended at the half, every single person would have laughed at a 3-0 score, but this is where the fun began. Iowa came out into the second half and blew the doors off NIU in a show of absolute force. Hopefully Iowa has found their stride.
25 Oregon Ducks Oregon overall showed they have some potential teeth this year. They woke up around the second quarter when the receivers finally realized they had hands, and it was all over from there. The defense also really showed up with several crucial sacks and TFL.

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