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crownebeach Ballot for 2019 Week 7

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 7, 2019, 3:15 a.m.

Overall Rationale: This is meant to identify the best team, not the team having the best season based on results to date. I'm still mostly concerned with 1. yards per play margin (objective measure), 2. team talent (mix of objective and subjective measures), and 3. balance (subjective, both offense/defense and pass/run). I move the teams from last week's ballot based on how they performed this week, then reference the result against FPI & Sagarin to catch any biases toward early-season game results that I might still need to address.

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Michigan St was allowing only 1.86 yards/rush entering Saturday night's game. Against perhaps the best run defense in college football, the Buckeyes ran for 6.6 per carry. Consider me a believer.
3 Clemson Tigers
4 LSU Tigers LSU's offense is 3rd in SP+ and 4th in FPI, while the defense is 28th and 36th respectively. In the Playoff era, the closest comparison I can find to that stat profile is...2014 Baylor? (S&P+: 11 Off/21 Def, FPI: 3 Off/21 Def). Make of that whatever you will.
5 Georgia Bulldogs
6 Oklahoma Sooners
7 Florida Gators I had Florida 6th in the preseason, and I continue to feel they're undervalued by the wider poll. They can't run the ball, but I like everything else they do.
8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
9 Auburn Tigers I go back and forth over whether Auburn or Oregon is the better team. I lean Auburn based on their depth, and the sixth gear they flashed against Mississippi St was impressive, but we're splitting hairs here.
10 Oregon Ducks Here is a complete list of teams allowing fewer yards per play than the Oregon Ducks: Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, Clemson. Andy Avalos was absolutely the best coaching hire of the spring.
11 Wisconsin Badgers Wisconsin's offensive explosion against Michigan looks a little more meaningful after the Wolverines strangled Iowa, but I don't know what their ceiling is right now. Let's just say I don't think they'll run up yards on Sparty like Ohio State did.
12 Texas Longhorns The offense is very good and the run game woke up in a big way, but defense is so, so young. Red River is going to be a race to score 60.
13 Penn State Nittany Lions Treated Purdue basically like they were expected to, and moved up because some teams in front of them had major "yikes" moments. Still a contender.
14 Utah Utes We're through the looking glass now: Utah's only weakness has been...special teams?
15 Baylor Bears Baylor has the Big 12's best scoring defense (15.0 ppg, 14th nationally) and the best per-play defense (4.3 yards/play, 12th nationally). And an added bonus: Texas & Oklahoma both visit Waco this year. Baylor at 18/1 preseason to win the conference is starting to look awfully appetizing.
16 Boise State Broncos Boise could easily have regressed on defense after losing Avalos. Instead, they promoted from within and somehow got even better. 16-25 on my ballot are very tightly clustered -- all these teams have at least one strong unit, but major question marks on the other side of the ball.
17 Michigan State Spartans Yes, I have Sparty 17th. FPI has them 15th, Sagarin has them 15th, and SP+ has them 18th, so deal with it and don't @ me.
18 Memphis Tigers Gave me that sweet front-door cover this week against UL Monroe. The American West is shaping up to be the most exciting division in football: Memphis, Tulane, & SMU are currently 22nd, 23rd, & 24th in FPI team efficiency.
19 Arizona State Sun Devils I like their coordinators and their fundamentals. The Sun Devils don't beat themselves -- they extend the game and stress special teams.
20 Virginia Cavaliers I mean...I guess? I still think there's a little smoke-and-mirrors to UVA, but there aren't exactly tons of better candidates for this spot.
21 Missouri Tigers The Tigers have atoned for their miserable road trip in Laramie and then some; the defense is allowing just 3.1 yards/rush on the season, and 4.1/play overall. (Which makes that Wyoming game even more confusing, tbh. 7.2 yards/rush allowed! How?!) Fingers crossed for a healthy KB.
22 UCF Knights A lot of bad luck went into their loss to Cincinnati -- UCF outgained the Bearcats overall, and some quirky turnovers hurt them -- but the biggest issue was playcalling. The Knights weren't able to effectively attack the wide areas of the field, even where they had matchup advantages.
23 Iowa State Cyclones I've been resisting Ranked Iowa State™ because of their graduation losses from last year, but their body of work is really good so far: outplaying Iowa for 3.8 quarters, hanging with a really good Baylor, and now stomping TCU.
24 Cincinnati Bearcats If UCF and Cincinnati play ten times, I think UCF wins about six, but the Bearcats have maybe the best defense in the Group of Five and hung on. In an interesting twist, UC's regular season finale is @ Memphis on November 29 -- a game that could end up being completely pointless.
25 Michigan Wolverines Don Brown against Brian Ferentz was like watching Bobby Fischer play chess against that old guy from the Pixar short film. The offense is still mostly broken, but the Wolverines did hint at finally being able to run the ball a little bit.

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