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Zef_Apollo Ballot for 2025 Week 6

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 29, 2025, 4:05 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I deconstruct and rebuild my top 25 each week trying to eliminate any bias from preseason or what teams looked like last week. Essentially, I reevaluate their entire resume each week. So a team may "move up" if they play a bad opponent and win but someone they beat before got a big win making that past win more impressive. Similarly a team may go down despite a win if something on their resume from further back looks less impressive. I rank off of resume, SOS, and eye test. I'm sorry to Texas fans but I can't buoy your place in the poll anymore. You need to have a P4 win to be eligible. Notre Dame, I think you are a top 25 team in spirit but I can't put you up here without more impressive wins with your two losses.

Rank Team Reason
1 Oregon Ducks I respect the Oregon Ducks and what they've done. I still don't feel great about placing them #1, however. I think they probably should have won the game against Penn State a little more soundly, but they won on the road in an aggressive environment despite all the stats showing that Franklin and Happy Valley aint shit in big games, tbh. They're undefeated, they have 5 wins, they've played multiple P5 opponents. I couldn't put anyone else here, but it's not a solid hold.
2 Oklahoma Sooners I think Oklahoma still has two pretty solid wins in both Michigan and Auburn, even though Auburn isn't ranked and has a terrible offense. Oklahoma still has a lot to prove but they've shown up on the field and are battle tested, I would argue.
3 Miami Hurricanes Miami's wins over Notre Dame and USF (and to a lesser extent Florida) are more impressive each week. I think they may move up to #1 next week if they win and their wins continue to improve.
4 Ole Miss Rebels Great win against LSU especially the LSU defense. They have a collection of pretty nice wins and have 3 coveted SEC wins.
5 Ohio State Buckeyes This is more because of Texas than anything else. OSU's best win looks bad and sat on a bye week while other teams looked better. Also, OSU has not looked invincible in their games against lesser competition.
6 Indiana Hoosiers Tempted to move them up more because the win over Illinois aged well. If you're mad they aren't higher then at least be happy knowing they moved up several spots since last week.
7 Missouri Tigers Also has good wins and is 5-0, but needs a statement win to be higher than some of the other teams above.
8 Texas A&M Aggies Hurt by a bye week while others gained more data points but the ND win looks better and better.
9 Alabama Crimson Tide This may trigger people, but Alabama has the best win in the country. They are a different team than the week 1 team. Ty Simpson is making NFL level throws. They can be even better. The biggest questions are the run offense/defense, injuries, and if they are going to be their own worst enemy but they looked like the best team in the country on Saturday. They are weighed down with the history of their coach and week 1 though.
10 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Clemson win hasn't aged well and GA Tech is mostly on the backs of one man.
11 Georgia Bulldogs Georgia may not be the same UGA from a few years ago but they are still UGA. This is a good football team who has won and lost on the backs of 1-2 plays the past 2 games.
12 Tennessee Volunteers Still great offense, best loss of the 1 loss teams but needs a better win. They look scary though.
13 Vanderbilt Commodores Electric but biggest test yet to happen. They looked great against their one opponent that's good but maybe we gave them too much credit.
14 Iowa State Cyclones good teams win games and the cyclones win.
15 Florida State Seminoles Honestly, Virginia played lights out and to drop them too far would be disrespectful. That being said, I think every week we'll learn more and more about FSU and what really led to the outcome of that week 1 game. Looking back, it was such an interesting game with two coaches who both had a lot to prove but the outcome maybe wasn't indicative of what we thought.
16 Texas Tech Red Raiders I'm not sure why the AP is so high on the Raiders. They've played nobody except Utah and idk what to even think about Utah.
17 Penn State Nittany Lions I don't know what to do with Penn State, tbh. I think they are as good as they are every year which is the first team outside the top 10 - never to be good enough to beat a top 10 team. They'll move back up when they play more teams but they have 0 P4 wins this season.
18 Mississippi State Bulldogs Tough loss against Tenn. I thought they had it. I think they're still being disresepected and the AZ st win looks better.
19 LSU Tigers I don't know what to make out of LSU. Defense may be legit but the offense is the worst they've had in like a decade or two. Whenever I think LSU is good I just remember that Brian Kelley is the coach.
20 Michigan Wolverines Relatively stable because of bye week. still has looked good
21 BYU Cougars I want to see more but they are looking pretty good against meh opponents
22 Memphis Tigers I like 'em
23 Arizona State Sun Devils Good win for them
24 USF Bulls maybe best G5 coach hands down? Better than over half of P4 coaches? Idk some people are saying
25 Illinois Fighting Illini good win for them

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