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nickknx865 Ballot for 2018 Week 4

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 17, 2018, 3:13 a.m.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide The best team I've ever seen through the regular season was 2003 Oklahoma. 2018 Alabama has surpassed them so far through their first three games. Nobody is even close to Alabama -- not Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, none of them. This team is an apocalypse on cleats.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Struggled more than I thought they would with TCU, a team that I didn't rate highly coming in. This team is still the best in the Big Ten though and better than anyone else except for Bama.
3 Georgia Bulldogs Took care of business against an MTSU team that'll probably be in a bowl game this year.
4 Oklahoma Sooners Even though Oklahoma lost to Iowa State last year in Norman, I did not think that the Sooners would struggle with an Iowa State team coming off an underwhelming offensive performance to Iowa. That's what a road game a couple hundred miles away will do though, and while I feel inclined to penalize Oklahoma, I can't think of any other teams here that deserve this spot.
5 Clemson Tigers Thought Clemson could have won by more against Georgia Southern but I understand why it wasn't like that -- it's a game played with the clouds and outer winds of Florence on it.
6 LSU Tigers Coach O yaw-yawed his way to a massive win against Auburn on the road, and LSU is sitting with the top squads in national title contention.
7 Penn State Nittany Lions Crushed Kent State, but it's Kent State. People will think it's odd that I moved a team up like this ballot is going to show for beating an overmatched team, but I start my ballots fresh every week, and I think the Appalachian State game was a fluke.
8 Auburn Tigers Not going to move a team out of the top 10 if I think the 6th best team in college football beat them by a single point. Plus, I thought watching the game that Auburn looked like a better team.
9 Washington Huskies Still not certain about Washington, but their close loss against Auburn combined with them doing all you'd expect them to against their other opponents puts them here.
10 Oklahoma State Cowboys Who is ready to do the hokey POKEY!?!?! No really, Oklahoma State impressed me by pulling away against a Boise State team that I think will get the G5's New Year's 6 bid.
11 TCU Horned Frogs TCU gave Ohio State everything the Buckeyes could handle. This team isn't going to be my pick to win the Big 12, but they look like a side that could be in that second tier who could get to a NY6 bowl.
12 Stanford Cardinal Stanford didn't have the most impressive performance against UC-Davis but that's not the reason I'm slotting them outside the top 10 this week. Instead, the 14 point win against USC looks kind of weak now.
13 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Man I sure did screw up when I said Notre Dame was a national title contender after their win against Michigan in week 1. Against Ball State and now Vanderbilt, the Irish look more like they always have -- a team that has a lot of interesting athletes who look impressive getting off the bus, but just can't put things together to be a tier 1 team. That might change, but for now 13th seems right given the team's quality.
14 Michigan Wolverines Won comfortably against SMU, but so did TCU, and they did it by a bigger margin to boot. It's very tough slotting this team so far, because they've been tested, but we don't know how hard the test was yet.
15 Miami Hurricanes Miami continued their storied tradition of playing good G5 teams away from home. And yes, beating Toledo the way they did is a very good result, because the list of teams who will have beaten a (possible) conference champion the way they did away from home is small.
16 Texas A&M Aggies Did you know that the mayor of Monroe, Louisiana is mad at the census for saying that Monroe's not as populated as they think it is? Me neither. The college football team from Monroe had similar population problems on Saturday, but with the scoreboard against A&M.
17 West Virginia Mountaineers I'm not sure the NC State game would have been a major test or anything (though Vegas thought it would have as WVU was only a 3.5 point favorite), but we would have learned something about the Mountaineers. As it is, I can't really knock them for Earth's fury cancelling the game.
18 Mississippi State Bulldogs Lafayette was home for a long time to the Louisiana IceGators. They were like most minor league hockey teams; their logo was badass and their play was slow. Mississippi State's opponent on Saturday shared that tradition of a logo that's easy on the eyes and a team that's hard to watch, as MSU ran over the Ragin' Cajuns.
19 Boise State Broncos Boise State might tumble out of the top 25, but that shouldn't happen. They played a very good team on the road, and yes the final margin of victory was bad but Boise showed themselves to be a capable team.
20 Wisconsin Badgers Ever since the start of the year, I've inquired into just how good Wisconsin is. My sense after seeing them struggle for a half against the likes of New Mexico and for the whole game against BYU, is that they aren't going to be that toothache of a team that hurts you into submission. I still favor them to win the Big Ten West, but I think their ceiling now is fringe top 10.
21 Iowa Hawkeyes I can't think of anything to say about Iowa except for that they've got potential in the Big Ten West and that them sealing off Iowa State's offense looks a whole lot damn better now than it did a week ago. Will learn more about this team when they play Wisconsin in what will be the marquee B1G West game.
22 Virginia Tech Hokies Another team with a Florence cancellation, but if we'd've learned something about the Hokies from East Carolina, it wouldn't have been good for VT.
23 UCF Knights UCF was like Virginia Tech this weekend -- their game was cancelled and anything we could learn from the Knights by playing a grotesque North Carolina side wouldn't have made the Knights look any more or less capable.
24 Boston College Eagles The dudes abide by winning, and they managed to go down to Winston-Salem and beat a very meh Wake Forest team by a touchdown. You might think that doesn't warrant me putting them in the top 25, and you might be right. But, I think of it as being like a person who sees a $5 a share stock from a tech company that makes smart doorknobs and goes all in -- yeah I'll hate watching it it, but I'm at least 62% sure I can make my money back and it's better than the alternative..
25 Iowa State Cyclones Yes, I'm putting a team on my ballot that hasn't won a game yet. But if your two opponents are Iowa and Oklahoma, and you conclude that both of them are worthy of ranking, is Iowa State not a candidate too? I think so -- they only lost by 10 against both Oklahoma and Iowa, which might show a fringe top 25 quality side. My other reason for putting them here is a personal philosophy of ranking; it is better to rank teams that lose by somewhat close margins than it is to reward teams who munch on cupcakes.

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