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hurricaneatx Ballot for 2024 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 8, 2024, 9:26 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Normally, this ballot is an arbitrary blend of power/resume approaches to rankings, but since it's still very early in the season it's more of a (???) poll based on a vague and undefinable mix of vibes, returning production, recruiting strength, and roster strength. I don't really care if a team moves drastically week-to-week, but I do believe there is some utility to poll inertia. I am a fan of the Texas Longhorns. [Teams in the ranking suburbs (next 5): Boise State, Iowa, Nebraska, Syracuse, Memphis] [Teams in the ranking exurbs (no particular order): Kansas, Texas A&M, North Carolina, NC State, Auburn, SMU, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Florida, West Virginia, TCU, Tulane, Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon State, Rutgers, Liberty, South Carolina, UNLV, Illinois]

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs (2-0) -
2 Texas Longhorns (2-0) - Texas looked efficient at the Big House, slicing up Michigan on third down and making easy work driving downfield in the first half to put the game out of reach almost immediately. With the big win in a hostile environment against a decent Michigan roster, Texas moves up to #2.
3 Ohio State Buckeyes (2-0) -
4 Ole Miss Rebels (2-0) -
5 Alabama Crimson Tide (2-0) - Maybe USF just has Alabama's number or something, but that wasn't good (at home!) against South Florida for most of the game before the Bulls blew apart late.
6 Missouri Tigers (2-0) -
7 Tennessee Volunteers (2-0) - Plastered NC State.
8 Utah Utes (2-0) - "Utah QB Cam Rising leaves game vs. Baylor with hand injury" is not a headline I want to hear. They were doing great against Baylor until that injury. Hopefully the injury wasn't anything major.
9 Oregon Ducks (2-0) - While closer than anticipated against Boise State, that Boise State team is underrated, so in my book that match was a pretty good for the Ducks' resume.
10 Miami Hurricanes (2-0) -
11 USC Trojans (2-0) -
12 Penn State Nittany Lions (2-0) - You should not be struggling with Bowling Green at home. C'mon.
13 Oklahoma Sooners (2-0) - I'm used to Oklahoma having a good offensive line with the offense being Oklahoma's forte. This
14 Oklahoma State Cowboys (2-0) -
15 Kansas State Wildcats (2-0) -
16 Clemson Tigers (1-1) - Eviscerating App State is a good look for Clemson, who is certainly not in the tier it was in years past but good enough to not be written off to the degree they were after the Week 1 drubbing against top-ranked Georgia.
17 Iowa State Cyclones (2-0) - I've been high on Iowa State since preseason, given all the returning experience. As always, El Assico was a close one and the Cyclones notched the go-ahead field goal. At last, Iowa State is no longer being flagged on the validation screen for showing up on less than 10% of other ballots. Excellent.
18 Michigan Wolverines (1-1) - Michigan has a tremendous amount of work to do patching up their offense if they want to get anywhere. Orji should be put in to do more than just do the obvious run that everyone in the stadium can anticipate.
19 Arizona Wildcats (2-0) -
20 LSU Tigers (1-1) -
21 Washington Huskies (2-0) -
22 Louisville Cardinals (2-0) -
23 Boston College Eagles (2-0) -
24 Vanderbilt Commodores (2-0) -
25 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1-1) - Marcus Freeman Marcus Freeman'd again. After all that talk about Notre Dame likely going undefeated, that was pretty funny. I still think that win over Texas A&M was decent enough to justify them being in the top-30ish of teams, but there are many teams on my top-40 shortlist that could (and likely will) easily boot Notre Dame out of the rankings with a win next week.

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