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dukemetoo Ballot for 2026 Week 3

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 14, 2026, 12:16 p.m.

Overall Rationale: All Human Baby!!

26. UCLA
27. Kansas State
28. Tulsa
29. Michigan
30. Auburn

I guess I should share my methodology since I am part of the poll now. Here is my current methodology. It will change as I mature, gain more experience, etc. For now though, this is my methodology.

My method changes as the season progresses, but it is all a human poll. Preseason is purely speculative, as in, who would be favored on a neutral field. The team that I think is hypothetically better will get the better ranking. Early on this is recruiting ranking, talent retained, etc.

Slowly through the season, I add in more weight to the resume. When teams have played 5 games, is when I weigh expectations and resume equally. I also view 9 games played as the marker when resume will have 100% weight, and expectations have none.

By resume, I try to look purely at how difficult I think providing that resume would be. This takes into account strength of schedule and margin of victory. I tend to favor consistent teams over streaky ones. In practice, that means I punish teams with bad losses more than teams that don't have good wins. I also do not take head-to-head into consideration. I look hard at the resume if the team's name was missing.

I also try to "overreact" a bit when it comes to rankings. While I try to be fair, if a team gets a bad loss, if I struggle where to put them between 2 spots, I will end up putting them lower. The reason is, I am scared of poll momentum being a crutch, where teams just stay where they are. Moving them forces me to get out of the rut, and actually analyze them.

One other quirk I have is, I believe winning is hard. Any team that is 5-0 or better will be ranked. It causes some silly rankings that first week, but I think it is important. Mainly because if forces me to pay attention to smaller schools.

I'm also leaving notes on games I watched, or have significant opinions. I won't try to guess on explanations where I have no real opinion.

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Best win of the year on a team we thought would be good. Easy placement
2 Georgia Bulldogs
3 Indiana Hoosiers
4 Ole Miss Rebels They are this high for beating Louisville week 1. I may have overreacted a bit, but it will even itself out.
5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
6 Miami Hurricanes
7 BYU Cougars
8 Ohio State Buckeyes I struggled where to put them, but I think this is a fair spot. If you take the Ohio State expectations out, a win over Ball State and a loss against #1 Texas on the road gets a G6 team nearly ranked. Put the Ohio State expectations on there, and this seems fair. This team is better than 8th, but there has to a punishment for losses.
9 LSU Tigers
10 SMU Mustangs
11 Utah Utes A very good game against Arkansas. Worth moving up 4 points.
12 Texas A&M Aggies Dropped a spot because the game against Arizona State was much closer than the score reflected. If A&M won more similarly to what you would expect with 48-20, they would have moved up.
13 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama took a while to get going, but did handily take care of Kentucky.
14 USC Trojans
15 Tennessee Volunteers
16 Texas Tech Red Raiders Projections put Oregon State very low in the new Pac-12. Because those projections weigh so heavily right now, I have to punish Texas Tech for almost losing the game. If Oregon State ends up being a contender, the loss will have less negative effect. Oregon State lost to two top 25 teams fairly close, so that may be possible.
17 Penn State Nittany Lions
18 Iowa Hawkeyes Beating Iowa State gave a good boost with a Power 4 win. It was close, but it was against a P4 team.
19 Missouri Tigers
20 Western Michigan Broncos I am counting Western Michigan as beating Michigan for my poll. That skews stuff a lot. It puts Michigan at 29, and punishes Oklahoma to out of the top 30. It is all very janky. Give it 2 weeks, and it should clear out, but it looks really weird right now.
21 Virginia Cavaliers
22 New Mexico Lobos They are untested right now, but are my pick for best G6 team. That doesn't mean they are the favorite to make the playoffs (that goes to Boise State, because they fought their P4 contender very close, has a win over Memphis, and a tougher, but manageable schedule). However, if New Mexico plays well against Oklahoma, they have a real shot if they run the table. I think they are ranked too high here, but there has been a lot of movement overall, and they have just fallen up.
23 Houston Cougars
24 Pittsburgh Panthers
25 North Dakota State Bison

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