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HieloLuz Ballot for 2026 Week 5

Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Sept. 29, 2026, 12:39 a.m.

Overall Rationale: I use a computer ranking which is a pure resume based points system. Teams are assigned a tier based on their rating (1-7). Points are gained for wins, subtracted for losses, based on the opponents tier. Small modifiers for game closeness and SOS based on Opponent's record. |
I use this to sort teams into buckets, then give ranks based primarily on quality wins (top 50 teams), worst losses, and head to head. |
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Week 4 |
Biggest Risers: T138= Boise State (+50) , T25= James Madison (+14) |
Biggest Drop: T138= Troy (-66) , T25= Ole Miss (-19) |
New teams: Oklahoma State, Oregon, Utah, USF, Georgia, Indiana, Boise State, Nebraska |
Dropped from rankings: Tulsa (13), Western Michigan (14), Missouri (18), West Virginia (19), Vanderbilt (21), Northwestern (22), Penn State (23), North Dakota State (24) |
Next 5: North Dakota State, Auburn, Umass, LSU, Wisconsin |
Worst Team UTEP (-76.667) |
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Playoff projections *Autobid | |
Rose: 4. Miami (FL)* |
Sugar: 1. Florida* |
Cotton: 2. Texas |
Orange: 3. Mississippi State |
5 v 12: 12. Oklahoma State @ 5. Notre Dame |
6 v 11: 11. James Madison* @ 6. Alabama |
7 v 10: 10. Texas Tech @ 7. Cincinnati* |
8 v 9: 9. Iowa* @ 8. Pitt |
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| Note for early weeks: They are extremely volatile, teams that played week 0 get a big early season boost but it stabilizes around week 5. Early weeks any team with a loss will struggle to get ranked at all.

Rank Team Reason
1 Florida Gators 3 quality wins over Auburn |3|, Ole Miss |3|, and FAU |4|. These wins, especially the 2 tier 3 wins, are the best anyone has so far.
2 Texas Longhorns Texas is the only other team with 3 quality wins. These being Ohio State |4|, UTSA |4|, and Tennessee |4|.

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3 Mississippi State Bulldogs Mississippi State is one of many teams with 2 quality wins, over Minnesota |4| and Missouri |4|, but they are the only one of these teams without a loss
4 Miami Hurricanes Miami has 1 quality win over Wake Forest |4|, which wasn't overly close. And they have blown out every team they've played so far.
5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Basically identical to Miami (FL), but their win is over Wisconsin |4|. Their other opponents have been slightly worse leaving them in 5.
6 Alabama Crimson Tide Quality win and blowout over Kentucky |4|. But they had a close game against Florida State |6|.
7 Pittsburgh Panthers Basically identical to Cinci, with a quality win over UCF |4|. But they played better against the only common opponent so far.
8 Cincinnati Bearcats Quality win over Kansas State |4|, but both it and their win over Miami (OH) |5| were close games.
9 Iowa Hawkeyes Quality win over Michigan |4/5| (who is very hard to rank, for now I still have them losing to Western Michigan but that will probably have to change soon to align with the playoff rankings.
10 Texas Tech Red Raiders Quality win over Houston |4|, but had a close close game against Oregon State |6|, which is slightly worse than Iowa's close win over Iowa State |5|.
11 James Madison Dukes Quality win over Liberty |4|. JMU is the last undefeated team with a quality win. Which for me puts a stark cutoff underneath them for now. This will change quickly. Either Liberty loses a game and drops out from being a quality win, or more teams pick up quality wins.
12 Oklahoma State Cowboys I had a very hard time deciding on Oklahoma State. That loss to Tulsa |5| looks bad, and I generally won't rank a team with a loss that bad until much later in the season. But Oregon was getting ranked for sure, and with so few data points to go off of, I decided for now that they are in the same tier with Oregon and the other teams with a loss but a quality win, and thus here they are. Oklahoma State gets the honor of the first ranked team with a loss this year for me.
13 Oregon Ducks Oregon has among the best wins in the country over Boise State |3| and USC |3|. These match the wins that Florida is boasting right now. But the loss to Oklahoma State holds them back for now.
14 Duke Blue Devils No quality wins, and a pair of close games against not great teams in Tulane |6| and Illinois |5|
15 Virginia Tech Hokies No quality wins, and one close game against a bad team in Boston College |5|. But wins are wins. Their schedule has been slightly easier than Duke's, landing them here.
16 Utah Utes Identical to Virginia Tech, all the way down to the computer points (42.5). Virginia Tech gets the go ahead simply because they have played 2 away games to Utah's 1.
17 BYU Cougars No quality wins and only 3-0 due to the early bye. But only 1 close game
18 Ole Miss Rebels A quality win over LSU |3|, but the Louisville |5| win is no longer looking good, and it was a close game. Combine that and the blowout loss to Florida |2|, and its looking rough right now for Ole Miss's resume.
19 Georgia Bulldogs No quality wins, but no close games either. A very weak schedule so far.
20 Indiana Hoosiers No quality wins, but they had a close game against Northwestern |5|
21 USF Bulls No quality wins, and 2 close games against Army |5| and Bowling Green |7| aren't a great look. 3rd weakest Opp Win% of the ranked teams so far at 36%
22 UCLA Bruins UCLA has the 4th weakest schedule of any ranked team at 38%. That and 3 close games against bad teams Cal |6|, San Diego State |6|, and Purdue |6| leaves them near the bottom of the undefeated teams
23 Boise State Broncos Quality win (wins?) over Memphis |4| and Western Michigan |4/6| (see Iowa's entry for info on that). Loss to Oregon |3| is by no means a bad one, and they played it super close.
24 USC Trojans 2 Quality wins over Fresno State |4| and Louisiana |4|, both of which were also blowouts. But they played significantly worse in their loss to Oregon |3| than Boise did, their only common opponent.
25 Nebraska Cornhuskers No quality wins. An abysmally weak schedule with an opponent win% of only 33%. But no close games.
The only other undefeated team that is unranked is UMass, who has a Opp. Win% of a measly 22%.

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