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LightningDusty Ballot for 2025 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 8, 2025, 11:15 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Resumé Based and Eye Test

Rank Team Reason
1 Ohio State Buckeyes Currently has one of the best wins in college football. Value of that victory could fluctuate depending on the performance of Texas, but as of now it looks solid.
2 Miami Hurricanes Same as Ohio State, but replace Texas with Notre Dame.
3 LSU Tigers Clemson win doesn't look that amazing after they struggled with Troy, and effort against Louisiana Tech was somewhat lackluster, but there's not enough information to truly ding them much.
4 Oregon Ducks Obliterated an admittedly terrible Oklahoma State. Figured to be a top competitor in the Big Ten.
5 Penn State Nittany Lions Looked kind of sluggish against FIU. Should still be right up there for the Big Ten title, though.
6 Georgia Bulldogs Same as Penn State. Bizarrely mediocre performance versus a cupcake, yet still plenty talented and trustworthy enough to be a contender.
7 Texas Longhorns Difficult to make much of them. Losing by seven to the defending national champions on the road is nothing to be ashamed of. Offense may have issues, but I'm not jumping the gun yet.
8 Florida State Seminoles Most impressive turnaround of the season so far. Alabama win could end up looking very sexy if the Crimson Tide right the ship. Overall they appear to be much closer to the 2022 or 2023 Florida State than the 2024 incarnation.
9 Illinois Fighting Illini Have just played solid football for the first two weeks and scored a decent victory against Duke.
10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Can you win a game, please? The Miami loss is similar to Texas' loss to Ohio State. Not worth panicking over. Unironic quality losses, everyone!
11 Oklahoma Sooners Seems to actually have an offense this season and beating a team as talented as Michigan early in the year deserves some props.
12 South Carolina Gamecocks Intriguing game with Vanderbilt this week. They've got pieces to be a potential playoff contender. Will that come to fruition?
13 Iowa State Cyclones Kansas State win has unfortunately lost all of its shine almost immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if they hover in the mid teens for most of the season. Nothing flashy, yet respectably sturdy.
14 USF Bulls WHY?!?!?! Ahem... South Florida may just have the best win pair in the entire country right now. Shellacking of Boise State in week one will look good even if the Broncos take a large step back this year. Do I need to comment on the Florida victory?
15 Tennessee Volunteers Offense is firing on all cylinders and losing Nico ironically ended up benefitting them. Can they snap the Georgia curse?
16 Clemson Tigers This team looks UGLY right now. Part of me didn't even want to rank them. The LSU loss was one thing. That's a difficult first opponent for any team. To then come out and look sloppy and lethargic against TROY? More presentations like that and they'll be out of here real quick.
17 Auburn Tigers Baylor win looks really nice after the Bears defeated SMU. That Oklahoma game in a couple weeks looms large. Can Auburn finally get back to some sort of relevance?
18 Utah Utes Okay, so UCLA might just be trash, but I'll still give Utah props for smacking them around with ease to open the season. Devon Dampier is manning the quarterback position with poise and confidence thus far. I see the potential for them to make the playoff as the Big 12 champion.
19 TCU Horned Frogs Maybe this is an overreaction to beating the tar (bad pun entirely intended) out of North Carolina. Bill Belichick is most likely washed, and TCU only reaffirmed that suspicion. The SMU game should be fun.
20 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets I have a feeling GT is shooting up the boards next week. They tend to give the top dogs of the ACC trouble, and Clemson is in a rut.
21 Ole Miss Rebels Avenged last season's loss to Kentucky, though it wasn't easy. I don't know what to think of Ole Miss. Half of me wants to believe they could be a sneaky playoff contender, yet the other half senses a repeat of 2022.
22 Texas Tech Red Raiders To be honest, I don't know much about them other than they're a relatively popular Big 12 champion pick.
23 Mississippi State Bulldogs Hail State! Nice to see some respect back on Dan Mullen's old stomping grounds. I wouldn't call the schedule easy per say, but this could be a sly 8 win team.
24 Missouri Tigers The Kansas win was good and they've been very consistent for the past two years.
25 BYU Cougars Could very well find themselves a clean 6-0 heading into the Holy War.

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