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TheJeemTeam Ballot for 2020 Week V

Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Oct. 5, 2020, 6:36 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Right off the bat, I will not be considering teams that have not yet played a game in my poll despite the fact that the other voters voted to include them for some reason. I don't care that other voters are doing it and that it lines up with the AP, I think it's ridiculous to rank a team that hasn't run a single play. Because of this, it will also look like I'm way over-ranking some teams. I know no one will read this, but I'm still putting it here in an attempt to maybe mitigate comments about certain teams. My poll is a hybrid poll that is primarily based on a computer poll I developed. After my computer spits out the results, I take the values that are given for each team and break the ranking into tiers. I'll re-rank within tiers to allow for some adjustment for common sense.The computer poll itself has a preseason component and a performance-based component. The preseason component is based on team performance in recent years, recent recruiting, returning production, and coaching stability. This component was the entirety of my preseason poll. The performance-based component introduces winning percentage, points per game difference, and yards per play difference with strength of schedule adjustment. The overall ranking combines these two different components at different weights depending on how many games a team has played. Given the shorter and more uncertain season, I've sped up the rate at which the preseason component is phased out.

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs 1/1 in Tier Aa
2 Alabama Crimson Tide 1/1 in Tier Ab
3 Clemson Tigers 1/1 in Tier Ac
4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1/4 in Tier B: This was one of the rare times when I didn't feel the need to do any re-ranking within a tier. These 4 and the Top 7 overall are in the exact order that my computer spit out.
5 Florida Gators 2/4 in Tier B
6 BYU Cougars 3/4 in Tier B
7 Oklahoma State Cowboys 4/4 in Tier B
8 Miami Hurricanes 1/2 in Tier C: Miami being 3-0 and looking good doing it means they jump 1-1 Auburn.
9 Auburn Tigers 2/2 in Tier C
10 LSU Tigers 1/4 in Tier D: This will likely be one of my most controversial teams. I had them way over-ranked compared with most pollsters last week. This had to do with so much of their ranking being derived from their preseason prior which favored them as they are defending national champs who went 15-0 last year. They actually are ranked the same as last week despite the easy win over Vanderbilt.
11 Virginia Tech Hokies 2/4 in Tier D: 2 wins over 2 bad teams. Overall this is the tier of teams that I don't think are as good as their ranking, but it's hard to justify ranking them too low based on their preseason components.
12 North Carolina Tar Heels 3/4 in Tier D: 2 bad wins over 2 bad teams.
13 Texas Longhorns 4/4 in Tier D
14 SMU Mustangs 1/5 in Tier E: 4-0 with an impressive win over Memphis puts them at the top of this tier.
15 Tennessee Volunteers 2/5 in Tier E
16 Pittsburgh Panthers 3/5 in Tier E: Still a good team at 3-1 despite the bad-looking 1-point loss to NC State. We'll see if it was a fluke or indicative of a mediocre team that just started the season hot in the coming weeks.
17 Cincinnati Bearcats 4/5 in Tier E: Behind Pitt due to a significantly smaller margin of victory vs. a common opponent.
18 Texas A&M Aggies 5/5 in Tier E: Barely beat Vandy and were beat down by Bama
19 UCF Knights 1/2 in Tier F
20 Oklahoma Sooners 2/2 in Tier F: Sooners have been lackluster to say the least this season.
21 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns 1/5 in Tier G: 3-0 with a decisive win over Iowa State
22 Iowa State Cyclones 2/5 in Tier G: 2-1 and only loss is to the team just ahead of them in this ranking.
23 Marshall Thundering Herd 3/5 in Tier G: Ahead of WVU due to a significantly larger margin of victory vs. a common opponent.
24 West Virginia Mountaineers 4/5 in Tier G
25 TCU Horned Frogs 5/5 in Tier G: Loss to Iowa State and a narrow win over Texas. Like many of these teams, we don't yet really know much about them. Sneak in at #25 for now.

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