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T-Thugs Ballot for 2021 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 7, 2021, 9:41 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I try my best to rank teams based on who they have played and beat so far in the season. For this reason, my poll will show up in controversial early but look more like everyone else's as the year progresses. There will be some weirdness early. for example, Iowa and UCLA are going to be very high in my poll because of wins over teams like Indiana and LSU, whereas teams like Clemson orwill be much lower in my initial poll than they will be after they start accumulating wins. My poll also has big ten teams probably overrated. This is because they opened the year with conference wins rather than tune-ups. Also probably underrated Oklahoma (who I didnt rank at all yet) because they squeaked by a sun-belt team at home. That may end up being a decent win if Tulane has a nice year, and I'll take that into account as the season goes on, but for now its hard to say they had a more impressive week than an Auburn, USC, Texas A&M, or Michigan (barf). 

Rank Team Reason
1 Alabama Crimson Tide Start of the season with an absolute domination of Miami. Alabama as reigning champs seems like the team to beat again. 
2 Georgia Bulldogs Really the only question I had with ranking Georgia #2 is if I should actually be ranking them #1. Winning against Clemson is a phenomenal opening win. If Alabama didn't appear so dominant in their win over another ACC favorite, I might have put Georgia first. 
3 Iowa Hawkeyes Hawkeyes opened the year with a drubbing of Indiana, who had a really nice season last year. We'll see if Iowa can maintain this, with a big matchup coming with Iowa State next week. 
4 UCLA Bruins I'm not sure if LSU is very good, but starting the year at 2-0 with a blowout of Hawaii and a really nice win over LSU is a great start. UCLA may be the class of the PAC. 
5 Penn State Nittany Lions Penn State opened the year with a win over Wisconsin on the road. Sloppy game but a really nice start. 
6 Ohio State Buckeyes Ohio State started the year with a blowout win over Minnesota. They did what they need to, but Minnesota had a pretty down year last year. A win next week against Oregon would bump them up a couple spots. 
7 Ole Miss Rebels Ole Miss starts the year with a dominating performance against P5 opponent Louisville. 
8 Virginia Tech Hokies Virginia Tech started the year with a bang with an upset win over ACC title game favorite UNC. Hokies could easily be 4-0 when Notre Dame comes to town in early October. 
9 Michigan State Spartans Michigan State opened the year with a nice victory over Northwestern, who played in the Big Ten championship game last season. 
10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame started the year with a thrilling overtime victory over Florida State. Offense looked good. defense did not. Hard to know if that win is worth much or not, as FSU stunk last season. 
11 Kansas State Wildcats Kansas State started the year 1-0 with a dominant victory over Stanford. 
12 Texas Longhorns Hard to rank the Longhorns. Generally I give preference early in the season to wins over p5 opponents. However, Louisiana had a very nice season last year and was ranked for most of it. I'm counting it as a nice win. 
13 UTSA Roadrunners UTSA started the year 1-0 after defeating Illinois. I gave them a slight bump up on this win because Illinois was already 1-0 with a win over Nebraska. 
14 Maryland Terrapins Maryland started the year 1-0 with a win over Big 12 opponent West Virginia. 
15 BYU Cougars BYU defeated Arizona to start their season at 1-0. 
16 UCF Knights UCF opened the year with a nice comeback win over Boise State. They play Louisville in a few weeks and can get a nice win over a p5 opponent there. Would really help them if Louisville wins against Ole Miss tonight. 
17 Purdue Boilermakers Purdue started the season with a win over Pac12 Oregon State. 
18 Northern Illinois Huskies Northern Illinois started out the year with a win over Georgia Tech. 
19 Nevada Wolf Pack Nevada upset Cal on the road to start the season 1-0. 
20 Utah State Aggies Utah State is 1-0 after beating Washington State.
21 Charlotte 49ers Charlotte started the year with a win over Duke. I don't think they will stay in the top 25 for long but they are 1-0 with a win over a P5 team. 
22 Auburn Tigers We've reached 1-0 teams that didn't play p5 opponents. Auburn had a serious blowout victory over Akron. 
23 USC Trojans 1-0 with a win over San Jose State. That probably wouldn't be enough to get ranked in my poll but SJ State had already started their season and was 1-0. 
24 Texas A&M Aggies Texas A&M started the year with a blowout over Kent State. 
25 Michigan Wolverines Michigan started the year with a blowout win over Western Michigan. 

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