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nw____ Ballot for 2022 Week 10

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 31, 2022, 11:24 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I have discussed this in previous weeks, so feel free to check those out if you're interested!

Rank Team Reason
1 Tennessee Volunteers Complete domination of Kentucky-- definitely didn't see Tennessee's defense holding Kentucky to 6 points. Best resume in CFB. It is much easier for me to justify putting Tennessee first than putting them anywhere else. Hooker is playing out of his mind right now.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Shaky start on the road but hard to deny the results. Stroud looked fantastic. This game will likely always be a statistical aberration for Tuimoloau but if he plays at the same level for the rest of the season, the Buckeye defense starts to kinda look scary again (they're not like back back, but he makes them look like they might be on their way).
3 Georgia Bulldogs Every time it seemed like Florida would try to find a way back into this one, UGA would pull away. Sign of an excellent team and impressive given that UGA has played with their food too much this season.
4 Michigan Wolverines MSU never had a chance (at least not in a fair fight. I could see a scenario where MSU might have won. Say, for instance, 10 MSU players ganged up on 1 Michigan player-- now that might have been a closer contest).
5 Clemson Tigers bye-- and probably a much needed one. If they really are a top-5 team, I expect them to thoroughly handle Notre Dame next week.
6 Alabama Crimson Tide Bye. Very excited to see them go into Death Valley at night next week.
7 TCU Horned Frogs TCU shouldn't be in a dog fight with West Virginia well in to the fourth quarter. Playing in Morgantown is always weird, though, so I will give them some benefit of the doubt-- but I don't quite trust them as much as I did last week. Starting to wonder if they're just the best team in a really down Big XII rather than a truly elite team.
8 Oregon Ducks Well, it looked like it might be a game for maybe 20m or so which, to Cal's credit (I guess???) was longer than I thought this one would be competitive. It is a little concerning that they allowed Cal's (terrible) offense to score 24 points, but some of those came when the game was functionally over.
9 UCLA Bruins They beat Stanford. Not sure that's worth much, but at least it was a pretty convincing win.
10 USC Trojans The defense continues to be a concern. The offense may just be the 2nd or 3rd best in the country, though (with Tennessee being #1). That said, I didn't get a chance to watch this one since I have no idea how to get the Pac-12 Network. It was a shame to miss such a good game.
11 Illinois Fighting Illini ̶W̶i̶s̶c̶o̶n̶s̶ oops, I mean, ̶I̶o̶w̶a̶... no not that one either... Illinois continues to look like the version of a non-Ohio State B1G Ten team that you'd draw up in a lab. Bert is doing one heck of a job, as is Ryan Walters (no, not the guy running to be the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Education, Illinois' defensive coordinator). As an aside, the hit the Illinois defender put on Casey Thompson (same play in which I believe Sydney Brown got the INT)... woof. That must have been like getting hit by a car. Anyway, I really do think this Illinois team deserves to be in this top-15/borderline top-10 space given how they've played. Let's face it-- that loss to Indiana was pretty fluky, and I know I sure wouldn't want to watch either of my favorite teams play against that defense (or, at least I wouldn't want to watch it again... I am an Iowa fan). As a lover of classic B1G Ten games, I am already SO PUMPED for their Nov. 19th game against Michigan (desperately hoping that it snows)... but they've got to get through Michigan State (meh) and Purdue (sometimes meh sometimes kinda good and sometimes straight butt) first. Michigan, on the other hand, has to get through Rutgers and Nebraska. Anyone else's Big Nude Kickoff senses tingling a bit all of a sudden? (though Bedlam and Ohio State/Maryland are also that weekend... and Kansas/Texas could be a dark horse here if both teams win over the next two weeks and Maryland, Michigan, and/or Illinois struggle).
12 Tulane Green Wave Are they the #12 team in the country? I don't *think* so (though they've been really good!). Do they have the same record as Kansas State and a H2H victory over them? Yes. I think they deserve to be here for now. If not, things will work themselves out.
13 Kansas State Wildcats Are *they* the #12/13 best team in the country? Maybe so-- and maybe they're even better than that! They started off the season looking shaky but have been anything but for the last several weeks. (side note: I think it is a shame that there aren't more Big XII/B1G Ten bowl games, as I would've loved to see Kansas State play Illinois in one-- but neither of these teams are going to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl... guess I'll have to hope for some weird stuff to happen so that we might get that matchup in the Cotton Bowl or something)
14 Utah Utes What a weird game they played. Even with what looked to be mostly their backup offense, they managed a W in Pullman. Not an easy task. They just get the edge over UNC because, if they played on a neutral field and both teams were fully healthy, I think I'd pick Utah to *just* barely win in what would be an absolute classic. (In fact, I'd really enjoy watching Utah play UNC or Kansas State)
15 North Carolina Tar Heels Holy 4th quarter... they just exploded all of a sudden. Even with their defensive struggles, it is hard to bet against Maye. Whew.
16 LSU Tigers I have no idea if this team is any good. I would appreciate it if they made up their mind soon. My prediction is that they beat Alabama this weekend and then lose to UAB-- OR that they get absolutely smoked by Bama and then win the rest of their games by 30+ points. That said, it does seem like BK will have this team back in contention sooner rather than later.
17 Penn State Nittany Lions I did not expect them to put up nearly as much of a fight as they did. If Stroud and Tuimoloau hadn't totally taken over the game (with a non-zero amount of help from Henderson), Penn State... still might not have gotten the W. Clifford has been a good player for a long, long time. Perhaps his graduation will wind up being a net positive for Penn State, though, and they can bring in a great player (or even an elite one, though I hesitate to go that far).
18 Ole Miss Rebels I also have no idea whether this team is any good. That was a nail-biter against an A&M team that is kind of in free fall at the moment. That said, it is always tough to go to Kyle Field and come back with a W. They'd better hope Bama takes care of LSU next week so that Bama won't treat Ole Miss like a get right game (e.g., Mississippi State).
19 Liberty Flames Bye week. Interested to see what they do against Arkansas (woo pig, tbh), who seems to be figuring a few things out right now.
20 Oregon State Beavers Bye, but lots of teams that were keeping them outside of the top-25 lost. This has been a good Oregon State team, too, that has just had some tough injury luck at times. I think they deserve to be here-- this isn't a fluke. They will catch some teams by surprise if underestimated.
21 UCF Knights Who would've thought we'd be here after watching them get pretty well handled by East Carolina earlier this month? I think Gus has just a little bit of that Mike Leach gene in him where his teams, when at their best, beat at least one team they definitely should've lost to but, also, find a way to spectacularly lose 2-3 games they should've easily won. As such, as is often the case for me with Mike Leach teams, I don't really know what to do with them. Are they actually good but inconsistent OR are they just mediocre and occasionally lucky? Time will tell, I suppose. The Tulane game in a few weeks should be fantastic.
22 Wake Forest Demon Deacons I think Wake is better than the #22 team in the country-- and, if they played them again 10 times, I think they would probably beat Louisville in 6-7 of them (and would at least be much more competitive/less terrible on offense in all of them). I don't know what happened to Hartman in this one, but I am willing to chalk it up to a bad game *this time*. Wake's top-25 status was also helped by the fact that a bunch of other teams lost, too.
23 Oklahoma State Cowboys Umm I have no idea what happened here. I considered dropping them from my top-25 entirely. After all, it is hard to claim a team that got blanked 48-0 is a top-25 anything (I'm an OU fan-- ask me how I know). However, they also benefited from the fact that a bunch of other teams in this 15-25 tier lost. I think they're better than this, I really do. And I am waiting for the game in which their defensive line absolutely takes over. However, they seem like a team on the decline at the moment and are struggling with a ton of injuries (which is kind of ok timing for me as, again, I am an OU fan).
24 Troy Trojans Also on a bye. But, I'll be honest, the 21-25 spots for me were VERY tough this week. There are a lot of teams that have credible claims to being here. Pretty much every one of them also has at least one hideous loss, though. Their only two losses are to Ole Miss and App State, though, which are pretty firmly in the quality-loss category for me, especially given that App needed a miracle to pull of the home win against Troy. While I didn't really expect to rank them, I am willing to concede that that might be a me problem-- this team seems to have consistently found ways to win very different types of games. Continuing on the theme of honesty, I haven't watched almost anything from Troy this year outside of the App State and South Alabama games. I look forward to paying more attention to them-- which they deserve-- for the rest of the season.
25 Maryland Terrapins Also on a bye. I don't feel that good about putting Maryland in the top-25. They have pulled out a couple of absolute squeakers against some pretty bad teams. That said, wins are wins-- and they've struggled with injuries recently, especially Taulia (btw, the fact that his season isn't over seems like a miracle to me). I am always pretty ok letting teams work out the rankings on their own. Based on a 30,000 foot view of Maryland's resume, they deserve to be here. If they are not a top-25 team, they'll prove it and drop another one to Wisconsin this week.

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