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throwaway_6786 Ballot for 2024 Week 10

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 28, 2024, 2:50 p.m.

Overall Rationale: It's all about the games on the field.

Rank Team Reason
1 Oregon Ducks I watched the first half of this game, and all I could think is if the Ducks keep playing like this from now until January, this will be the year they win that elusive title. Gabriel missed a few throws and the offense missed a few blocks, but otherwise, Oregon played lights out against a 6-2 Illinois team that doesn't seem to be all that bad. Undefeated with three ranked wins makes Oregon the clear-cut #1.
2 Georgia Bulldogs On bye, and thankful that the Longhorns and Crimson Tide didn't screw the pooch against Vandy and Mizzou, respectively. Their resume is holding firm for now.
3 BYU Cougars Back to #3 go the Cougars as they dominated UCF from start to finish in Orlando. BYU definitely got a little lucky elsewhere as their two marquee wins (K-State and SMU) both narrowly avoided upsets. Could this be a 1984 redux for BYU? Only one way to find out. A bye week is followed by their mortal rival Utah, who would love nothing more than to spoil BYU's season.
4 Indiana Hoosiers Kurtis Rourke is out? The Hoosiers barely miss a beat. Indiana's schedule still leaves something to be desired (would've looked a lot better if Nebraska could actually beat a ranked opponent for once), but it's impossible to ignore how dominant this team has been in every single game. They've got two opponents from Michigan coming up before a late bye and a trip to Columbus to face the Buckeyes.
5 Penn State Nittany Lions Not sure what to think of these Lions after watching that performance. They're a cut above the masses in the B1G, but if Allar isn't ready to go against OSU, I'm not sure how they'll get the Buckeye monkey off their back. That being said, if they find a way to do so, they're likely going straight to #2 regardless of who the QB is (and they'll be on the fast track to the B1G Championship Game).
6 Miami Hurricanes A relatively uneventful stomping of a comically bad FSU team plus OSU looking sketchy against Nebraska jumps Miami to #6. Miami and Indiana are more or less in the same boat as they don't have any particularly tough teams on the schedule (save for Indiana playing OSU in Columbus). Miami will just have to keep winning to stay around this area and hope for a little chaos to bump them up at the right times.
7 Ohio State Buckeyes They got the win, but wow, that could've been so much worse for the Buckeyes. It's encouraging to see that the pure talent on this team can will them to wins, but they're going to have to play more complete football to beat PSU/Indiana. Now comes the trip to Happy Valley and a showdown against the Nittany Lions. I'm still not sure just how good Ohio State is, but we'll know one way or another after this weekend.
8 Iowa State Cyclones On bye. The Cyclones stand pat at #8 with their best win against 5-3 Iowa and no losses. Unfortunately, Iowa State won't play a team with a current record better than 5-3 until the final week of the season against K-State. All the Cyclones can do now, similarly to Miami/Indiana, is keep winning and hope for chaos around them.
9 Boise State Broncos My #1-#8 picks were easy. However, the #9-#16 of this ballot was really difficult. All these teams (except Pitt) have one loss and either have a marquee win (or wins) or have dominated all other competition. In the end, what swayed me to put Boise State at #9 was two wins over Wazzu and UNLV plus a down-to-the-wire loss, on the road, against the uncontested #1 team in the nation. That tells me that Boise has proven themselves against fairly tough competition and they can compete with anyone, anywhere.
10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Irish whacked Navy with ruthless efficiency, getting another nice win and putting the NIU loss further in the rearview mirror. That loss, however, can't be fully ignored, which is why ND is only on the edge of the top 10. The win over Texas A&M is boosting ND seemingly higher and higher every week.
11 Texas A&M Aggies It's getting hard to deny the improvement of these Aggies (Marcel Reed is a revelation; how have I never heard of this guy before?), but the ND loss continues to cap their progress. That being said, A&M now sits alone atop the SEC standings and has their CFP destiny in their hands headed into November, a statement which almost any Aggie fan would've been skeptical to believe if you'd said that to them two months ago. Now they face an interesting South Carolina team, followed by NMSU and Auburn. After that, the Longhorns come to College Station. Speaking of which...
12 Texas Longhorns Probably a bit of a surprise for most people, but considering that their best win is either Michigan or Vanderbilt and they got smashed at home by Georgia, it's not entirely unwarranted. Beating a 5-3 Vanderbilt by three points isn't exactly lighting it up, but they've still looked dominant otherwise. If Texas had beaten Vandy more convincingly, I would've slotted them higher, but with the Michigan/Oklahoma wins aging poorly, their resume is beginning to look very similar to that of Clemson.
13 Pittsburgh Panthers We reach our final undefeated P4 team, the Pitt Panthers. They scored a dominant win over 6-2 Syracuse, but that's about the first time this season that Pitt has truly looked the part of a 7-0 juggernaut against anyone with a pulse. Now comes a trip to Dallas to face an SMU team that dodged a bullet against Duke and is looking to make their mark in the ACC race. If Pitt wins this one, there's no question they're top 10 material (and with some serious chaos, top 5 isn't totally out of the question).
14 Tennessee Volunteers I went back and forth on Tennessee and Pitt for #13 and #14 so many times. Essentially, the argument comes down to this: Does Pitt struggling through a few of their wins + a dominant win over 4-4 NC State + a narrow win at home over 6-2 Alabama have more weight than a narrow loss to 5-3 Arkansas + Pitt dominating 6-2 Syracuse at home? I'm going to say no for the time being, but if you put Tennessee above Pitt, I could see the argument. Tennessee's trip to Athens against Georgia is the only game left on their schedule that looks imposing, and if they find a way to win that one, it's incredibly likely that Tennessee's going to make it to Atlanta.
15 Clemson Tigers On bye. The Tigers got the benefit of some close calls around them to move up a couple spots. They're still without a win over an above-.500 team, so they'll just have to keep winning up until that showdown against Pitt in a few weeks. They've got a Louisville team that isn't to be trifled with though, so let's see if Dabo and Co. are up to the task.
16 Kansas State Wildcats I can give K-State a slight break because the Sunflower Showdown is a rivalry game, but they still drop a couple spots for an iffy at best performance against their Jayhawk brethren. The Tulane and Colorado wins have aged gracefully; the Oklahoma State and Arizona wins, not so much. Farmageddon looms in the distance as the Wildcats take on another cat team this week in the Houston Cougars.
17 Alabama Crimson Tide That's a good way to get back on the right track. Mizzou definitely isn't as good without Brady Cook, but Alabama still made it look pretty easy in a shutout win. A bye week will give them time to prepare for a trip to Baton Rouge vs. LSU in a game that should serve as a CFP elimination game for both teams. The Tide aren't out of this thing yet, but they can't afford any more mistakes. One thing that really looked great against Mizzou was their running game, and if they can get that going on a regular basis, this team becomes incredibly difficult to stop.
18 Army West Point On bye. Nothing much to report for Army: Their schedule is still terrible, but they've continued to dominate, which makes them difficult to rank. However, to be undefeated this late in the season and playing as well as they have warrants praise (and for now, the #18 ranking). Army ruined Air Force's dream season last year, so I'm sure the Falcons are itching to return the favor this year.
19 SMU Mustangs They've gotta be thanking their lucky stars in Dallas as the Mustangs just barely got out of Durham with a 1-point OT victory on a Duke failed 2-point conversion. The bad news? Duke is 6-2, but a rather unconvincing 6-2, so SMU drops as a result (though it could've been so much worse without that FG block). The good news? They have a chance to bolster their resume at home against Pitt this week. Let's see what Jennings and that offense can do against a strong, opportunistic Pitt defense. One little note as well: SMU's dominant rivalry win over TCU isn't looking so bad with TCU at 5-3.
20 Washington State Cougars Not a particularly convincing win, but with some carnage both above and below them (plus the Boise win over UNLV), Wazzu moves up a little despite their resume getting a little worse with the Texas Tech loss. The schedule for Wazzu is really light from here on out, so they've got to dominate and hope that Texas Tech and Washington can salvage their seasons (or hope for 2007-esque chaos) to make a run for the CFP. A quick note: The gap between the top 20 and the rest of the field is much larger than it usually is. The last two weeks came with a ton of carnage in the #21-40 range, which allows a few teams that don't have a particularly good resume into the top 25 anyway.
21 LSU Tigers Nussmeier is truly an enigma at QB. He'll complete wild, tight-window throws that make you think he could be a superstar, and then he'll turn around and throw a head-scratching INT or three. What to make of him (and what to make of LSU) becomes more difficult as time passes. They've got the close OT win over Ole Miss and a dominant win @Arkansas, but a close loss to 4-4 USC, a heavily ref-aided win over the other USC, and now this loss @TA&M leaves me to ask: Will the real LSU please stand up?
22 Colorado Buffaloes I didn't expect to see the Buffaloes here, but college football is a strange game sometimes. They don't really have any marquee wins (their 11-point home win over Cincinnati this past week is their best so far) and they needed that Hail Mary to beat 4-4 Baylor, but they played K-State right to the end and have started to use their running game more effectively in these last few weeks. Colorado will need to win out and get some help to make a Big 12 Championship run as Iowa State, BYU, and K-State are boxing them out currently.
23 Illinois Fighting Illini They just got crushed and they would be out of the rankings for it, but again, there were so many teams below them that also lost that it makes it difficult to find enough teams with a better resume than the Illini. The good news for Illinois is that the rest of the schedule is pretty winnable, so 10-2 with a solid bowl game is a decent possibility.
24 Navy Midshipmen Speaking of teams who got crushed, the Midshipmen just got walloped by ND, but the win over Memphis plus the carnage below them keeps them afloat in the rankings. Two tough games remain: Tulane and Army. They're still undefeated in AAC play, so if they can beat Tulane, an AAC Championship Game win could bolster their resume even more and give them a puncher's chance for the G5 spot in the CFP. It will be interesting to see if the Army-Navy game being played after the CFP selections will have a significant effect on the G5 candidate.
25 Ole Miss Rebels They're still searching for a top 25 win, but in the meantime, they did look good in the 2nd half against 4-4 Oklahoma. A game @Arkansas is followed by hosting Georgia, and that game is Ole Miss's last hope at a CFP run. The LSU loss got a little worse, but it's the Kentucky loss that has become a really heavy anchor on their resume. I considered Memphis, Arkansas, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Duke, Vanderbilt, Syracuse, Iowa, Tulane, Louisiana, and a few others, but none of them were quite good enough.

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