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rob_bot13 Ballot for 2026 Week 9

Ballot Type: Hybrid

Submitted: Oct. 25, 2026, 2:09 p.m.

Overall Rationale: I use a margin of victory ELO system that I hybridize with human rankings to promote stability. ELO is fundamentally a resume based stat, but because it cares a lot about margin of victory it can be noisy in terms of teams that beat up on bad teams. It is on my todo list to add garbage time filtering and a pace adjustment. The helps to not over react to computer noise while also having less inertia than purely human polls. 1500 is used as the value for an average FBS team (currently 64th rated Tulane is at 1498 as an example). Anything above ~1750 is a national title contender, ~1600 usually gets you into the top 25. Dividing the difference of 2 ratings by 12 gives an approximation of a Vegas line at a neutral site.

Rank Team Reason
1 Miami Hurricanes 1794 points. Miami kicking the crap out of ACC teams is doing little to move them up, but everyone else keeps losing so here we are.
2 Ohio State Buckeyes 1784 points. I currently don't have any manual adjustments in for injuries, but will be interested how some of these hurt QB teams shake out.
3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 1773 points. They got almost 0 penalty for a toss up game against BYU last week.
4 LSU Tigers 1765 points. The ELO system has them as number one by a lot (1828 points). It likes that they have abused good teams several times. Currently thinks they should be ~12 point favorites against Alabama in 2 weeks.
5 Georgia Bulldogs 1763 points.
6 UCLA Bruins 1748 points. I think the good but confusing B1G teams might be better than the larger group of good but confusing SEC teams but it sure is hard to tell.
7 Indiana Hoosiers 1737 points. See above
8 Wake Forest Demon Deacons 1735 points. Wake's wins continue to age well and their loss has too. I think they are criminally under-ranked in the AP poll but this might be a smidge high.
9 Alabama Crimson Tide 1727 points. Does anyone know what to do with the morass of good not great SEC teams? You could arrange Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, & Kentucky in any order and I wouldn't blame you. My system definitely thinks LSU deserves to be separated from that group but who knows.
10 Ole Miss Rebels 1720 points. See Alabama
11 Utah Utes 1713 points. The lone survivor of a bloody week in the Big12, Utah lost a lot in ELO last week when they struggled with Colorado. They certainly are still in the drivers seat for the conference though.
12 Texas Longhorns 1701 points. See Alabama
13 Kentucky Wildcats 1700 points. See Alabama
14 Tennessee Volunteers 1696 points. See Alabama
15 BYU Cougars 1694 points. One of the larger drops in ELO of any of the power 4 teams (-57), they still managed to be outdone on that front by Texas Tech (-86). Everything still to play for though.
16 Arizona Wildcats 1676 points. It remains crazy to me that this team is struggling to make the top 25 in the AP poll. I think they are well positioned to snag a playoff spot if they can win 1 of Texas Tech or Arizona.
17 Missouri Tigers 1650 points. From here on it is a total morass. I plan to tinker with the preseason rankings a bit more next year because I think the talent composite stuff is contributing to Missouri being this high, though they are very close on points to the teams behind them.
18 Northwestern Wildcats 1648 points.
19 Oklahoma State Cowboys 1647 points
20 Boise State Broncos 1643 points. The top G6 team in the ranking, though the ELO system has Oregon state ahead of them. That game is looking like a playoff play in game.
21 Texas Tech Red Raiders 1642 points
22 Wisconsin Badgers 1641 points.
23 South Carolina Gamecocks 1641 points. Is South Carolina good? Should UGA be scared? They certainly are getting a lot of credit for winning the games they have won though. This is definitely the most irregular team on the ballot, and probably indicative of the same effect that Missouri is experiencing. Florida and Auburn also are higher than I would prefer.
24 Houston Cougars 1641 points.
25 Nebraska Cornhuskers 1637 points. Just outside the ranking: Florida (1637), SMU (1632), Oregon State (1621), Auburn (1617), & Louisville (1611)

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