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_THE__BOULDER_ Ballot for 2026 Week 6

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 6, 2026, 10:08 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Personal thoughts. Combination of win total, strength of competition, and the eye test. Can't claim I'm not subjective, and I am biased towards the Florida Gators.

Teams that dropped out this week:
Kentucky
Virginia Tech

New Teams In:
Nebraska
Pitt

With the results of Mizzou, Ole Miss, Miss St, LSU, and UF over the last 2-3 weeks, I'm starting to believe it's an "any given Saturday" kind of situation where anyone can lose. I'm pretty hopeful a circle of suck gets created but we'll see.

I'm currently under the impression that there are, essentially, two different groupings of 5-0 teams P4, with the larger group consisting of those in the top 10 and a smaller group that helps to round out the end of the top 25. As more games are played, which teams end up in which groups (and whether the groups end up staying together or stratifying further as some of these teams end up losing their undefeated status) is likely to change, but we'll see for now.

Rank Team Reason
1 Texas Longhorns Bye
2 Miami Hurricanes Blew out Clemson's back.
3 Georgia Bulldogs Kept Vandy scoreless in the 2nd half.
4 Ohio State Buckeyes Had no trouble against a stout Iowa defense. Jeremiah Smith with two 200 yard games in a row. Apparently, since he started CFB, he has more yards and TDs than any other WR, and it doesn't surprise me one bit. They kind of force feed him but if it works it works.
5 Alabama Crimson Tide Absolute beatdown on the Mississippi State Bulldogs. I was excited for a QB battle as I believe they might be two of the best in the sport right now, but Alabama certainly showed themselves to be the more complete team and took advantage of Miss ST offensive miscues.
6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Weather was kinda crappy which I think excuses this game a bit but there were also some issues like letting up a 98 yard kickoff return TD. Not particularly worried for the Irish, but perhaps some things to clean up got revealed in this game.
7 Indiana Hoosiers Beatdown on Rutgers. Indiana was tested by Northwestern last week. Very much looking forward to their game vs Nebraska this upcoming week. Battle of two undefeated B1G teams.
8 BYU Cougars Another sloppy weather game leading to a pretty low scoring game. Bachmeier was 11/24 for 62 yards but also had 66 yards and 2TDs on the ground which helped make up for it. Team had a total of 154 yards on the ground with Bachmeier by far being their leading rusher is kinda interesting, as he had close to the same yardage as the next 3 RBs combined. I'm inclined to excuse the fact that the ball wasn't moving too much based on the weather but might be something to watch out for here as well.
9 Texas Tech Red Raiders Texas Tech had a great defensive outing in this one, with another INT returned for a TD and 3 more INTs collected on top of that. Not a ton of yardage on offense (134 yards passing, 181 yards rushing) but both J'Koby Williams and Quinten Joyner had pretty good days out there, averaging 5.2 YPC and 6.3 YPC, respectively. This game was actually pretty close until midway through the 4th when the dam burst on Colorado. But, considering TTech benefitted from 3 INTs in the 3rd and only really got 12 points off of that, as well as having a missed field goal and a couple turnovers on downs in Q2, I'm a little worried about this offensive production. Currently have them over Utah as Utah had a bye and TTech is now 5-0 over Utah's 4-0, but I do like Utah more so far this season.
10 Utah Utes Bye
11 Ole Miss Rebels Bye
However, I did move Ole Miss & LSU down a few spots from last week because of ripple effects from Florida's blowout loss at Mizzou.
12 LSU Tigers Blowout win over McNeese
13 Tennessee Volunteers UT Benched their starting freshman QB after he went 3/8 for 0 yards passing and an INT. Not a good showing for Faizon Brandon. George MacIntyre came in and passed 8/10 for 86 so a pretty high flying day in the air for the Vols. However, UT did more than enough to make up for that with their work on the ground - DeSean Bishop ran for 220 yards and 3TDs, lifting Tennessee above Auburn.
14 Missouri Tigers Absolute beatdown over Florida. Completely shut down Jaden Baugh and forced Aaron Philo to beat them in the air, which he did not. Meanwhile Austin Simmons had an NFL caliber day: 340 Yards passing, 2 TDs, 23/30 on the day. The Mizzou receiving core was able to accomplish huge chunk plays on a pretty shambolic secondary showing for UF. Cayden Lee had 8 receptions for 110 yards; Donovan Olugbode had 6 receptions for 94 yards and a TD. Mizzou's Jamal Roberts rushed for 211 yards and 3TDs, with a long of 80 yards. Mizzou has had Florida's number ever since they joined the SEC and it doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.
15 Florida Gators Jaden Baugh had 12 carries for 13 yards. Don't think there's much more to say than that.
16 Houston Cougars Houston got the win but it was ugly. Down 17-0 early in the 3rd quarter and then proceeded to score 27 unanswered points. The space theme of the game was cool though. Connor Weigman ended up with 239 yards passing, 50 yards rushing and 3 rushing TDs. I didn't get to watch this one live though, so I didn't get a lot of information on it.
17 Mississippi State Bulldogs An absolute beatdown by one of the top teams in the country. Although Kamario Taylor threw 2INTs, Alabama also might just be really good this year so I wouldn't say there's too much to be ashamed of. The Bulldogs have a bye this weekend but I look forward to seeing how the regroup and play in Baton Rouge in two weeks.
18 Iowa Hawkeyes Iowa's lack of offense is nothing new, but their defense did get taken apart by Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith. I was hoping for a bit more of a rock fight to help prove Iowan legitimacy.
19 Oklahoma State Cowboys Bye
20 Oregon Ducks Bye
21 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Wake has been looking good out there, with their only loss being a not terrible loss to Miami. This week contained a beatdown over Stanford who, admittedly, is not great, but Wake's SOR is 17th according to ESPN and their SOS is 29th, so I think Wake firmly deserves to be ranked at this time.
22 Pittsburgh Panthers A tough-fought win over Virginia Tech on Friday made for an extremely entertaining game in my opinion, with Pitt emerging victorious in a 35-33 win that came down to a missed 36 yard Field Goal in the final seconds of the game. While Pitt's SOR is high at #9, their relatively close wins over UCF, Syracuse, and now VT do have me a bit curious if they can keep it up. In this case, I think Pitt is possibly the best out of the second group of "undefeateds" that I discuss in my rationale but, unfortunately, Pitt does not play Duke or Nebraska this year.
23 Duke Blue Devils Bye
Decent SOR at 21 but currently 114 in SOS.
24 Nebraska Cornhuskers Nebraska has made it to 5-0 and has been looking pretty good out there, but there are concerns over Nebraska's SOR and SOS, which I believe ESPN has at 26 for SOR but 126 for SOS. I am beginning to like them though and think they arguably deserve a ranking.
25 Boise State Broncos BYU's strong showing against Oregon is really what props them up for me, along with a good win over Memphis. They're clearing pretty much all of their competition pretty easily, so what I'm looking forward to here is their game against Oregon State who I think might be kinda legit.

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