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Due_Connection179 Ballot for 2024 Week 6

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 29, 2024, 3:12 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I watch games all day Saturday then for the games I don't watch I go through the games play-by-play (plus read articles; listen to podcasts) to see what happened instead of just looking at the box score. Every 4 weeks I also do a "reset of my polls to make sure I'm looking at everything from film to SOS to key wins. For my preseason poll, it will be a combination of players/coaches returning + incoming players (recruiting class + transfer portal).

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Last Week #1 vs Mississippi State / Won 35 - 14 / Went as expected.
2 Alabama Crimson Tide Last Week #6 vs #2 Georgia / Won 41 - 34 / Absolutely dominated the 1st half of the game. The craziest stat I could find for this (that people probably don't know about) is that Alabama had more points than Georgia had yards in the game until 10:32 left in the 2nd quarter. If you take away Georgia's TD drive in the 1st half, Alabama had more points than Georgia had yards until 3 seconds left in the 2nd quarter. Only reason they aren't #1 is because they almost choked the game away in the 4th.
3 Ohio State Buckeyes Last Week #3 at Michigan State / Won 38 - 7 / Went as expected. I'm only talking about this because it was the first decent team Ohio State has played this season. Buckeyes basically just out talented them the whole game, and it didn't feel like at any point Michigan State would actually challenge them (even after the INT that led to a TD). I'm also having Alabama jump them purely out of them not playing anyone in the top (probably) 50 so for this season.
4 Tennessee Volunteers Last Week #4 / Bye Week
5 Miami Hurricanes Last Week #7 vs Virginia Tech / Won 38 - 34 / Scary game vs probably our biggest ACC rivals not named FSU. I won't get into it too much because I'm a biased Miami fan, but that last play was giving me flashbacks to the Georgia Tech game last season.
6 Oregon Ducks Last Week #8 at UCLA / Won 34 - 13 / Starting to look like Oregon a bit from last season, but I will need to see more games put together like this before jumping undefeated teams.
7 Penn State Nittany Lions Last Week #11 vs #21 Illinois / Won 21 - 7 / A near textbook definition of a Big Ten game. I do think Penn State Won this game by a bigger margin than what the score looks, but it's nice to see them beat a good team and it not be in question.
8 Missouri Tigers Last Week #9 / Bye Week / I feel like a lot of people are going to be made at me for Mizzou jumping Georgia. My counterpoints would be that if Georgia plays the way they did against Kentucky and the first three quarters vs Alabama, then every team above them should beat them on a neutral field.
9 Georgia Bulldogs Last Week #2 at #6 Alabama / Lost 34 - 41 / I was pretty shocked by how they played in the first half (really the first 3 quarters). 5 of their 7 first half drives went for under 6 yards, and they built a huge hole for themselves. Coming back to take the lead in the 4th quarter was crazy, but for probably 50 out of the 60 minutes, Alabama looked dominant vs them.
10 Michigan Wolverines Last Week #12 vs Minnesota / Won 27 - 24 / One week after beating USC, we have Michigan once again just looking poorly coached. I thought Minnesota played well, but Michigan should have won this game by a larger margin.
11 USC Trojans Last Week #13 vs Wisconsin / Won 38 - 21 / Solid bounce back win.
12 LSU Tigers Last Week #14 vs South Alabama / Won 42 - 10 / Went as expected.
13 Clemson Tigers Last Week #15 vs Stanford / Won 40 - 14 / I don't think I will ever get used to these California teams having to make these cross-country trips to play conference games. Went as expected after watching this Clemson team the last four weeks + the coast-to-coast flight for Stanford.
14 BYU Cougars Last Week #16 at Baylor / Won 34 - 28 / This game truly looks like BYU tried to put it into cruise control in the 2nd half and kept it there even after Baylor made it a one score game with 10 minutes left. One thing I found pretty interesting is BYU's point differential at home of +29 (top 25 Kansas State team) vs differential on the road +29 (SMU, Wyoming, Baylor) being the same. I truly think that BYU is more like how they play on the road, but until some of these other teams step up (or they start losing), I will keep them in this 12-16 range.
15 Iowa State Cyclones Last Week #17 at Houston / Won 20 - 0 / Houston's offense wouldn't be able to score on the top D-II schools.
16 Indiana Hoosiers Last Week #22 vs Maryland / Won 42 - 28 / Four turnovers on a light, rainy day and still beat a decent Maryland team by two TDs. I'm tempted to jump them over Iowa State, but for Hoosier fans who might be upset now, just now you guys could (probably should) be 9 - 0 going into a home game against Michigan in 6 weeks.
17 Kansas State Wildcats Last Week #24 vs #19 Oklahoma State / Won 42 - 20 / It looked like it was going to be a shootout after the first half, but Kansas State dominated the 2nd half scoring 21 straight pts to open the half before finally allowing 2nd half pts with just under 2 minutes left.
18 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Last Week NR vs #18 Louisville / Won 31 - 24 / Notre Dame's defense came up huge, especially in the first half. Two forced fumbles, one of which directly led to a Notre Dame TD "drive" of 4 yards, then later got an interception that the offense got a FG off of after the offense drove a total of 6 yards. So 10 pts for Notre Dame where the offense only had to get 10 yards sounds like a good defensive day.
19 Ole Miss Rebels Last Week #5 vs Kentucky / Lost 17 - 20 / This game has to be the most disappointing regular season game (that's not vs Mississippi State) that a Rebel fan has had to go through. Rebels came in as one of the favorites to be in the SEC Championship Game (mainly because of the weak schedule), and they start SEC play with a dud.
20 Oklahoma Sooners Last Week #20 at Auburn / Won 27 - 21 / This is not a top 25 team. The offense is broken and the defense, while great, is not good enough to keep them in the games vs the top teams in the SEC.
21 Navy Midshipmen Last Week NR at UAB / Won 41 - 18 / Welcome to my new G5 top 5. I will be ranking the top G5 schools in this 21 to 25 range until more of them start falling off. As for Navy, they are my #1 G5 school because they have what I see as the best win, vs Memphis winning 56 - 44.
22 UNLV Rebels Last Week NR vs Fresno State / Won 59 - 14 / 1st game under the new QB went as well as it could. Hajj-Malik Williams finished with 182 pass yards, 119 rush yards, and 4 total TDs. I was very tempted to rank them above Navy, but I don't think wins at Houston & Kansas bump them above Navy this season (yet).
23 Boise State Broncos Last Week NR vs Washington State / Won 45 - 24 / Having their 1-loss so far be against a top 10 team by 3 pts on the road is huge. We also need to talk about a possible NYC invite for the Heisman ceremony for Ashton Jeanty (although he won't win without blowing away records + Boise State making the CFP). Jeanty currently is averaging 10.5 yards per carry, is 3rd in rushing yards with 586 yards, and is tied for 2nd in rushing TDs with 9.
24 James Madison Dukes Last Week #25 vs Ball State / Won 63 - 7 / Treated their defense like it was UNC. Also, welcome to my new G5 top 5. I will be ranking the top G5 schools in this #21 to #25 range until more of them start falling off.
25 Army West Point Last Week NR at Temple / Won 42 - 14 / Going to finish off this first G5 top 5 with Army. They have a pretty crazy point differential of +103 through 4 games, but the reason they are below the other G5 schools is because they have the "worst" best win of the group (just pick one between Lehigh, FAU, Rice, and Temple).

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