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Tornadohunter24 Ballot for 2026 Week 6

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 6, 2026, 10:58 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Welcome back to another weekend recap of college football! I'm half certain that somehow my Yellow Jackets lost the bye week, which is impressive because I figured nothing could have me feeling worse than watching us lose to Stanford. Then Stanford got demolished, Colorado got whacked, Tennessee struggled, and I'm pretty sure uGA sleptwalk to another dominant win. At least Mercer is top 25 in FCS and Clemson lost? Ah well, moving on.

Before we get started, I just wanted to remind you of a few caveats to my top 25: I'm including at least a few spots for the G5, as an indicator of who I think is favored to make a run at the Playoffs out of those conferences. I also love pre-conference play variance, so you'll see a lot of that too. In addition, this poll, by nature, is meant to be overreactive. I'm not here to try to be predictive - I want this to be strictly resume, even if that resume consists of a single game. I'm not here trying to justify every single one of my top 25 staying in the top 25 week-to-week; that's just lame. And it's not the point of what I want to accomplish when doing these rankings. Even still, before you crucify me for this poll ballot... allow me to explain further.

While preseason rankings, perceived team strength, recruiting rankings, and all of those other factors will still play a role in the value I grant to certain teams, I ultimately want this ranking to be a resume-based one as stated earlier, not a power ranking. I'm always searching for ways to best optimize this and to best balance the two, especially early on, so am open to opinions. That said, this does mean that certain teams that have scheduled a weak opening slate/non-conference schedule will not be ranked until they play someone, and will be held in honorable mentions until proven otherwise. Teams that have gone out of their way to schedule difficult and perform well will also be granted grace, even if it resulted in a loss.

So, a better question: why is the top 25 the way that they are? Well, I'm glad you asked, random stranger I made up in my head to dictate this interaction! There are a few key things that I will always do once everyone enters in-conference play. First, I basically disregard, to the best of my ability, not only last week's rankings but preseason expectations in general, and then rank from that. In addition, I like to include multiple G5 (now G6) frontrunners, even if their resumes lack slightly compared to a P4 team. ALL UNDEFEATED G6 TEAMS WILL BE RANKED. Does this make the poll have unreasonable amounts of instability and deviation from the norm? Probably! Do I care? Not really. It's still early on - everyone who deserves to be ranked will become ranked again soon enough. I'm not the committee; just keep winning, and things will fall into place.

That said, let's get on to the necessary business at the end of this. A lot of movement necessitates a lot of accounting. SOR is taken from ESPN for ease of access. And yes, I know it still looks silly early on in the year (even after 5+ weeks of games played), but considering how much I converge with it by the end of the year, I find it prudent to include. It is not the only metric I consider but it's the easiest to compare with my rankings.

Hopefully this ages better than my #2 Florida rank from last week...

NOTE: I'm going to be honest, it is a goddamn *mess* sorting out the 1-loss SEC teams, along with the various weak-resume undefeated and strong-resume 1-loss teams from other conferences. For now, I'm going to lean heavily on SEC's quite favorable OoC performance to date and include them over most other serious contenders, but this can and will change with further data. Still not certain about everything below the top 10 (hell, maybe even beyond Ohio State).

Also, apologies for not getting everything super-detailed, I unfortunately needed to catch up on rest and missed the majority of my window to do so. Will hopefully have time next week, but no promises. See last week for what I intend to do if time permits :)

| TEAMS DROPPING OUT (DO): #11 UCLA Bruins [4-0, 2-0 B1G], #15 Duke Blue Devils [4-0, 1-0 ACC], #22 UMass Minutemen [4-1, 1-1 MAC], #25 South Florida Bulls [4-1, 1-1 American]

| HONORABLE MENTIONS (HM): UCLA Bruins [4-0, 2-0 B1G], Duke Blue Devils [4-0, 1-0 ACC], Nebraska Cornhuskers [5-0, 2-0 B1G], Houston Cougars [4-1, 1-1 Big 12], Northwestern Wildcats [3-1, 1-1 B1G], Arizona Wildcats [4-1, 1-1 Big 12], USC Trojans [5-1, 2-1 B1G], Wisconsin Badgers [4-1, 2-0 B1G], Minnesota Golden Gophers [4-1, 2-0 B1G], New Mexico Lobos [4-1, 1-0 MWC]

| ESPN SOR, FPI, and other useful metrics: https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi/_/view/resume

PRESEASON BALLOT: https://poll.redditcfb.com/ballot/73954 | WEEK 2 BALLOT: https://poll.redditcfb.com/ballot/74364/ | WEEK 3 BALLOT: https://poll.redditcfb.com/ballot/74836/ | WEEK 4 BALLOT: https://poll.redditcfb.com/ballot/75247/ | WEEK 5 BALLOT: https://poll.redditcfb.com/ballot/75815/

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns [4-0, 1-0 SEC] (-) | SOR: #1 | Notable Results: W 24-23 vs #8 Ohio State [4-1], W 20-17 @ #21 Tennessee [4-1] |
2 Alabama Crimson Tide [5-0, 2-0 SEC] (+3) | SOR: #2 | Notable Results: W 56-23 @ #12 Mississippi State [4-1], W 45-17 @ #22 Kentucky [4-1] |
3 Georgia Bulldogs [5-0, 2-0 SEC] (-) | SOR: #8 | Notable Results: Closest game so far was a 24-point win |
4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish [5-0, independent] (+1) | SOR: #3 | Notable Results: W 41-13 (@Lambeau Field) vs HM Wisconsin [4-1] |
5 Miami Hurricanes [5-0, 2-0 ACC] (+1) | SOR: #4 | Notable Results: W 33-20 @ #23 Wake Forest [4-1], W 41-13 @ Clemson [3-2] |
6 Indiana Hoosiers [5-0, 2-0 B1G] (+2) | SOR: #10 | Notable Results: W 29-23 vs HM Northwestern [3-1] |
7 Utah Utes [4-0, 1-0 Big 12] (-) | SOR: #18 | Notable Results: W 31-17 @ Iowa State [3-2] |
8 Ohio State Buckeyes [4-1, 2-0 B1G] (+4) | SOR: #11 | Notable Results: L 23-24 @ #1 Texas [4-0], W 31-14 @ #11 Iowa [4-1] |
9 Texas Tech Red Raiders [5-0, 2-0 Big 12] (+5) | SOR: #7 | Notable Results: W 28-26 vs HM Houston [4-1], W 35-24 @ Oregon State [3-2] |
10 BYU Cougars [4-0, 2-0 Big 12] (NEW) | SOR: #14 | Notable Results: W 28-17 vs HM Arizona [4-1] |
11 Iowa Hawkeyes [4-1, 1-1 B1G] (-2) | SOR: #16 | Notable Results: W 16-13 vs Iowa State [3-2], W 20-19 @ Michigan [3-2*], L 14-31 vs #8 Ohio State [4-1] |
12 Mississippi State Bulldogs [4-1, 1-1 SEC] (NEW) | SOR: #6 | Notable Results: W 38-13 @ HM Minnesota [4-1], W 31-24 vs #13 Missouri [4-1], L 23-56 vs #2 Alabama [5-0] |
13 Missouri Tigers [4-1, 1-1 SEC] (NEW) | SOR: #25 | Notable Results: L 24-31 @ #12 Mississippi State [4-1], W 45-17 vs #16 Florida [4-1] |
14 Oklahoma State Cowboys [3-1, 1-0 Big 12] (+2) | SOR: #35 | Notable Results: L 10-24 @ Tulsa [3-2], W 39-31 vs #15 Oregon [4-1], W 41-24 @ West Virginia [3-2] |
15 Oregon Ducks [3-1, 1-0 B1G] (+2) | SOR: #23 | Notable Results: W 34-27 vs #20 Boise State [4-1], L 31-39 @ #14 Oklahoma State [3-1], W 41-27 @ HM USC [5-1] |
16 Florida Gators [4-1, 1-1 SEC] (-14) | SOR: #15 | Notable Results: W 44-39 @ Auburn [3-2], W 52-28 vs #17 Ole Miss [3-1], L 17-45 @ #13 Missouri [4-1] |
17 Ole Miss Rebels [3-1, 1-1 SEC] (-4) | SOR: #12 | Notable Results: W 41-38 (in Nashville) vs Louisville [2-3], W 32-24 vs #18 LSU [4-1], L 28-52 @ #16 Florida [4-1] |
18 LSU Tigers [4-1, 1-1 SEC] (-) | SOR: #24 | Notable Results: W 51-10 vs Clemson [3-2], L 24-32 @ #17 Ole Miss [3-1], W 35-6 vs Texas A&M [3-2] |
19 Pittsburgh Panthers [5-0, 2-0 ACC] (+1) | SOR: #9 | Notable Results: W 12-7 vs UCF [3-2], W 35-33 @ Virginia Tech [4-1] |
20 Boise State Broncos [4-1, 1-0 Pac-12] (-1) | SOR: #30 | Notable Results: L 27-34 @ #15 Oregon [3-1], W 38-20 vs Memphis [4-1], W 32-7 @ Western Michigan [3-2*] |
21 Tennessee Volunteers [4-1, 1-1 SEC] (NEW) | SOR: #22 | Notable Results: L 17-20 vs #1 Texas [4-0], W 24-14 vs Auburn [3-2] |
22 Kentucky Wildcats [4-1, 2-1 SEC] (NEW) | SOR: #5 | Notable Results: L 17-45 vs #2 Alabama [5-0], W 31-21 @ Texas A&M [3-2], W 35-34 (OT) @ South Carolina [2-3] |
23 Wake Forest Demon Deacons [4-1, 1-1 ACC] (-2) | SOR: #17 | Notable Results: W 38-36 (2OT) @ Purdue [2-3], L 20-33 vs #5 Miami [5-0], W 30-27 @ Louisville [2-3] |
24 James Madison Dukes [5-0, 2-0 Sun Belt] (-1) | SOR: #28 | Notable Results: W 20-13 vs Liberty (Biberty) [4-1] |
25 North Dakota State Bison [5-0, 2-0 MWC] (-1) | SOR: #36 | Notable Results: W 38-32 @ Air Force [3-1] |

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