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Jakesnake42 Ballot for 2026 Week 8

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Oct. 18, 2026, 1:31 p.m.

Overall Rationale: We are halfway through the regular season now which means I believe we have enough datapoints to go for an entirely resume based ranking. Overall Record, SOS, Quality Wins, and who you lost to are going to be what factor in here. It is better imo to have a higher ceiling and a lower floor aka beat top teams and get upset vs being a low ceiling team aka beat all the bad teams but don't have any quality wins. That'll hurt your ND and Indiana types who have a close loss to a top team but no real wins to back up their resume.

Rank Team Reason
1 BYU Cougars Undefeated along with a pair of ranked wins over ND and Arizona gives BYU the best resume in the country.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes Great pair of road wins at Indiana and Iowa gives Ohio St a case for #1 even with the loss to Texas but I'll defer to the undefeated team who also has a pair of good wins.
3 Miami Hurricanes Miami "survives" FSU to keep them undefeated along with a win over an increasing good looking Wake Forest team.
4 Texas Tech Red Raiders Very similar resume to Miami with one true top win over Houston. Could go either way but like Miami's depth slightly more
5 Tennessee Volunteers Pair of good top wins over the state of Alabama has Tennessee round out the top 5. Close loss to Texas doesn't do a lot of damage.
6 UCLA Bruins Undefeated with a good top win over Oregon. Not much depth after that.
7 Georgia Bulldogs Great win @ Alabama does a ton for this resume, don't think the Auburn loss is as damaging as some might think.
8 Utah Utes Clearly the worst resume of the undefeated P4 teams....their best win is ?? Anyways won't put them below a 2 loss team yet.
9 Alabama Crimson Tide Dominant wins over Miss St and especially Kentucky makes Bama the highest ranked 2 loss team as the teams they've lost to the last 2 weeks are both in the Top 7.
10 Kentucky Wildcats That successful two point conversion vs LSU is what has Kentucky this highly ranked but I can't ignore Alabama putting BTA sadly.
11 Florida Gators Most confusing resume in ball? Demolish Ole Miss and beat Texas and Auburn then get blown out by Missouri and SCar...as I said at the jump give me the quality wins.
12 Ole Miss Rebels Pair of good wins over LSU and Missouri keeps them very high up in the rankings. The margin of the Florida loss does drop them multiple spots in the rankings.
13 Texas Longhorns ELITE wins over Ohio St and Tennessee but 2 losses....Florida is fine but OU is...less so.
14 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Welcome back to the 1 quality loss resume teams. When you are debating UNC or Wisconsin as your best win it isn't great
15 Indiana Hoosiers Tough to decide between ND and Indiana, Indiana has slightly better wins over NU and Nebraska, ND has the better loss, predictive metrics do lean slightly towards ND so we'll go that direction as the tiebreaker.
16 Houston Cougars Good win over OkSt this week makes this resume look solid. ALSO has one of the few quality losses.
17 Oregon Ducks Wins over Boise St, USC, and Nebraska is a great foundation. Common opponent loss to OkSt when comparing to Houston.
18 Arizona Wildcats Only loss to BYU, solid blowout win over Cincinnati gives this resume some weight.
19 Auburn Tigers Elite win @ Georgia makes this a top 25 worthy team when their losses are both against Top 15 teams.
20 LSU Tigers Demolishing Miss St does a lot of work to make this a resume worth ranking. Both losses ALSO against Top 15 teams
21 Boise State Broncos Class of the G6 atm, wins over Memphis and WMU, only loss a close one against Oregon.
22 Wake Forest Demon Deacons A second ranked ACC team! Do they have quality wins? No. Have they at least looked the part of a dominant team...yes. Loss to Miami was close-ish at least.
23 James Madison Dukes The other true G6 contender, win over Liberty....exist? It's better than nothing I suppose.
24 Iowa Hawkeyes Another team with nothing resembling a quality win. Only loss to Ohio St...walking off Michigan is doing work here huh?
25 Northwestern Wildcats Final ranked team falls in the same category as many others here, close loss to a better team but no standout wins to speak of.

Also Considered: USC, Miss St, Missouri, SMU

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