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crownebeach Ballot for 2020 Week F

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 12, 2020, 5:21 a.m.

Rank Team Reason
1 Clemson Tigers Should be a near-unanimous No. 1. There are problems with this team (pass pro, defending the QB run game), but they're small potatoes in the scheme of things.
2 Georgia Bulldogs Stats & Info calculates a metric called team efficiencies, which has UGA's defense at No. 1 (well ahead of Clemson) but an offense outside the top 25. Alabama opened at -6, but I think the line should be closer to UGA -2.
3 Alabama Crimson Tide Cannot defend the pass. The front was actually pretty serviceable (4.7 yards/carry, 7 TFL), but guys are running free all over the deep third. I had vocally favored Bama over Clemson at the start of the year, but this is not anywhere near a complete team.
4 Wisconsin Badgers
5 Ohio State Buckeyes
6 Oklahoma State Cowboys On a bye.
7 Oregon Ducks
8 Penn State Nittany Lions
9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish FSU's numbers last week were inflated after going 3/3 on 4th down; ND is fine defensively. Book still looks bland and underwhelming.
10 BYU Cougars BYU outgained UTSA overall and per-play, held them to <3 yards/carry, and the score was kept down after they lost a fumble in the red zone. This wasn't an outstanding performance but it wasn't bad either.
11 Florida Gators The SEC doesn't play defense anymore. The most interesting thing about Florida a year ago was its balance, but this team is terribly one-sided now and that was on display when TAMU started moving the ball late.
12 USC Trojans
13 Marshall Thundering Herd Marshall is a legit contender for the New Year's Six bid (I think it's the Fiesta this year). Their special teams are characteristically excellent, but the defense has also improved. I don't expect them to lose a game.
14 Iowa State Cyclones Will continue to stay high as long as Louisiana-Lafayette continues to look good. I have a positive outlook on the roster.
15 Tennessee Volunteers Looked motivated against Georgia and were ultimately just defeated by the deeper, stronger team. Not a significant drop.
16 Miami Hurricanes Clemson just has more talent than Miami, and that's fine! The Canes looked more fundamentally sound than they did last year, and they're killing bad teams like they're supposed to. Solidly a middle-of-the-road ranked team.
17 Texas A&M Aggies The defense is clearly not good -- I'm not sure why I ever thought it was going to be -- and any team that depends on Kellen Mond to win games reliably is going to be hot and cold. But the run game looked phenomenal against Florida, and that makes me feel good about their medium-term prospects.
18 Cincinnati Bearcats Honestly think this is too high, but not enamored with any of the teams below them. Same Cincinnati as we've seen for a couple of season's now -- great defense, vanilla offense.
19 Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma is good at almost everything they do. But the one thing they do badly (pass defense) is so, *so* bad that it almost offsets everything else. I wanna see them play Bama with the two defenses in this condition and see what happens.
20 North Carolina Tar Heels Beat a terrible Syracuse, a rebuilding Boston College, and a literally disease-ridden Virginia Tech. I don't think the Heels are *bad*, but I don't see why we're crowning them for their accomplishments already. Would be a moderate underdog to Notre Dame.
21 UCF Knights On a bye.
22 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns On a bye.
23 Washington Huskies
24 Kansas State Wildcats I'm giving the offense a mulligan for their quarterback injury. Defense looked steady, albeit against a TCU team that can't move the ball between the tackles. 
25 Tulsa Golden Hurricane Replaced LSU in the rankings. On a bye.

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