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Blooblod Ballot for 2018 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 9, 2018, 12:30 p.m.

Overall Rationale: My preseason evaluations still have influence on my polls for the first four weeks, with them having less influence each week. First five teams out: Arizona State, Michigan, Utah, Missouri, Texas A&M.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide Little or no movement.
2 Clemson Tigers Little or no movement.
3 Georgia Bulldogs Little movement. UGA jumps OSU due to destroying a quality opponent in South Carolina whereas OSU hasn't faced a team of that caliber yet.
4 Ohio State Buckeyes Little or no movement.
5 Auburn Tigers Little or no movement.
6 Wisconsin Badgers Little or no movement.
7 Oklahoma Sooners Little or no movement. Hope Rodney Anderson comes back.
8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Little or no movement.
9 Washington Huskies Little or no movement.
10 Stanford Cardinal Little movement. Penn State looked more Penn State-y this weekend against Pitt, but I still have Stanford jumping them due to two quality wins in two weeks.
11 Penn State Nittany Lions Little or no movement.
12 Mississippi State Bulldogs Little or no movement.
13 TCU Horned Frogs Little or no movement.
14 LSU Tigers Little or no movement.
15 West Virginia Mountaineers Little or no movement.
16 Boise State Broncos Little or no movement.
17 Oregon Ducks Little or no movement.
18 Boston College Eagles Little or no movement.
19 USC Trojans USC drops due to the Stanford loss. 14 points isn't a huge point differential, but it felt like Stanford dominated that game. None of J.T. Daniels, Aca'Cedric Ware, or Stephen Carr was completely shut down by Stanford's defense but they were all met with enough resistance for anyone to be able to get something going. I thought the USC defense was acceptable. Bryce Love had 136 yards but that still would've been one of his least impressive games last season. I'm still a believer in J.T. Daniels and this offense as a whole being a force by the end of the season, but it was likely going to see some setbacks early on.
20 Virginia Tech Hokies Little or no movement.
21 UCF Knights Little or no movement.
22 Duke Blue Devils I was pretty high on Duke in the preseason (my preseason #35 team, but with a very forgiving schedule). I had their matchup against Northwestern pegged as a game with the potential to put the winner in the top 25 and I believe that's still valid. Duke looks like a pretty balanced team so far; their defense has ben disciplined and stingy throughout the first two weeks and Daniel Jones has played as well as he ever has--but neither side of the ball looks dominant.
23 Miami Hurricanes Little movement. A blowout of Savannah State doesn't prove a lot at all, but I still think the game against LSU was one where the box score and LSU's quick start makes it easy to feel like Miami played a lot worse than they actually did.
24 Iowa Hawkeyes NIU lost again, but I still consider that a quality win considering they lost to a (seemingly) good Utah team. Iowa State was just outside of my top 25 and Iowa came out with a close win in ¡El Assico! 
25 Maryland Terrapins WAIT. Hold on. I know you're probably going to assume I'm overreacting to the win against Texas. I'm not. If you read my preseason poll you may have seen that UMD was one of the first four teams out (they were my preseason #28, already ahead of Texas). The Texas win bumped them up a little, but they still came up just short of the top 25. The reason they are ranked this week is due to Michigan State, South Carolina, and Iowa State's losses.

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