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Justanother_0 Ballot for 2026 Week 6

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 5, 2026, 2:21 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I only consider the top half of each Power Four conference (plus the independents if they perform well enough), along with who I believe to be the best teams from the Group of Six in that given week. I then sort the teams by conference, ranking each team from best to worst within their own conference. The best of the G6 are all grouped into the same set for determining who the best among them are. The independents are also sorted into their own group as well. Finally, I use the six groups made (four P4 conference top 8's, 1 group for the best of the G6, 1 group for the independents) to create the top 25. Any teams absent that I think need explanation will be talked about in the [Notable Omissions] category below.

This is a resume first ballot. While the general vibes of a team are somewhat considered. What a team has accomplished matters more than their talent profile or their coaching staff (not to say that a team’s other stats or intangibles are irrelevant).

{CONFERENCE SWEEPS}
The SEC gets the full eight teams onto this ballot!

Notable Omissions:

[Iowa]'s best win at the moment is either against their rebuilding in state rivals or quite possibly the worst Michigan team this century. If they get another win, they'll probably be back

[Nebraska] Has done this song and dance before with being undefeated against mediocre to bad teams. Snap the ranked opponent loss streak and I'll reconsider

[James Madison] is undefeated, but I have to give the edge to North Dakota State when both teams have comparable difficulties of schedules.

[Duke] Is undefeated, but I still need to see more.

Thank you for reading!

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Ohio State win is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. unless the Alabama Georgia game ends up being a CyHawk style sicko fest, the winner of that game likely replaces the Longhorns at the top.
2 Alabama Crimson Tide Blowout wins over most of their opponents along with a throttling of Mississippi state is enough to propel the Tide up my list.
3 Ohio State Buckeyes Blowout win over Iowa gets the Buckeyes back up my ranking, though the back half of their schedule is looking brutal.
4 Georgia Bulldogs Dominant wins, yes, but over middling SEC teams. Also, the Vandy game was messy.
5 Utah Utes Dominant enough in their Big XII slate to convince me that they've got what it takes to be a genuine factor the playoffs.
6 Miami Hurricanes The unexpected quality win over Wake Forest is saving the canes' ranking.
7 Indiana Hoosiers Aside from the win over Northwestern, Indiana's resume isn't much to write home about when compared with those ahead of them.
8 Texas Tech Red Raiders If it weren't for Houston blowing the 2 point conversion I'd have this team either mid 20's or unranked. While that ranked win is doing a ton of work here, Tech looks like one of the sloppiest teams in the Big XII, but consistently gets bailed out by their competition being worse (seriously, Colorado looked like one of the worst teams in the FBS Saturday)
9 BYU Cougars TCU...
10 Ole Miss Rebels SEC Louisville if they had a marginally better defense and a win over LSU. Without that LSU win they'd probably be unranked.
11 Houston Cougars Did they beat UCF? sure. did they look good doing it? absolutely not.
12 Northwestern Wildcats Massive win over Penn State gets the Wildcats further up the ballot.
13 UCLA Bruins Weak schedule so far? sure, but they're undefeated and looking dominant while doing so.
14 Missouri Tigers I struggled to determine how much stock I should be putting in Mizzou's win over Florida. On one hand, it was a blowout, but on the other, Florida might genuinely have the second worst defense in the SEC (there is still Arkansas to consider) and it was masked by Ole Miss' star running back being out of the game. I'll give them credit in the win, but when their second best win is bum ass Kansas I can only put them up so far.
15 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Currently the most likely team to meet Miami in Charlotte. Given how Miami has done historically there I half expect Wake Forest to win the rematch should it happen.
16 Oklahoma State Cowboys This team is a Tulsa win away from being in my top 5.
17 Florida Gators Still 4-1, but wow I really had these guys in my top 5 last week dear lord.
18 LSU Tigers Is this too low? probably, but right now LSU's best win is against an A&M team that is more likely to go 4-8 than 8-4 and a Clemson team that'll be lucky to make a bowl. This is a resume first poll, so despite the talent profile of this team I need to see them beat teams with a pulse.
19 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Once again I say, I will rank the Irish in the top 10 if they beat a team that can play a full four quarters of football (no, Wisconsin doesn't count as a quality win just because they beat a Penn State team that may unironically finish with a worse record than Iowa State). Right now it's looking like their chance to prove me wrong is coming in the next few weeks. The ball is in their court.
20 Mississippi State Bulldogs Blowout loss to Alabama, but since the Tide are my #2 team, I can't punish too hard for that. Besides, that win over Mizzou is looking a lot better now!
21 Arizona Wildcats Narrow loss to BYU keeps Arizona above the cutoff point in this ballot. An absolute drubbing of Cincinnati helps too.
22 Pittsburgh Panthers Somebody had to be the third best ACC team I guess.
23 Boise State Broncos Wins against the rest of the G6 contenders are doing a lot here. I count the Oregon loss against this team because Oregon doesn't look stellar this year, but the Memphis and WMU wins are enough to make up for it.
24 Oregon Ducks I honestly don't know what to make of this team. On paper they still can compete in the playoffs, but the opponent's they've played haven't done much to challenge them in conference. Add that to their horrid out of conference play and I struggle ranking the ducks at all. That being said, I've run out of teams to rank ahead of these guys.
25 North Dakota State Bison NDSU gets the edge over JMU as my second G6 team in the field. Though Boise has the better resume at the moment, I believe that NDSU is gonna snatch the playoff bid out from under them by staying the course in their conference race while Boise probably loses a game or two in the Pac-12.

The next three G6 teams out are JMU, Louisiana, and Memphis

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