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crownebeach Ballot for 2022 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 11, 2022, 4:36 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Trying to lean less on advanced metrics than in past years, because I feel iffy about the constant changes to SP+ and FPI over the past few seasons and I can't really get a good sense of what's going on here. All feedback on rationale is welcome, especially if you think I got it wrong or overlooked some x-factor that contributed to a win or loss. Primary source for roster info is Athlon.

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs No comment.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes I have some doubts about the offense after Marshall was able to move the ball on Notre Dame fairly steadily, but my opinion of the defense is unchanged based on common opponent (Marshall's defense is quite good). Still no serious concerns.
3 Oklahoma Sooners I don't feel good about this, because if you caught that first half, OU was *bad*. But they took care of business in the second half and I am very familiar with the Dillon Gabriel experience: as long as he's not turning the ball over, he will eventually win the ballgame every time.
4 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama clearly outclassed Texas physically on both sides of the ball, but Texas deserves credit for an excellent offensive gameplan that took advantage of Bama's DBs -- that seems to be clearly the weakest unit for the Tide. Teams with better DL play (hi, Texas A&M) are potentially going to give Bama a lot of issues.
5 Michigan Wolverines Michigan has not given me any useful data from their first two games. There's playing cupcakes, and then there's whatever these first two weeks have been.
6 Oklahoma State Cowboys Offensively, the Pokes did a good job of leaning on ASU until they tired, and they controlled the line of scrimmage nicely on defense. I feel like Ok State is going to steadily improve their ability to control the game on defense, because they have talent but limited experience -- but the offense has hit its ceiling of "good, not great" with this quarterback. (I hate Spencer Sanders so much.)
7 USC Trojans USC's offense is going to be unstoppable -- Stanford's defense is not great, but they have potential NFL talent in the secondary and it became clear that it simply did not matter who you put on USC's receivers, they will have one favorable matchup on every snap. The defense, however, is not imposing. Stanford had two turnovers inside the USC 5-yard line and only lost by 13 points; this could have become a tossup game very easily. Anyone who said Lincoln's USC was going to look just like his Oklahoma teams was spot-on.
8 Clemson Tigers Defense great. Offense bad. Stronger letter to follow.
9 Utah Utes Styles make fights, and it seems very clear that Florida's option/play-action attack was a better matchup against Utah than against Kentucky -- that doesn't make me all that much less confident in Utah, although it does make me worry about how the Utes are going to match up with USC. I would have been very comfortable naming Utah the winner of that game after Week 1, and now I have hesitations.
10 Penn State Nittany Lions I guess? I think Ohio is a decent team and PSU killed them, but, idk. Just like Week 1 I think I'm probably overrating them but I like the look of them on paper.
11 Arkansas Razorbacks Not finishing games is becoming a habit. After dominating Cincinnati in the first half and letting them back into it, they did the same with South Carolina -- if Arkansas can play a complete four quarters, this is a fantastic football team, I just don't know if they're going to.
12 NC State Wolfpack Nothing to criticize in Week 2, although I'm still grappling with their known offensive issues from last season and from Week 1.
13 Kentucky Wildcats The biggest riser in my rankings -- I'm sorry that I doubted you. Handled a potentially explosive Florida offense. I still don't get the Will Levis hype, but UK is going to play sound football and they have physical and athletic advantages they've lacked in previous years.
14 SMU Mustangs Eh. Moved up by default because they performed fine against inferior competition. Like Oklahoma, bad first half and great second half.
15 Oregon Ducks The AP dropping them from the rankings was a stupid overreaction at the time. I don't feel fundamentally different about them than I did after Week 1; EWU has talent and winning by this margin shows quality from Oregon, but any time Bo Nix looks good throwing, it says more about the opposing defense than about him.
16 Cincinnati Bearcats Beat the brakes off an inferior team, and basically moves up because Arkansas moved up.
17 Minnesota Golden Gophers I have upgraded Minnesota to division favorite. I really like these guys, especially on offense.
18 Texas Longhorns I thought Alabama was going to stomp them. This was a great gameplan and a great performance, and I'm upgrading Texas considerably, but I have THOUGHTS about Steve Sarkisian's late-game management decisions and I am certain that you will not want to hear them.
19 Tennessee Volunteers Just like last year, there's not much to split Pitt and Tennessee -- this time, the Vols stepped up and made plays in the clutch, but it could have gone either way. Can we renew this series indefinitely?
20 Pittsburgh Panthers Very impressive rushing offense, and Pittsburgh's patented heavy box on defense forced Hooker to win this game throwing. Sometimes when you have an aggressive defense like this, you just have to give a guy credit for answering your challenge; I still think a conference championship is in the realm of possibility for Pitt.
21 Texas Tech Red Raiders Tech was decisively better than Houston on the line of scrimmage and on special teams, but it's very clear from watching Smith at QB that Tyler Shough was named the starter for a reason. TTU very nearly did not capitalize on its advantages because of all the ill-advised throws. There's a lot of potential if Smith improves his decision-making and I feel like Tech's coverage showed a lot of ability in holding Houston to 50% passing.
22 Kansas State Wildcats I don't know how good Mizzou is, but K-State embarrassed them. KSU was able to get whatever it wanted on the ground, and the Tigers looked completely lost and confused when they had to try to move the ball themselves. This Chris Klieman dude might be a good football coach or something.
23 Texas A&M Aggies Everything wrong with A&M could be solved by a better quarterback and a coach who wasn't fundamentally skeptical of running an aggressive offense; the pieces are all there, and the defense is as good as advertised. They're just not going to put all those pieces together unless they fall backward into a great quarterback somehow.
24 Washington State Cougars This might be a colossal overreaction, but I had thought very highly of Wisconsin coming in, and for Wazzu to go into Madison and stand strong against a very good offensive line was impressive. The offense is a bit of a question mark -- the Cougs have great athletes but Ward's decisions and accuracy are not clicking yet -- but this defense has great instincts and technique and held up to being on the field all afternoon.
25 Notre Dame Fighting Irish I'm not sounding *all* the alarms for Notre Dame, because I think really highly of Marshall's very experienced defense and I have the Herd as a leading threat for the Sun Belt title. But this is a really bad look: the Irish were outgained on a per-play basis, which doesn't typically happen in a game where you were the better team and just got some bad bounces against a ballhawking defense. The QB is obviously an issue, but more alarming is that the offensive line might be as well.

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