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_THE__BOULDER_ Ballot for 2025 Week 16 & Bowls

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Dec. 9, 2025, 10:33 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Personal thoughts after the week’s events. I personally believe the first 8 teams in this format should be set after the regular season is over, and that any teams 9-14 should be considered bubble teams with specific criteria to get them in. Teams appearing in a conference championship game that are in this bubble range should be considered as having an edge over teams that did not. And those teams should not be dropped out of contention for the CFP unless they lose by 17+ points (a 14 point lead can, more often, be garbage time stat padding while I think a 3 score lead is more convincing) or lose to an unranked team. This is where I think teams actually deserve to be ranked. I did not, for example, put the G5 CCG winners into the top 12 so that they're in the typical playoff contention spots. I've only really added descriptions for the playoff and bubble teams. The rest of the teams haven't really moved, so you can read my thoughts on them by going to my rankings from last week.

Rank Team Reason
1 Indiana Hoosiers What more needs to be said?
2 Georgia Bulldogs Beatdown over Alabama. It's hard to beat a good team twice in one season.
3 Texas Tech Red Raiders Beatdown over BYU. Apparently it's not that hard.
4 Ohio State Buckeyes I've had Indiana at #1 for weeks now, and I felt like OSU deserved to move down for losing the CCG without being penalized in terms of standing within the CFP. With that in mind, they still deserved a bye, but I ranked the 3 conference champions above OSU this round. They should be arguably 3rd or 4th and I could go either way on that.
5 Ole Miss Rebels Not having Kiffin as HC may hurt them in the playoffs, but I'm ranking the team where I think it deserves to be ranked. With wins over Oklahoma and Tulane but a loss to UGA, I think they deserve to be ranked #5 overall.
6 Oregon Ducks Win over USC and loss to Indiana are their most notable results. Oregon looks good though and I have them as my 5th highest ranked 1-loss team.
7 Texas A&M Aggies After the loss to Texas, A&M has moved to #7 on my list. A 1 loss team, but I think their resume is a tad weaker than some of the 1-loss teams above them. Close win at Notre Dame, which is definitely their best win overall. The rest of their schedule isn't too much to look at.
8 Oklahoma Sooners Two-loss team with wins against Michigan and Alabama, a loss to Ole Miss and Texas. First two-loss team on the list.
9 Miami Hurricanes Second two-loss team on the list. Both the teams they lost to were over .500 (both Louisville and SMU ended up 8-4) and are not bad teams, but worse than Oklahoma or Notre Dame's losses for sure. That being said, they have a head to head win over ND AND a better result against the same opponent (Pitt) so I gotta give the edge to Miami. A lot of people may say ND is the hotter team right now, which is probably true since they've won 10 straight games, but I feel like I'm obligated to rank the teams based on the season overall, not who has the hot hand late. Miami is on a 4 game win streak, however, so I don't think they're exactly cold. A big problem with this controversy is the tiebreaker system in the ACC. Miami, despite their two losses, is still one of the ACC's best teams. The ACC itself is bloated and the tiebreaker system they have in place is dumb. It's fun that two G5/6 teams will be in the playoff, but the ACC is a big reason this controversy is taking place, not to mention the playoff committee's mistakes in rankings over the past 4 weeks or so.
10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Going into CCG week, I had Alabama and BYU ranked above Miami and ND. The only reason I have ND here is because both of those teams got their butts kicked in their CCGs. I generally believe teams shouldn't get punished for playing an extra game and losing, but when you get beaten that badly, it can be tough to justify (more on my thoughts on losing in CCGs at the top). With that in mind, I put ND above Alabama and BYU. To be honest, Alabama has the #10 SOR and #6 SOS, while BYU has the #9 SOR and #22 SOS. Both of these are better than ND or Miami and there are absolutely arguments they should be kept in the dance. The only reason I moved them down is because they got bounced by 3+ scores in the SEC and Big 12 Championships.
11 Alabama Crimson Tide I was willing to overlook the loss to FSU given the good wins they have - UGA, Vandy - which I wholly consider to be better than any of ND's wins. That being said, They got bounced in that CCG. The CFP had them at #9, I probably would have dropped them to #10 overall. I had them at #10 last week, so I'm dropping them to #11 overall. I do think the CFP Committee had them ranked a spot too high - they may have deserved to be above Miami and ND but only slightly, and that deservedness is gone now, in my opinion.
12 BYU Cougars BYU also got bounced in their CCG. I had them ranked #9 last week, which was because they were a 1-loss team with a loss to TTU and wins over Utah and Arizona, and I've dropped them down to #12 after this CCG loss. Some people might take issue with the fact that I dropped them 3 spots and Alabama only 1, but I do feel Alabama's wins this season are stronger than BYU's and, call me biased, but Alabama has a similar SOR to BYU but a significantly higher SOS, so I'm giving the edge to Alabama here.
13 Texas Longhorns Anyone who is seriously arguing that Texas should be attending the dance is not a serious person. I saw one person saying that, had Texas not scheduled OSU as an opening game, they would be in. He's probably not wrong, but the real problem is that Texas lost to my fightin Florida Gators. That's a pretty bad loss given that the coach they lost to got fired and the team ended up 4-8. While they obviously deserve to be highly ranked given their wins over Oklahoma, A&M, and Vandy, the 3 regular season losses keep them out of the bubble. Scheduling (and losing to) OSU is pretty defensible, losing to Georgia is pretty defensible. If they had only lost to those two teams, they'd likely be #8 overall in my rankings. But they lost to Florida and, while I do have them above some 2-loss teams, they don't deserve to be any higher than 13th.
14 Vanderbilt Commodores
15 Utah Utes
16 USC Trojans
17 Michigan Wolverines
18 Tulane Green Wave Good win over a good North Texas team. Managed to stifle a pretty high-flyin offense and, despite the scoreline, the game wasn't that close.
19 James Madison Dukes JMU has dominated the Sun Belt. Troy kept it close at first but never really had a chance. Good win for the Dukes.
20 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
21 Virginia Cavaliers Bruh
22 North Texas Mean Green
23 Navy Midshipmen
24 Houston Cougars
25 Arizona Wildcats

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