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sgtshenanigans Ballot for 2026 Week 5

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 27, 2026, 1:48 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I try to get my rankings out before the AP or Coach's poll. I am willing to make big changes to my poll after each week of games if new data warrants big changes to avoid poll inertia.

Rank Team Reason
1 Indiana Hoosiers One rule that I have is that you are the champ until you lose. Indiana still hasn’t lost they are still number one.
2 Texas Longhorns Their two big wins are better than any other in college football. Haven’t always looked good but at the end of the day they find ways to win and wins matter.
3 Georgia Bulldogs With how poor Oklahoma has looked it’s hard to tell how impressive this weeks win was however, Georgia handles business and always seems to make it look easy. Georgia passes Miami.
4 Miami Hurricanes It’s hard to say if Miami has had a real test so far his year. Could Wake Forest be a sneaky decent team in the ACC? Probably too early to tell. Still not enough to keep Miami from slipping behind Georgia.
5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Notre Dame just handles business once again. Defense looks elite and CJ Carr is an elite passer and on field coordinator. The Wisconsin win looks a bit better after this week.
6 Ohio State Buckeyes First team with a loss on this list. However, Texas keeps winning so I can't punish Ohio State too much. Solid win against Illinois this week.
7 Texas Tech Red Raiders The Big 12 log jam begins here. While Tech is my top pick for the Big 12 I feel like the Big 12 is wide open and a number of teams will have a chance to win it.
8 BYU Cougars BYU had a bye this week. Part of the current Big 12 log jam.
9 Utah Utes Utah is part of the Big 12 log jam. While I have them at the bottom of the log jam they may have the best total resume so far and they just handle business. Things will work themselves out eventually.
10 Alabama Crimson Tide Alabama with another 40+ point game. Last “easy” game for Bama for a while as they are about to hit a murder’s row of games. Good luck Bama fans.
11 Virginia Tech Hokies This week it didn’t look pretty for Virginia Tech but as I said for Texas, winning has to matter and VT is still undefeated. Combined with the Penn State loss James Franklin shows why we was considered a high value coach even after being fired last year.
12 Florida Gators Florida has looked good all season. While I think they caught Ole Miss at the exact right time Florida showed out with a pretty dominant performance.
13 Ole Miss Rebels Ole Miss takes a tumble with their loss to Florida but I think this loss can largely be chalked up to a let down after a huge emotional win the week before. I suspect Ole Miss will be back to business next week.
14 Oregon Ducks Despite the loss of their starting QB the ducks defense got some stops when they needed them and after getting settled in Dylan Raiola looked solid.
15 Iowa Hawkeyes Walk off winner against Michigan does Iowa have an offense to go with their defense and special teams? If so Iowa could be a problem for the BIG. Huge test next week!
16 LSU Tigers Welp Texas A&M can say goodbye to Hope for the rest of the season LSU showed her the door. Ole Miss losing doesn't help the resume for LSU.
17 James Madison Dukes James Madison was one of my G5 picks at the beginning of the season. They just keep winning but there is a lot of competition for best G5 team including: Boise State and South Florida among others.
18 USC Trojans If every defender were as skilled as Luke Wafle USC would be scary as they have a lot of young talent all over the team. However, the defense overall is nothing special and USC is going to need to be carried by Jayden Maiava however, as good as he is I don't think he has enough.
19 Mississippi State Bulldogs It may not always be pretty but Mississippi State just keeps ending games with the lead. Winning means something. Clanga clanga clanga clanga
20 Cincinnati Bearcats Cincinnati hasn't looked great but they are undefeated and at this point undefeated teams are becoming rarer.
21 Nebraska Cornhuskers They played their first P4 game this week, sure it was only Michigan State, but they walked away with a win. Nebraska is undefeated which is good enough to get ranked here.
22 Houston Cougars Houston only has one loss and it was a close one to Texas Tech. While it's hard to tell if Texas Tech is as good as their current ranking I have to give them the benefit of the doubt at this point and Houston kept the game close.
23 Duke Blue Devils At this point their aren't many teams that can say they separate themselves. Duke is undefeated with wins against Illinois, Tulane, and Stanford. Not exactly a resume that blows you away but at this point there aren't any undefeated ranked below this point with a significantly better resume.
24 Tennessee Volunteers Their first year QB looks tough and gritty, came back from injury and, continued to run the ball. However, there wasn't much he could do against the Texas defense. Tennessee's defense looked good. I had Tennessee at #22 last week so they don't move down much even with the loss.
25 SMU Mustangs SMU is hanging on by a thread here and I moved them down because of how close the score was against MO State. I also want to highlight my next up teams here (in no particular order) Michigan, South Florida, Pitt, UCLA, Boise State, Wisconsin, and Kentucky.

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