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Muffinnnnnnn Ballot for 2023 Week 10

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 31, 2023, 12:20 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Wins and losses matter most. In my opinion, if you beat someone and you have the same record, you should be ranked ahead of that team. The top 5 is the top 5, and you can probably come up with a reasoning for all 5 of them to be in any order. Which team goes where really isn't a big deal at this point. I'm keeping Michigan #1 due to their dominance on both sides of the ball all season, the cheating allegations notwithstanding. Even though Oklahoma lost, a close loss on the road against a good Kansas team is doesn't send them plummeting down for me, as they still did beat Texas at a neutral site. Oklahoma-Texas-Alabama-Ole Miss is a nice chain of teams who beat the next one in line, and it just makes sense to me to do it that way. Louisville is a bit higher by virtue of their huge win over Notre Dame. An off-week vs Pitt shouldn't doom them to sub-20th rankings, and they tried to prove that game was a fluke with this week's domination of previously ranked Duke. Frankly, despite Duke having 3 losses, they totally might be a top 25 team and would be one of the first 3 loss teams I considered. All of their losses are to top 15 teams. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, there's enough good 1 and 2 loss teams that they just barely missed out. I seemingly punished Oregon State and Utah a lot since they dropped off a lot, but I can't in good conscience rank a 2 loss team with no massive wins over an undefeated team at this stage in the year. LSU is ahead of some undefeated teams, but they also are the only team who has been able to defeat Mizzou, so that is more justified in my mind. I went from two Big 12 teams ranked last week to FIVE this week with the inclusion of Oklahoma State, Kansas, and Kansas State, replacing Duke, North Carolina, and Wyoming, who all suffered losses this past week. Kansas and Kansas State have been on the upswing, and are justifiably ranked in many rankings. What about Oklahoma State? They beat BOTH of those teams, and yet are being held back by their blowout loss to South Alabama. I think it's clear that the team right now and the team that played South Alabama are not the same team, much like Arizona with their loss to Mississippi State prior to Fifita becoming the QB. However, this is a ranking, not a power rating, so those games HAVE to be considered. Here's what I settled on: I'm giving Oklahoma State the nod over the Kansas schools for the head-to-head wins, but will be behind Tulane since Tulane did manage to beat South Alabama in noncon action. When it came to Kansas vs Kansas State it was almost a coin flip. Kansas State has looked more dominant and consistent while Kansas has the best individual win. I went with the win for Kansas, but all three of these Big 12 teams will have opportunities to prove themselves (to varying degrees) this week. Tulane and James Madison struggled some while Liberty put together a nice win, but the JMU overall schedule strength still kept them ahead of Liberty for me. Back-to-back questionable performances from Tulane made me punish them a slight bit. That about hits the highlights. Feel free to ask me questions or criticize anything!

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