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MADBuc49 Ballot for 2022 Week 12

Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Nov. 13, 2022, 12:51 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Week 12 notes: Deservedness keeps teams such as Florida State out when I would have them over some of the teams in this poll. General: 1st layer, computer portion: SP+, opponents’ SP+, opponents’ opponents’ SP+, opponents’ win %, opponents’ opponents’ win %. 2nd layer, human portion: home/field/away, key injuries, P5/G5 status, watched game factors (ex: offensive/defensive line domination, rush yards after contact, average point of first contact, defensive penetration on non-inside screens, missed tackles, quarterback throwing release speed, overall turnovers, average starting field position, etc). 3rd layer, human portion: wins/losses vs higher-/lower-/non-ranked teams, recency of those results. 4th layer, computer portion: Deservedness = team cannot be ranked over another team with 2+ fewer losses (ex: 7-3 Kansas State can be ranked over 8-2 UCF, but 7-3 Kansas State cannot be ranked over 9-1 Coastal Carolina even if rankings have Kansas State over Coastal Carolina and/or I think Kansas State is better than Coastal Carolina).

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs Keeps putting down quality opponents
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Ohio State and Michigan are exactly equal now - only keeping Ohio State above Michigan as they’ve been above Michigan this whole season
3 Michigan Wolverines Ohio State and Michigan are exactly equal now - only keeping Ohio State above Michigan as they’ve been above Michigan this whole season
4 Tennessee Volunteers Struggled a bit versus Missouri before blowing them out. They’ll probably need multiple 2- and/or 3-loss P5 champs before they can get into the playoff
5 TCU Horned Frogs Human portion has them a bit lower, but they keep pulling wins
6 Clemson Tigers Human portion is pulling them up this high
7 LSU Tigers A bunch of Pac-12 losses is probably what kept them this high. Even though it was a conference game, score was too close against Arkansas
8 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama didn’t look as good in this game as they’ve done historically, but they still pulled out a win against a top 20 team on the road
9 Oregon Ducks Even though they just lost to Washington (who lost to UCLA who beat Utah who beat USC), this is a very close-knit Pac-12 top five. They’ll probably be the top Pac-12 team here if they win out
10 UCLA Bruins They have the worst loss among the five Pac-12 teams here (Arizona) but wins over two of those teams already (Washington and Utah). If they win out (which would include USC), they could jump to #1 if Oregon doesn’t win out
11 Washington Huskies Yes, they did just beat Oregon (and on the road), but referencing the two entries above they have the worst loss out of the five (Arizona State). I’m not sure winning out will vault them over Oregon and/or UCLA if those two teams win out
12 Utah Utes If they hadn’t lost to Florida week one, they’d be #1. They can grab the top Pac-12 spot here if they beat Oregon
13 USC Trojans The human portion has had them lower throughout the whole season. On one hand, they haven’t looked as impressive as the other teams; on the other, their one loss was to Utah on the road and by one point with less than a minute left. However, if they win out, they’ll at worst be the 3rd-best Pac-12 team.
14 Penn State Nittany Lions They only move down due to Washington’s win
15 Ole Miss Rebels Playing a top 10 team close and almost winning doesn’t mean they need to drop
16 North Carolina Tar Heels They keep pulling out the wins and have an easy road with head coach-less Georgia Tech and quarterback-less NC State. If they win out, make the ACC CCG, and win the ACC, if another P5 conference has a 2+ loss champ I do think the committee will value UNC’s championship
17 UCF Knights Imagine if they didn’t drop a dud against ECU
18 Tulane Green Wave The UCF game was closer than I thought - I thought either Tulane would win or UCF would blow them out
19 Cincinnati Bearcats Cincinnati can recover and make the American if they beat SMU and Tulane. Doesn’t look probable, but they could rough it out against Tulane
20 Troy Trojans Troy gets somewhat of a pass for playing the triple option Army, but they haven’t had great offense the last several weeks. They’ll need a 3-loss American champ to maybe get the Cotton Bowl bid
21 South Alabama Jaguars U-S-A needs more than just winning out and winning the Sun Belt to get into the Cotton Bowl. They need Troy to drop a game and the American teams to eat themselves to have a shot
22 Liberty Flames Liberty got hype for beating banged up BYU and Arkansas teams before UConn took it to them, but they only beat their FCS buy-game by one with a touchdown with a minute left. They’ve had an easy schedule so far - even the Wake Forest game was Sam Hartman’s first game back in the season. They are so up and down it’s hard to rank them
23 UTSA Roadrunners UTSA hadn’t been flashy at all this season until the Louisiana Tech game. They are just like Cincinnati - they grind out games. Remember, they took Houston to overtime and Texas didn’t exactly run over them when they still had confidence. They’ll probably need 3-loss American and Sun Belt champs to have a shot at the Cotton Bowl
24 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers We finally got to the point where Coastal had to be ranked. They are only ranked here because of Deservedness and are also the reason why teams like Cincinnari, Troy, South Alabama, Liberty, and UTSA are also included. In a true power rankings, Coastal would be ranked behind multiple 3-loss, 4-loss, and even 5-loss teams. This has been arguably the most overrated team this whole season. Their schedule has been a joke and they still have only looked decent against Army (which took place week 1), App State (whose defense has stopped playing this season), and Southern Miss (probably their second-best looking win since they didn’t have Grayson McCall). If they had played P5 schools like Louisville, Kansas State, Arkansas, Ole Miss, UCLA, BYU, Texas or even G5 schools like UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston (pre-season favorites), they wouldn’t have just 1 loss. They had a good win against Southern Miss without Grayson McCall and do have somewhat of an easy schedule left with Virginia and James Madison, but unless they shape up I’d pick Troy and South Alabama to easily win the conference
25 Kansas State Wildcats Only at #25 because of Deservedness. I’d have them at #16 above UNC if Deservedness was not a factor. Next 5 in alphabetical order are: Florida State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, and Texas

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