Back to poll results >>

FrontRunner51 Ballot for 2024 Final

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Jan. 24, 2025, 6:45 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Aggregation of various human and computer polls along with my own judgment

Rank Team Reason
1 Ohio State Buckeyes
2 Oregon Ducks Beat #1 team and didn't lose to Northern Illinois. Also had a tougher overall schedule than Notre Dame.
3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Splitting hairs, but Northern Illinois loss and weaker overall schedule keeps them below Oregon.
4 Penn State Nittany Lions
5 Texas Longhorns
6 Indiana Hoosiers Fun fact: Indiana kept it closer vs. Notre Dame than Georgia did, even playing at ND.
7 Georgia Bulldogs
8 Ole Miss Rebels
9 BYU Cougars
10 Arizona State Sun Devils
11 Tennessee Volunteers
12 SMU Mustangs
13 Alabama Crimson Tide I wanted to put them lower, but they do have 4 ranked wins in my poll (Georgia, S. Carolina, LSU, Missouri).
14 Boise State Broncos
15 Iowa State Cyclones
16 Miami Hurricanes
17 South Carolina Gamecocks
18 Illinois Fighting Illini Could go either way with S.Carolina (17) and Illinois (18). Despite the head to head win, Illinois wasn't as dominant in many of their wins against poor teams (needed OT to beat Purdue??), so I'm dinging them for that.
19 LSU Tigers I think LSU is being underrated by many people.
20 Michigan Wolverines Can't argue with wins over Ohio St. and Alabama, and 4 of 5 losses were to ranked teams (3 in the top 10).
21 Louisville Cardinals
22 Clemson Tigers
23 Missouri Tigers
24 Minnesota Golden Gophers
25 USC Trojans Weird to have a 6 loss team ranked, but they had possibly the toughest schedule of anyone. Played LSU and Notre Dame on top of their 9 game Big 10 schedule. Most of their losses were all very close, which I take into account. Just missed out: #26 Kansas State

Back to poll results >>