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AJ_CC Ballot for 2026 Week 7

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 12, 2026, 12:34 p.m.

Overall Rationale: Tough week, I did a bit of a step by step rerank, because I feel like we're at the point in the season where I need to throw out some pre-conceived biases from the pre-season.

Georgia, Indiana, Texas Tech. I found Georgia and Indiana's road wins this week to be extremely similar leading to me doing a bit of a straight up resume comparison between for the number 1 spot. But in that process I realized that those wins reminded me of Texas Tech's win over Houston, and I started comparing all three teams to each other. I strive to rank teams based off of what I think they've accomplish/performed, less so what I think they'll do in the future. Did my biases put Georgia and Indiana in a different tier, or was that something they earned on the field? On a closer look I felt like I had more similar resume between these 3 teams than I original thought and all three of them had better wins than other undefeated team so they became my 1,2,3.

Miami, BYU, Notre Dame: I feel like some teams have benefited from wins over schools that we thought were good but didn't actually end up being good, but these teams have wins over schools that we thought were bad that actually starting to look pretty impressive. Still not entirely sold on Wisconsin, but have been very impressed by Wake Forrest's recent results and Arizona's as well and that's enough to give Miami and BYU just a very slight edge over Notre Dame, though this is honestly a coin flip for me between all three teams. That Notre Dame-BYU game will give the winner I think that big resume win that Georgia, Indiana and Tech have at the moment though.

Texas, Alabama, Ohio State. That OU loss was a mess, but I still think Texas has the best win in the country of any team with their victory over Ohio State. Ultimately I put just more value in Alabama's blowout win over Mississippi State and Kentucky than Ohio State's blowout win over Iowa. Two more teams that I think are basically a coin flip at this point.

UCLA, Utah. Our last 2 P4 undefeates both look very strong but don't quite have that signature win. While UCLA's win over Oregon could arguably put them in that second tier, it's loses a little luster as a result of Oregon playing their backup QB, and I ultimately just preferred BYU's total body of work.

Nebraska, Houston, OK State, USC-So this is where re-ranks start getting weird if you look at my poll last week. I know the joke about the quality loss, but after looking at their resumeI think this is where my preconceived notions around Nebraska kind of had them a few spots lower than they probably should've been heading into last week. They could be in that slightly higher 1 loss tier, but just need kind of that signature win that the other 3 have. Similar deal with Houston who on reflection I feel look stronger than I originally thought. Mestmaker is looking like perhaps the best QB in the country at the moment, and OK State has the best win of this group, but by far the ugliest loss. Even if they look improved that's an albatross, but they still beat a Dante Moore led Oregon team that USC lost to, so they get the benefit of that data point comparison to be above the Trojans.

Northwestern, Arizona, Wake Forrest, Mississippi State, Missouri-these are 4 schools that I think kind of played into and against my preconceived notions in previous rankings. I thought Florida was good, which made Missouri's blow to win over them impressive, and Mississippi State's victory over Missouri even more impressive. But after seeing Florida get blown out by South Carolina, it's a game that no longer really feels like a resume booster for the Tigers. Still like Northwestern, Wake Forrest and Arizona, they're winning games in big ways against decent opposition and Mississippi Sate H2H still has a lot of a value. Margins between these 5 were slim but ultimately I thought Wake Forrest and Arizona looked better against Miami and BYU than Mississippi State did against Alabama and that ended up being the difference maker between these 4.

Iowa, Kentucky-both these schools have tight wins over big brands, though the extent to which those games are valuable resume builders is still up in the air. These also have blowout losses to top ten teams even if they played those games somewhat competitively in the first half. There's enough there to give these teams some benefit of the doubt, but they both need a little bit more to punch into the tier above them.

James Madison, Oregon, Boise State, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, SMU, LSU, Duke, Memphis-You'll notice a lot of teams here in the rankings as these were the schools that I considered for the final three spots. In order of thought process not team rankings here we go. Ole Miss....they were a pre-season top ten team for me. They beat a team I had ranked in the top ten at time and another team I had in my pre-season top 20. Based off of my preconceived notions this should still be a top ten team. But that last second 3 point win over Louisville is a lot less impressive when Louisville a .500 team not ACC contenders. That win over LSU looks a lot less impressive when LSU doesn't have a signature win of their own. And more importantly that Florida loss is absolutely horrific. I couldn't justify putting in Florida after back to back blowout losses including one to a sub .500 school, so I couldn't really justify including the team that the Gators blew out. Wisconsin and Tennessee could arguably be in that Iowa, Kentucky group, but while Tennessee's loss was the most justifiable of those 4, their wins have been the least impressive putting them as my 26th team, while Wisconsin lacks a win over a team with a winning record. SMU, Duke, Pitt's losses are just a little too underwhelming without a good enough win and Memphis is behind a team they lost to comfortably. James Madison doesn't have a good win, but with everything that can go wrong in a football game, being undefeated is accomplishment in it of itself. Oregon does have 2 losses, but both are pretty reasonable and they have two good wins over Boise and USC. Boise's loss is stomacble and their wins over Memphis and Fresno State, just enough to give them the final spot.

Though I would like the record to show that these margins are extremely slim and I could justify a case (and did go back and forth several times) on any of the teams in that final group.

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