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JKess207 Ballot for 2026 Week 2

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 9, 2026, 9:49 a.m.

Overall Rationale: We’ve got one data point for most teams, so it’s hard to create “true” rankings and not just have knee-jerk reactions to Week 1. As such, I’m really just going to base this off of who looked the best in Week 1 (with one exception, noted in #25). Normally, I like to factor out P4-FCS games as in many cases (see: Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Maryland, VT, Kansas State, Tennessee, Purdue, Kentucky, and Syracuse), they tell us virtually nothing about the true nature of the team. Unfortunately, I can’t factor out the only data point we have.

Rank Team Reason
1 Georgia Bulldogs Yeah they had 28 in the first and Stockton was out by the 2nd. They could’ve put up 100 if they wanted to. I don’t care that it’s a cupcake, this is a #1 team.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Ball State isn’t a particularly good MAC team, but Sayin was out by half and it was still a rout.
3 LSU Tigers 2026 Clemson might not be the Clemson of old, but this was a playoff team two years ago and LSU made them look like a cupcake.
4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish A 28-point win over a Big Ten team is always something worth noting.
5 Ole Miss Rebels Ole Miss has what I believe is the best win in the country over a really good Louisville team.
6 Miami Hurricanes Miami will be a very scary team this year.
7 Oregon Ducks Survived Boise State, they should probably be lower for an unconvincing win, but the Broncos are a really good team.
8 USC Trojans Am I fully convinced in them? No. But USC is the only 2-0 team in the country, and that’s worth something.
9 Alabama Crimson Tide From here on down, it’s a litany of big teams beating up on cupcakes. I’m not going to go into details on some of them because frankly, there’s not a lot separating these teams based on Week 1 results. As I said above, cupcake games make it hard to tell the true nature of a team
10 Oklahoma Sooners
11 Texas A&M Aggies
12 Indiana Hoosiers
13 Virginia Cavaliers That was a statement win for Virginia. They’ve got one of the easiest schedules in the ACC, and they’re good enough that we’re probably going to see them in December.
14 UCLA Bruins Turned on the jets in the 4th on the road against a Cal team that will be a lot better than people think.
15 SMU Mustangs I’m definitely overreacting here, because the Mustangs looked sloppy in Tallahassee. But a road win over FSU is never easy (hi, Crimson Tide), and SMU was- [there goes my power]
16 Pittsburgh Panthers Pitt has teased us for years by looking like a competent team but just not being able to get over some of those hurdles. Mason Heintschel just might be the guy that gets the Panthers over them.
17 Penn State Nittany Lions
18 Texas Longhorns
19 Florida Gators
20 South Carolina Gamecocks
21 Syracuse Orange 66 points for Syracuse!!!
22 Virginia Tech Hokies VMI might be BAD, but you can’t fault VT for that. They had 73 with 10 minutes to go.
23 Arizona State Sun Devils
24 BYU Cougars
25 Utah Utes One note RE: Louisville. It’s my personal belief that a winless team should not be ranked over an undefeated one. That may be an unpopular opinion, but the games have to matter. That being said, I would like to shout out the Cardinals for a fantastic performance against Ole Miss.

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