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YellowSkarmory Ballot for 2021 Week 8

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 18, 2021, 1:58 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I try to rank based on resume, which creates some weird results this early in the season. I do not base my rankings off my previous ones whatsoever, as that just leaves teams with worse resumes higher than they should be. MOV does not play much of a role in my rankings, either.

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs Georgia should really be the unanimous #1 at this moment. They've pretty much looked completely dominant and have the best resume in the country. Kentucky and Auburn are ranked for me, and Clemson and Arkansas are two more solid wins. 
2 Oklahoma State Cowboys Now, here we go with the interesting rankings starting. Baylor is a really solid win, and picking up a win at Texas this week certainly helps their resume. With some okay depth wins in KSU and Boise, Oklahoma State in my opinion has the second best resume in the nation.
3 Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma just had their most dominant win against an FBS team yet, and it's good to see they can win by more than one score against FBS teams. A neutral site win against Texas is the highlight of Oklahoma's resume, while wins over TCU and Kansas State add some background wins. Oklahoma or Cincinnati is an interesting debate, and I'll explain more about why I put Oklahoma above in Cinci's section.
4 Cincinnati Bearcats Cincinnati has a solid win at Notre Dame, which is definitely better than Oklahoma's win over Texas, but they just don't have the depth to go above Oklahoma. A road win against a 2-4 Indiana or a home win against a 3-3 UCF is their second best win; if they had a better second win, they'd be above Oklahoma.
5 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama has a good win against Ole Miss at home, and road wins against Florida and Mississippi State are decent too. However, they did lose at Texas A&M, but they are my highest ranked team with a loss. I couldn't justify putting them over a Cincinnati team with a similar best win when they had a loss.
6 Iowa Hawkeyes Iowa got absolutely dominated by Purdue, yikes... They still have one of the best wins in the country over Penn State, though they were losing before Clifford's injury. Other wins against Iowa State and Maryland help the depth aspect of Iowa's resume, but the fact that they really beat an injured Penn State instead of a healthy one leaves them below Alabama.
7 Penn State Nittany Lions Penn State did lose head-to-head against Iowa, and is placed below them as such. The high point of PSU's resume is a win against a good Auburn team, but their depth wins are against Wisconsin and Indiana, which are teams who have .500 or worse records, despite probably being solid teams. Their loss to Iowa isn't bad though, and Penn State slots in at #7 this week.
8 Oregon Ducks Oregon has a great win at Ohio State, and they also have a solid win at home against Fresno State. However, they did struggle with Cal, and they lost at Stanford in OT. That loss is bad enough for me to throw them below Penn State. It's certainly close between those two, however.
9 Michigan Wolverines Michigan is undefeated, but doesn't really have a standout win, with their best one either being against a decent WMU team or over a .500 Wisconsin team. However, they are undefeated, and they have a bunch of okay wins, which is enough for them to be #9 for me.
10 Baylor Bears The group of Baylor, Ole Miss, Notre Dame and Kentucky is very close, and I think you could make a reasonable case for these four being in basically any order. I have Baylor as the top of the group, as they have two solid home wins against BYU and Iowa State, who are top 35 teams. Their loss to Oklahoma State on the road is not bad at all.
11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame slots just barely in at the second spot out of these four, due to their win at home against Purdue being better than Ole Miss's best win against Arkansas, and having similar depth with road wins against Wisconsin and Virginia Tech. The home loss to Cincinnati isn't bad either, though it is at home. I could see me flipping ND and Ole Miss in 5 minutes and then flipping back 5 minutes later, and I changed the two while writing these descriptions up.
12 Ole Miss Rebels Ole Miss slots in as the third team in this group of four, with a solid home win against Arkansas, and a road win against Tennessee plus a neutral site win against Louisville being solid wins. Ole Miss's loss to Alabama is the worst loss between these four teams in my opinion, and Alabama is still a top 5 team.
13 Kentucky Wildcats Kentucky is the last team in this group of four, with their loss to Georgia this week really not being bad whatsoever. However, their wins at home against LSU and Florida aren't quite as good as the other three teams'. This is a very even group of teams, however.
14 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Wake Forest is still undefeated, with a decent win at Virginia, but they really don't have much else; a home win against Louisville is okay, and they had to go to OT at Syracuse, which isn't particularly impressive. I think you could probably make a case to put them above Kentucky, but I just don't feel like they should be.
15 Michigan State Spartans The problem with Michigan State's resume is that they have not beaten a team with a record above .500. I mean who would you say is actually their best win? Indiana and Miami are 2-4 (so is WKU), Nebraska is 3-5 (and they had to go to OT), and NW/Rutgers are both 3-3. The upcoming game against Michigan in 2 weeks will be a huge one for their resume.
16 San Diego State Aztecs San Diego State has a pretty solid win, at home against Utah in OT, but they don't have anything else that's remotely close. It's not enough for them to sneak any higher in the rankings.
17 Ohio State Buckeyes Ohio State's early road win against Minnesota is looking better now, and they do have a home win against Maryland in their last game, but that still isn't a really impressive resume. They lost at home to Oregon, and I can't justify putting them above an undefeated SDSU team with a win against a top 30 team.
18 SMU Mustangs SMU is undefeated, and they do have a road win at TCU, but they have nothing else on their resume. They aren't above Ohio State because TCU isn't a good enough win in my opinion. They certainly have chances to improve that resume significantly, with road games against Houston in 2 weeks and Cincinnati in the 2nd to last week of the season.
19 Auburn Tigers Auburn has the best resume out of the 2 win teams in my opinion, with solid road wins against LSU and Arkansas, and losses at Penn State and vs. Georgia being to top 10 teams. There's not much else to add here.
20 NC State Wolfpack NC State and Pitt are another very even pair. NC State has two solid wins, a road win at Boston College and a home win in OT against Clemson. Their loss at Mississippi State isn't too bad, but it's not really a good loss, though Mississippi State is just a really weird team resume-wise. I'll talk more about why they're above Pitt in their section.
21 Pittsburgh Panthers Pitt has three decent road wins, against Tennessee, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech. However, none of those are particularly amazing, and they did lose at home to WMU. WMU is still decent, but that is a home loss, and their three wins probably at best being slightly worse than both of NC State's wins puts them below them.
22 UTSA Roadrunners Meep Meep! UTSA is still undefeated, and still has wins against Memphis and Illinois, which are kinda...eh? I mean, they're better than beating up on some of the worst FBS teams/most FCS teams. Those two wins keep them above Coastal, who I'll talk about next.
23 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers Coastal is undefeated! Have they beaten anybody? Not really, their best win is either at Buffalo or vs. Kansas. I do respect their staying undefeated, but they're the lowest of the undefeated squads for me.
24 Purdue Boilermakers Purdue slots in as my #24, with a great win at Iowa, which is one of the three best in the country, and being on the road, I think I lean towards it being the best in the country. They did lose at Notre Dame however, and they took a bad loss at home to Minnesota. They also have a decent win at home against Oregon State, which puts them barely above my #25, which is a very similar team resume-wise in...
25 Texas A&M Aggies Texas A&M closes out my top 25, with a very similar resume; one great win, two losses, one which is pretty ehhhh. Texas A&M has beaten Alabama at home, which is definitely one of the three best wins in the country. However, they did lose at home to Mississippi State and at Arkansas, which doesn't help their case, and only having one great win leaves them below Purdue. First 5 out: BYU, Utah, Arizona State, Fresno State, UCLA

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