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Zloggt Ballot for 2019 Week 16 & Bowls

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Dec. 10, 2019, 5:37 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Mostly the same as last week, with the exception of changes from the conference championship results. Besides the obvious "win or loss" case, I also took into consideration the way teams won or lost, as I will explain down below.

Rank Team Reason
1 LSU Tigers Pure, solid domination of the other; no surprise there for the best team in the nation. Doing so in what was basically a near-Georgia home game makes their #1 place more well-deserved.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Also a good win, but that first half spent struggling with the Badgers kind of costs them in the long run. Ryan Day should be lucky for that little comeback of his.
3 Clemson Tigers They did what was expected of them and blew Virginia out. Also good performance, but then again, the quality of the other ACC teams doesn't really help their case.
4 Oklahoma Sooners It was a tough game against Baylor, but the Sooners managed to pull it off. They deserve the #4 spot as a result.
5 Oregon Ducks As always, Pac-12 After Dark strikes again. Had the Ducks not lose against Arizona State, then we could've had a solid competition against Oklahoma for the last place in the playoffs.
6 Florida Gators
7 Georgia Bulldogs Ranking where the Bulldogs should be was hard. On one hand, they were unabashedly crushed in what was basically a home game for them. On the other hand, it WAS against the arguably best team in the nation, so I had to find the right balance of considering the two.
8 Penn State Nittany Lions
9 Utah Utes Tough, tough loss for the Utes. I am sympathetic to them and the way they are disrespected, but I also must acknowledge that they blew their chances of an easy path to the playoff.
10 Alabama Crimson Tide
11 Baylor Bears This team is real good, and we could've seen them in the playoff had things gone differently in the conference championship. Their loss was, in my opinion, the closest one in the P5, so they get the benefit of the doubt and remain (mostly) where they were.
12 Wisconsin Badgers Ditto as above. Of course, the nature of building a big lead as an underdog against the favored team, only to blow it later in the game, complicates the way we view a team. But for me, the conference championship was still close enough to also let them stay where they were.
13 Auburn Tigers
14 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
15 Memphis Tigers They struggled a bit in their conference championship, but I still have no doubt that this is the best G5 team in the nation; after all, they're the best team in what is considered the best G5 conference, no?
16 Minnesota Golden Gophers
17 Boise State Broncos Unlike most other G5 conference champions, the Broncos took care of business from the start and never looked back. The conference itself is what makes Memphis marginally better, but Boise State is regardless still a good team.
18 Appalachian State Mountaineers App State also did good enough for me to bump them up a spot or two. Problem is, besides their conference, the Mountaineers felt AWFULLY close to blowing their gigantic lead against the Ragin' Cajuns, so this makes them trail behind by the margins. 
19 Iowa Hawkeyes
20 Michigan Wolverines
21 Navy Midshipmen
22 Air Force Falcons
23 USC Trojans
24 Oklahoma State Cowboys
25 Cincinnati Bearcats I wasn't sure whether or not to drop the Bearcats off the Top 25, but given how well they did to make the conference championship competitive (and how other CCG participants did), I feel like they still are worthy of a spot here, even if they had to drop a bit.

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