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Maladroit44 Ballot for 2020 Preseason

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Sept. 2, 2020, 1:49 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Hey everybody! It's my honour to join the /r/CFB Poll this season. I'll be using a computer ranking dubbed TERSE (Totally Experimental Ranking System for Everybody), which is designed to think and vote like a human. Take a peek here to see how it works: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MsZmVhryuYVFAoYYGxPGvt7AcvDqHrudecm12RtZ7G0/edit?usp=sharing. This is obviously an unusual season, and the rankings are likely to shift in some pretty unpredictable ways, but I'm still looking forward to following my favourite sport and perfecting the formula for future years. You can take a look at some of the cutting-room floor stuff and my big offseason project (fall 2020/spring 2021 previews for every team and conference) at cornsports.wordpress.com, and my ranking reasoning and thoughts can always be found here. Good luck and safe play to all, and may the best team win!

Rank Team Reason
1 Ohio State Buckeyes +1 | 90.3 (TERSE rating) | With the top quarterback in the nation, a superb skill corps, defensive depth rising to the fore, and one of the most dominant regular-season performances of recent years, the Buckeyes were expected to lead the way in 2020, but they'll instead hope to do so in 2021.
2 Alabama Crimson Tide +5 | 88.4 | Once the season officially starts, Alabama will take over the top spot in the rankings, with last year a great one under the hood even if their on-field results led to a minor dip and a season that can only be disappointing for a select few. Losing Tua hurts, but the Tide should rebound easily.
3 Clemson Tigers NC (no change) | 87.8 | Clemson's across-the-board strengths spell more trouble for the ACC in 2020, and even the addition of Notre Dame is unlikely to hold the Tigers back from claiming their sixth straight conference crown under Trevor and Travis.
4 Georgia Bulldogs +1 | 81.8 | In a fall season without two of the Power 5 conferences, will Georgia finally get over the hump and return to the playoff? Doing so with a merely fringe-top-25 offence could lead to some difficulty, but the defence remains elite and the Bulldogs have been right there two years in a row.
5 LSU Tigers -4 | 81.8 | With Ja'Marr Chase opting out of the season, the Tigers are scrambling to find any elements of last year's title-winning team, but they're still the defending champs and they still have Coach O to lead the way. I wouldn't put a return to the CFP past them by any stretch of the imagination.
6 Wisconsin Badgers +12 | 80.4 | Ohio State's closest challenger in the spring, the Badgers should have one of the best teams in the Big Ten, with the immensely underrated Jack Coan spearheading their efforts under centre and 80% pre-offseason returns from the #6 defence.
7 Florida Gators +3 | 77.9 | The Gators are a trendy pick to break through and make their first playoff appearance, but much like rival Georgia, they've been stuck in a rut over the past two seasons. Overcoming a brutal SEC slate will be difficult, but the Gators have their best CFP odds yet.
8 Oklahoma Sooners -4 | 77.5 | Oklahoma may start the season eighth, but with a committee likely averse to putting three SEC teams in the playoff, they've still got the inside line to the CFP. Getting the defence (particularly the seven-interception secondary) to the offence's level will be instrumental in going further.
9 UCF Knights +11 | 76.3 | The #7 preseason team entering the spring (though only #15 by the evidently cowardly AP Poll), UCF's playoff chances are hovering right around 'possible, but definitely unlikely'. They'll need to be lucky to get in even if they're undefeated; we'll see how the needle moves over the course of the season.
10 Penn State Nittany Lions +1 | 75.6 | Penn State, like conference foe Michigan, has a bit of an Ohio State problem, but for various reasons they look a tad likelier to deal with it in 2021. Sean Clifford headlines a potentially brilliant offence, but the defence could slip at the line.
11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish -3 | 75.3 | Notre Dame tested fans mightily by having better overall stats in 2019 than in 2018, yet having a significant drop in production for QB Ian Book and a worse record. In the ACC this year, their season will revolve around the early-November showdown with Clemson.
12 Oregon Ducks -6 | 75.0 | The Ducks are an easy team to get excited about if you're in the know, as they bring back pretty much everyone everywhere from a team that finished 2019 6th in TERSE...except for Justin Herbert. Secure a good starter under centre and you might just do the equivalent of making a CFP appearance for spring 2021.
13 Memphis Tigers NC | 70.5 | Kenny Gainwell's loss will hurt the Tigers (something that should be reflected if and when updated SP+ returning numbers drop), but Brady White's an elite quarterback, Damonte Coxie elevates the receiving room massively, and the defence has the tools to build on a middling 2019.
14 Texas A&M Aggies +22 | 70.1 | The story for the Aggies, as usual, is of a monstrously difficult schedule. Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, LSU, and Auburn make for as tough a slate as you'll find in 2020, but A&M has a reasonable case that this year is the one they use to break through and upset the SEC's Big Four.
15 Auburn Tigers +10 | 70.1 | Notoriously unpredictable, Auburn naturally enters 2020 with a quarterback who's been called a Heisman dark horse and one of the SEC's worst starters; rushing and receiving rooms that have great expectations right up to the reserves, then tank; and a top-ten defence with the 78th-ranked returns. Who knows?
16 USC Trojans +12 | 69.5 | Liking Clay Helton at USC is probably my greatest crime against the college football world, but it's worth noting that he has the Trojans primed for a potential Pac-12 title. He hasn't returned them to 2000s standards, but the shortlist of teams capable of consistently going .800 is short indeed, and USC ain't on it.
17 Appalachian State Mountaineers -2 | 68.5 | Arguably the most lovable G5 team, App State's season should come down to back-to-back showdowns in early October: first with ULL, which has been close to overtaking ASU for ages but has yet to actually beat them, and Georgia Southern, which has pulled back-to-back rivalry upsets of the Mountaineers yet has missed their championship game opportunity in both years.
18 Texas Longhorns +13 | 68.3 | TERSE pegs both 9-0 and 2-7 seasons as better-than-5% odds, so suffice it to say that it'll be an interesting year in Austin. Wasting the last year of Sam Ehlinger would be ruinous, but the Longhorns are also primed to make a playoff run thanks to top-25 returning production.
19 Minnesota Golden Gophers -2 | 68.3 | There's no doubt that 2019 was a great season for the Gophers and one most of us adored, but the 2021 setback will likely be substantial. The moves made since SP+ returns originally came out are huge here, with Rashod Bateman joining fellow 1000-yard receiver Tyler Johnson in departing Minnesota. Tanner Morgan will be absolutely necessary.
20 Oklahoma State Cowboys +13 | 66.9 | I initially decided to become an Oklahoma State fan because the way they played was just so fun, and the rollercoaster nature of Big 12 offence has carried on into an offseason ranging from the return of Chuba Hubbard to Mike Gundy's verbal blunders to uncertainty over the fate of the season. At least it's nearly over...right?
21 Utah Utes -12 | 66.8 | With the worst returning numbers in football by a substantial margin, it's anyone's guess how the Utes will fare next season. Sticking around somewhere near the top of the Pac-12 seems likely, but that's a relative word for a team with non-zero chances of ranking top-10 or below average.
22 North Carolina Tar Heels +33 | 66.3 | Even with back-to-back top-20 returns, it may seem too early to declare the Tar Heels real, but the fates that govern college football have a strong inclination towards storylines, and UNC's is on a collision course with Clemson atop the ACC some time in the next few seasons. 2020 may be too soon, but you never know.
23 Kentucky Wildcats +31 | 65.8 | I'm not sure what exactly it is about Kentucky that makes their 31-place rise make sense, but my best guess is 'a little bit of everything'. Their luck should improve from 88th, their O and D rank 32nd and 30th respectively, and the schedule's remarkably forgiving for the SEC. 10-3 might just be back on the table.
24 Tennessee Volunteers +10 | 65.2 | Tennessee should be good, even if Jarrett Guarantano isn't the star he showed flashes of being last year, but it might be the 'best 5-5 team you've ever seen' kind of good. Outside of Vandy and Arkansas, the Vols don't have a winning probability better than 71.4%. Yikes.
25 Michigan Wolverines -1 | 65.0 | Michigan could be a lot of things, but whatever they are will probably (if the Big Ten just moves its schedules down a few months) lose to OSU and Wisconsin on back-to-back weeks. And this is Michigan, after all, so the administration surely can't be satisfied with fringe-top-25 performances and losses to the Buckeyes, right?

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