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ChBass Ballot for 2026 Week 7

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Oct. 11, 2026, 9:04 a.m.

Overall Rationale: Each team's performance is compared to their opponent's opponents' performances, with bonuses for wins & losses depending on the quality of the opponent. FCS games are not taken into consideration.

Rank Team Reason
1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish After steamrolling Stanford and a bunch of other good teams losing, Notre Dame is back on top. It helps that it is one of two teams with both a top-10 offense and defense.
2 Indiana Hoosiers A scary win in Lincoln is still a win, and undefeated Indiana is riding the third best defense in the country to the #2 spot. We will see if they meet their match when the Buckeyes come to town next week.
3 Georgia Bulldogs PI call aside, and lucky bounces aside, this is a great football team that gutted out a gutsy win on the road. Stockton is very impressive.
4 Alabama Crimson Tide Turns out losing to Georgia hurts less than beating Mississippi State helped, so Bama falls from #1 to #4. We'll see how the hangover plays in Knoxville.
5 Texas Longhorns The longhorns offensive woes finally caught up to them in Dallas, and the Oklahoma loss more than erased the Ohio State win. In a world where wins & losses don't matter, this is a #1 team because of the best defense in college football, but wins and losses do matter, so we're at #5.
6 Wisconsin Badgers I went through the data last week. Wisconsin is a good football team, and next week they will test my hypothesis against undefeated UCLA.
7 Ohio State Buckeyes The loss to the longhorns doesn't hurt much; the Buckeyes have been stacking wins and putting together a top 5 offense and a top-10 defense. There will be another chance for a quality win at Indiana next week to possibly vault them into the Top 5.
8 Utah Utes Utah beat Kansas to get their best win of the season. They have a top-5 offense, but their best win is Kansas.
9 Mississippi State Bulldogs Cowbell maintains the top offense in college football and the loss to Bama doesn't hurt enough to boot them out of the top-10.
10 BYU Cougars BYU beat Iowa State for their biggest win of the season. They have the second-best defense in college football, but their best win is Iowa State.
11 Texas Tech Red Raiders Unlike Utah & BYU, who have superior offensive and defensive squads, respectively, Tech has a top-25 offense and a top-50 defense, but they've avoided a loss in the (Monster) Big 12.
12 Kentucky Wildcats In a world where wins & losses don't count, LSU is a top-10 team. But in this world, beating LSU is worth way more than the loss to Alabama.
13 UCLA Bruins Undefeated UCLA got their biggest win of the season against Oregon, but the only standout part of their team is the run offense. Wisconsin (which I'm telling you is a Good Team) comes to town next week.
14 Miami Hurricanes The hurricanes got a week off from clobbering the mid-ACC teams. They have a top-10 offense, but won't get a real challenge until they go to South Bend.
15 Nebraska Cornhuskers Nebraska brought their third ranked offense, but their scoring capability was between Rutgers and Northwestern, so here they are. They get to fatten up a bit on the B1G and we'll see which team faces Ohio State.
16 Northwestern Wildcats Stomping Ball State didn't teach us anything about Northwestern that we didn't already know, and the Penn State win is still worth something. They'll have a few weeks before things get real.
17 Tennessee Volunteers The close loss to the longhorns doesn't hurt, but their best win is against Auburn. A bruised Bama comes to town next week to give them a shot a signature win.
18 Missouri Tigers The loss to Mississippi State is keeping the tigers out of the top 10; they have a top-20 offense and defense and can turn it on. A visit to Oxford next week will show us if this is real.
19 Iowa Hawkeyes Drubbing Washington helped them claw back some of the points that they lost to Ohio State, but this is a team that can pass, put up points, stop the run, and minimize scoring.
20 James Madison Dukes North Dakota State fell, so now there's just James Madison. Their best win is still Liberty, and their defense is 112th in cfb, but they are undefeated, and they can run a bit.
21 Houston Cougars The Cougs flexed a bit in Manhattan, which they will have to do to succeed by leaning on the second best offense in college football. No, really. They have a good test next week with Okie Lite coming to town.
22 UTSA Roadrunners Again, losing to the longhorns doesn't hurt, and Traylor has stacked up enough wins against smaller teams (most notably #74 South Florida) to find the bottom of the rankings.
23 Ole Miss Rebels The Vandy beating gave Ole MIss just enough credit for their wins of offset the Florida loss, which is looking worse and worse. Ole Miss proves that if you can put up enough points, you can get ranked.
24 Oklahoma Sooners That's how you negate a loss to Michigan. The 72nd best offense in cfb leaned on a top-10 defense and scored just enough to get the win, which is just enough to get ranked.
25 USC Trojans Beating Penn State got the Trojans about half of what they lost in the Oregon defeat, and they get a week off before playing (Good Team) Wisconsin.

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