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Muffinnnnnnn Ballot for 2023 Week 11

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Nov. 6, 2023, 11:52 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Wins and losses are the most important thing. If you have the same (or better!) record as someone and you beat them, you have to be ahead. This was probably the hardest week of the year. I was really torn on who to bring into the top 25, how far to drop teams, etc. I spent more time on these than any other week I think. The top 5 are still extremely close together, so in some ways the individual placements don't matter as much. Georgia's win over a good Mizzou was enough to move them ahead of FSU in my eyes. Georgia, for the first time all year, actually played a team with a pulse. Great job! That still doesn't make up for them not really passing the eye test outside of two games this year, but it's something. FSU wasn't spectacular vs Pitt, and it was a definite trap game on the road, but how you play matters as well. I'm low on USC so Washington's win isn't incredible, but it's definitely a good win. Ohio State has beaten several good teams, and yet rarely looks convincing week-to-week. Michigan has a lacking schedule, but has looked great to outstanding every week. Some questions about Michigan will be answered this week vs Penn State. Lots of good and a couple iffy wins with all the teams below the top 5, but nothing enough to make me move anyone. I could argue that Texas didn't look nearly as good this week as Alabama, but guess what? They played AT Bama, and Texas won by double digits. A huge shakeup with Oklahoma's loss, and the surges by Kansas and Oklahoma State scrambled the middle of the rankings around, and James Madison slid up as a result with their big win over Georgia State. South Alabama was the difference here. Oklahoma State lost to them 33-7, James Madison beat them 30-23. James Madison is 9-0, Oklahoma State is 7-2. Oklahoma State also beat Kansas AND Oklahoma, and Kansas beat Oklahoma. Pretty straightforward there. Oklahoma's win over Texas is still important, and that's what kept them from dropping any further. Oregon State and Utah look pretty good, but that loss from Oregon State to Wazzu looks worse every week, and Utah got dominated by Oregon State. Liberty is starting to come into form, blowing out opponents in recent weeks instead of escaping. LSU/Mizzou/Kansas State is a nice chain of results on the field, so I went with that order. K-State also moved UP this week, even with a loss. They have 3 losses, but all are close, and all are to good teams (Mizzou, Oklahoma State, Texas). That really should've won this week vs Texas, but they didn't. Tulane for the THIRD week in a row played down to their level of competition vs truly awful teams, 1-7 ECU this week being the worst of the bunch. A 13-10 impresses no one, and so they got jumped by a K-State who actually lost. I understand that wins and losses matter, but Tulane is gonna start piling them up in a hurry if they continue playing like this. Notre Dame was one of the hardest teams to place for me, but I settled here at #23. Here's my thought process: They have 3 losses, and some of their wins are looking less great as time goes on, although Duke isn't awful. However, they thoroughly dismantled USC in their game, something Utah and especially Washington was not able to do. Two of their losses are to top 11 teams, and the other is a tough place to play in Clemson (although that loss really had me considering not ranking them). This is not a very confident ranking. I had Air Force higher than most coming into this week, which made the disappointment even worse seeing what happened last week. If they played that game 20 times, I feel pretty confident Air Force wins 19, but that 20th one happened last week. EIGHT turnovers to zero, and Air Force still had a higher net success rate. Nonetheless, that loss caused them to plummet, only ahead of Fresno State due to their common opponent results in Wyoming. It does feel like (assuming Air Force doesn't implode from here) that those two MWC teams will meet in the championship game. I want to rank Arizona, but if you rank Arizona, you need to rank USC above them, and I just can't do that. There's a whole list of teams you could rank instead, but I'm not gonna list them all out. Just picture every unranked 1 loss team, every unranked 2 loss P5 team, and several 2 loss G5 and 3 loss P5 teams.

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