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Muffinnnnnnn Ballot for 2023 Week 13

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Nov. 21, 2023, 2:40 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Wins and losses matter most. If you have the same (or better!) record as someone and you beat them, you have to be ahead of that team. Washington spent a lot of the beginning of the year in my #1 spot because they looked like the best team in the country. Now they have the best résumé in the country, even if they don't always look like the best team. I already had Washington #2, so this isn't a massive jump in my rankings, but the win over Oregon State pushed them over the top. The bigger movement was Michigan dropping from my #1 spot down to #4. They had been propped up all year by looking dominant in a way no one else did, and that came to end (to an extent) last week, but definitely came to an end this week vs Maryland. Ohio State vs Michigan was very close, and eventually I went with how OSU is looking at this moment, but really it doesn't matter since they play this week. FSU lost Jordan Travis for the year this week, which is not good, but we still have to see what they do vs UF and Louisville before that has any impact on the rankings. Oregon is playing like one of the best teams in the country right now, and I would probably pick them over almost any team in the country. For that reason, even though the résumé isn't all that, they will remain the top ranked one-loss team. Texas is perpetually flirting with disaster, somewhat similar to what Tulane has been doing this year and TCU did last year, but until they lose a game, they can't fall behind Bama. Louisville got a decent win over Miami, and has Kentucky left to deal with before the top 10 showdown between them and FSU in the ACC Championship game. Liberty is still undefeated, and is staking their claim to a NY6 Bowl game, which, in my opinion, they should get. That win over New Mexico State looks a lot better after they waltzed into Jordan-Hare and beat Auburn to a pulp. Liberty has a chance to beat NMSU again in the CUSA Championship game. As I'm typing this at 3:15am Tuesday morning, there's a rerun of Oklahoma vs BYU I have on in the background. I already know, however, that this game was a near disaster for OU. I considered moving them down more, but the teams below them have 3 losses until you get to Ole Miss, and frankly, Ole Miss is definitely not better than Oklahoma. Arizona has leaped up alllll the way to #13 in my rankings, which would be an absurd statement at the beginning of the year, and more absurd after their loss to Miss State, and also after they were 3-3 to start the year. Since then, they've gone 5-0, with 4 of those being ranked teams. Wow. I didn't punish Oregon State much for their loss to Washington, but I did push Arizona ahead of them, seeing as Arizona got a 21-7 win over them earlier. The Ole Miss-LSU-Mizzou logjam is still there in the higher teens, as I'm still not ready to ignore that 10 point home loss to LSU, especially in wake of Mizzou barely beating a non-bowl-eligible Florida team at home. Oklahoma State avoided another very disappointing performance after going down big vs Houston by coming all the way back and winning. They still beat K-State, so they are still ahead of them. K-State got a nice win over Kansas last week themselves, too. Tulane finally put together a good performance for what feels like the first time in a month....because it's been over a month. Their last impressive performance was a 31-21 win over Memphis on October 13th, and since then they have played with fire. Finally, a solid win vs FAU for them. James Madison joined a long list of teams getting their hopes and dreams ruined by App State, and also joined a long list of teams who go to OT vs App State. They dropped a fair bit from where I had them at #10, but stayed in the top 25. Finally.....I relented. I ranked Iowa. Fine. I actually had a valid reason for the change this week however. Their 2 point win over Illinois was important because Toledo had a last second 2 point loss to Illinois, and that common opponent vaulted them into their spot. Welcome to the top 25 for the first time this year, Troy. Their only losses are to James Madison and Kansas State. This is a theme at the bottom of the rankings since Utah is the lone 7-4 team ranked, but ALL FOUR losses are to ranked teams (Oregon State, Oregon, Washington, Arizona). They also have a dominant win over Florida while Tennessee got dominated by Florida. Of course, Tennessee is barely a top 50 team and shouldn't have been ranked after week 3, but the college football world suffers from SEC delusion so they explicably have stayed ranked like a cockroach that won't go away. Anyway, Troy and Utah round out the rankings in the #QualityLoss special, and any team not ranked has at least one bad loss. Whew, this was a LONG one. As always, feel free to yell at me incoherently and tell me that it's the worst ranking ever thought up by any person in the history of the world. Thanks!

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