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d1sportsball Ballot for 2026 Week 5

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Sept. 29, 2026, 8:28 a.m.

Overall Rationale: A mix of the eye test, actual resume ranking and in almost every situation of same record teams, head to head competition. This combination of factors properly accounts for what we've seen on the field, ignoring preseason rankings and only slightly using talent composite as a measure. Quality losses can and often are better than wins, and early on it doesn't make sense to view losses more harshly. As the season goes on and more teams lose, the value of a loss against your ranking increases, but for now a 3-1 team can very well be better than a 4-0 team.

And please, take these rankings with a grain of salt. 4 games is enough in my opinion to properly rank all teams, however with such a small sample size, comparing a team like Wake Forest who is consistently good

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Controlled the game vs Tennessee despite score, got hurt by a illegal onside kick
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Kept rolling against Illinois
3 Miami Hurricanes Wake Forest greatly improved Miami's resume
4 Georgia Bulldogs Finally played a real P4 team and still haven't had Gunnar Stockton finish a game
5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Wisconsin improved ND's resume enough to keep them over Florida
6 Florida Gators One of the biggest wins of the season, would be higher if Ole Miss resume hadn't gotten weaker
7 Utah Utes Legit contender, if UGA can be high ranked then so can Utah
8 Ole Miss Rebels Dropped for bad loss and Louisville losing
9 LSU Tigers Jumped BYU for dominating A&M
10 BYU Cougars Didn't play, didn't do anything wrong
11 Alabama Crimson Tide Kept rolling against South Carolina
12 Mississippi State Bulldogs Exposed Mizzou and keeps on rolling for a top 12 matchup vs Bama
13 UCLA Bruins Whooped Maryland a new one
14 Iowa Hawkeyes 2 very close P4 wins, but against decent teams
15 Indiana Hoosiers Lots of struggles, but defense might be more elite than last year
16 Oklahoma State Cowboys Refuse to rank Tulsa ahead of Ok St despite H2H because Tulsa lost to the equivalent to a P4 FCS team
17 Texas Tech Red Raiders Every game seems to be a struggle in some way
18 Oregon Ducks Exposed USC with a backup QB, still have a very strong resume
19 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Huge upset win over Louisville,
20 Boise State Broncos Dominated Western Michigan, clearly the best team in the G6
21 Houston Cougars Struggled at Georgia Southern, as did Tech with Sam Houston
22 Duke Blue Devils 4-0 is 4-0, a lot of wait and see with Duke
23 Tennessee Volunteers Looked putrid on offense, showed they were trying their hardest to protect a true freshman QB against bad teams
24 Cincinnati Bearcats Somehow 4-0 with a win over Kansas State now
25 Wisconsin Badgers Big win walking into happy valley and pulling off a big comeback

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