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TheFlyingBoat Ballot for 2018 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 10, 2018, 11:33 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Notes on omissions: 1) Michigan St should not be ranked after an abysmal performance against Utah State and losing to Arizona St. 2) Arizona St should not be ranked for beating a bad Michigan St team. Herm Edwards is not taking them to the promised land. Chill out. 3). Oregon is overrated for now. They haven't beaten anyone, looked alright, weren't great last year, and gave up 24 to Bowling Green. Let's see how Stanford treats them in two weeks.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama is by far the best team in the league. They have a high powered offense that just dominated Louisville and Arkansas State. While these defenses may be pedestrian compared to what they'll inevitably face in the playoffs, this is still a scary precursor of what is to come. Then they have the classic, strong Alabama defense that hasn't skipped a beat despite losing elite talent like Minkah Fitzpatrick. I suppose having 5 stars riding the pine helps make this process easier. Easiest #1 pick ever. I don't understand any human who comes to a different conclusion based on what we've seen so far.
2 Georgia Bulldogs A nice thrashing of a quality SCAR team has them flying up to #2. Other than LSU and Auburn they should face zero challenges on their way to their match up against the SEC West Champion. I am pretty high on Jake Fromm State Farm and loved his post game report about people having to pay for their preparation. Also going 15/18 is damn impressive though the one interception and lack of touchdowns through the air was worrying. I suppose with Holyfield, Swift, Herrien, and Cook, who needs to go to the air in the red zone? That being said Mecole Hardman is a scary offensive threat himself.
3 Oklahoma Sooners Fuck the Sooners, OU still sucks, etc. Unfortunately they're a good team and Kyler Murray is damn good. Their defense is overrated by some of their fans though and will get beat in the Big XII. UCLA isn't a good team. Their offense will be sufficient to run through it though. Losing Rodney Anderson will hurt and hopefully Iowa St can be spooky again.
4 Ohio State Buckeyes Ohio State offensively looks fantastic. JK Dobbins will be a 1st round pick as an RB and that's insane. Dwayne Haskins looks real good and will burn some of the slower Big 10 defenses. Their first real test will be against TCU. If I had to guess, their defense gets burned but their offense has some fun. Weber is also a nice part of the three-headed dragon of the Ohio State backfield.
5 Clemson Tigers God they looked less good than expected yesterday. Their DL was held hard and they got no holding calls to help them out until the last minutes of the game, but the way their corners looked on the field left a lot to be desired. Their offense wasn't particularly special and that suggests they'll have some real issues against elite teams. Luckily for them they're in the ACC so they don't have to worry about that at all until January.
6 Wisconsin Badgers Hornibrook is not a good QB and people can say that he is until they're blue in the face, but it won't change reality. You can't expect to win the B1G with Hornibrook as your QB, but they should still easily win the B1G East. Maybe they can get lucky and pull out a fluky win. Maybe Hornibrook gets his Ryan Fitzpatrick moment. I love Jonathan Taylor though. It sucks that AJ Taylor will get held back by his QB.
7 Stanford Cardinal Oh god I love watching the Cardinal this year. After a shaky start to the first game of the season, they came out and stymied a great QB in a very interesting match where USC was able to put up yards but the Stanford defense would not allow them to put up anywhere near a commensurate number of points. Couple that with Bryce Love leading the ground attack and you have a solid Rose Bowl winner over Wisconsin and a Stanford Heisman.
8 Auburn Tigers A solid win over Washington leads them to a nice high ranking. They'll have another difficult test soon. Stidham is a stud and will carry them far and their voodoo magic is one of the best chances of toppling the Crimson Tide.
9 West Virginia Mountaineers The Mountaineers are damn good. Dominated a hapless Tennessee and did the same to an equally weak Youngstown State. Their defense isn't awe-inspiring, not even particularly confidence-inspiring, but it should be enough to make the Big XII championship game. Will Grier V Jr. is the truth as is former 7th grade USC commit David Sills MMXCV Jr. the Third. When all is said and done I expect them to have a top 5 offense and wouldn't be surprised if they had the #1 offense and a ~#50 defense.
10 Virginia Tech Hokies Ain't nothing hokey about the Hokies (though there was plenty about my joke). Turns out their win over Florida St just means less (TM). That being said Fuente is a solid head coach and Bud Foster has been the DC longer than most active linebackers in the league have been alive (not relevant, just ridiculous). Ricky Walker's ability to stay healthy will be an important determinant of how far this team goes. 
11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish A commanding win over Michigan set the Fighting Irish up well to join the list of contenders for the playoffs. The play the showed on the field against Ball State and somewhat at Michigan too doesn't though. Wimbush sucks donkey balls and it's hard, but not impossible to succeed without a good QB. Maybe Wimbush finds himself sitting and they find a good QB by accident? Stranger things have happened and the rest of the team looks really, really good despite coming out flat against a mediocre Ball St. team. Trust in Te'von Coney. If they had a real QB, Notre Dame probably could be 4th right now.
12 Washington Huskies The loss to Auburn was a Q U A L I T Y one. Unfortunately they don't have another quality opponent for a while and their greatest test, Stanford, isn't until the beginning of November. How good they are is truly up in the air due to their poor schedule. I think Browning hasn't shown the levels of improvement necessary to make me feel confident in his ability to lead Washington to the playoffs.
13 TCU Horned Frogs Shawn Robinson is going to be a great QB when all is said and done. Him, Anderson, and Sewo are part of a really strong backfield that will likely run up a good number of points against Ohio St. Their defense looked solid despite having to suffer through bad weather and a 2 hour lightning delay causing the game to start at 9pm local time. I expect a close game between them and Ohio St, with Ohio St pulling away late.
14 Penn State Nittany Lions Pitt eats shit, let's not overreact here. App St is a good team, but a truly elite team should dispatch them with far less trouble. The ease at which they handled Pitt is far more reassuring.
15 LSU Tigers I don't want to overreact to their win against Miami lest it turn out to be a repeat of Notre Dame-Texas where a fringe ranked team with questions appears to answer them all against a top 10 team that appeared destined for even better things only for both teams to be terrible. That being said LSU looks real good and their talent plus coordinators seems to make up for the unintelligibility of Coach Eaux.
16 USC Trojans People are overselling how bad USC is. Despite terrible play calling from Tee Martin and some questionable throws by JT Daniels, USC managed to put up over 300 yards on Stanford's elite defense. JT Daniels will figure things out quickly, even though Clay Helton never will. The coaching staff is not good enough for USC, but the talent on the roster may be just enough for that not to matter. Expect USC to be playing Stanford in the Pac-12 championship game.
17 Boise State Broncos Any chance Bryan Harsin wants to come back to Texas? Damn I really hope Boise St runs the table or at least goes 11-1 with a close loss to OkSt. I'd love to see some trickeration on the big stage again. I didn't get to watch the game against UConn, but against Troy, Rypien and Mattison looked real good. Hopefully they've been training Mattison to throw at the goal line. Their punters inability to punt longer than 35 yards may hold them back real hard though, unfortunately.
18 Michigan Wolverines Michigan lost to a good Notre Dame team and still doesn't seem to have an elite offense, but at least their defense is strong as hell. I honestly think when all is said and done that Michigan will end the season in the top 12. Harbaugh will likely get Shea Patterson and the rest of Michigan looking real good real soon.
19 Mississippi State Bulldogs Miss St may want to run the triple option based on watching their air "attack" against Kansas St. Holy jesus it was not pretty. However, their ground game was legitimately impressive and suggests they should be able to run through the weaker SEC teams but may run into trouble when more talented teams sell out to stop the run. As such I have the ranked a little lower than most.
20 Oklahoma State Cowboys I'm really excited for their game against Boise. The Pokes looked pretty good on defense last week as they held South Alabama to 200 yards on the day and piled on the points. Cornelius needs to be safer with the ball, but Hill should be able to make up for any offensive deficients as Cornelius gets acclimated to the college game.
21 Miami Hurricanes I feel bad for any FCS team that plays a talented team the week after a humiliation. Poor Savannah State. I'm willing to give Miami the benefit of the doubt for now, but wow they didn't look good against LSU. Rosier like Frazier has got to get better at throwing and they might be better if Lingard got the ball more. Dude's a stud.
22 UCF Knights The interceptions against an FCS team were unacceptable, but I'm willing to believe they're a fluke (3 is a lot even for a fluke, though). UCF has another easy schedule with shit-eating Akron (Pitt) and UNC being their only P5 teams. Both should be handled easily or else something is seriously wrong in Orlando. They've only played terrible, terrible teams so far and the loss of Frost and Co. doesn't suggest good things, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
23 Texas A&M Aggies They held in well against Clemson. While they did benefit from no holding calls against them for like 58 minutes of game time despite holding every other play, they also got shafted at the end by a terrible rule. Jimbo seems to have a good thing going in his first year.
24 Colorado Buffaloes Poor Scott Frost. Montez looked damn good as he went 33/50 with 3 TDs and no interceptions. Their rushing attack was pretty bottom tier, but it looked good against State. Maybe it was an off night or maybe it really can't succeed against a decent run stopping team. The jury is out on them until we get more information I suppose. Got to reward them for deflating the Nebraska hype parade in their first played game of the season, though.
25 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors Cole McDonald and Freddie Holly IIIIIIIIIIIII the Third Jr. will run all over the their schedule besides SDSU and Fresno St. Unfortunately they probably can't go over 18 or so because of how bad their schedule is. I love the fact the Rainbow Warriors are winning again so they get ranked because really no one catches my eye at this level and I have a legitimate chance to rank them. There are probably a couple teams on the outside that are better but fuck them.

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