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Muffinnnnnnn Ballot for 2022 Week 8

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 17, 2022, 7:35 p.m.

Overall Rationale: As always, rankings are a combination of how good your team is, but also who you've beaten and (most importantly) how often you're winning. Teams who beat each other with the same record must be ranked ahead, because games matter. If a 2-4 team beats a 6-0 team, then of course you can't put the 2-4 team above them, but there's really no excuse for head-to-head-even-record-losers to be behind. A big wrench that exists with that is Kentucky-South Carolina. No one will hold losing to Georgia against SC but losing to Arkansas isn't great. However, they did beat Kentucky. It's tough to justify where they should go, especially with the win over Miss State that Kentucky just got. Here's what I'm gonna do. SC has played one less game to this point, and Kentucky is on a bye while SC plays TAMU. If SC beats TAMU, then SC 100% goes over Kentucky, but if not, they don't. I don't feel like SC is very good so I didn't want to rank them. LSU, Miss State, Kentucky, and to a lesser degree South Carolina are all SEC teams I have in the 20-30 range, so at a moment's notice any of them could show up there and I considered all of them in the process of making this. UCLA is still the best team in the Pac-12 like I've been saying since Week 5. I really didn't like Utah and thought they were frauds of even being top 25 caliber. I also thought USC was good, but a little overrated (more of a 10-15 range team than a 5-10 range). I was a little worried USC would choke against Utah and yup they totally did. That being said I have to reward winning games (shocker) and so Utah makes a pretty huge jump to #13. While my rule about needing to put teams with head-to-head wins with the same record doesn't apply (USC is 6-1, Utah 5-2), I still feel like they are close enough to go ahead and put Utah over them. If you're willing to rank them at #12 and #15 (looking at you AP), surely putting the winner ahead isn't insane. Elsewhere, UCF looks like a totally different team than it did at the beginning of the season. Man losing that game to Louisville hurts looking back. Same deal with Illinois losing to Indiana. South Alabama is a team very few are looking at. Their best game might've been their sole loss: a 32-31 loss to undefeated UCLA that they really should've won. To date still the most competitive game anyone has given UCLA, by far. If South Alabama keeps winning like they have, why SHOULDN'T they be ranked? As they have been since Week 4, Tulane is once again my #1 G5 team. What an amazing turnaround from a team that went 2-10 last year. It REALLY sucks that they lost that stunner to Southern Miss after their win over Kansas State, because otherwise they would likely be in the top 15 in every single poll at minimum. Regardless, they'll get their opportunities to climb with games against Memphis, SMU, and especially UCF and Cincinnati. Kansas State continuing to win also helps out a lot. I think that's some of the highlights, feel free to ask me about anything you want, too!

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