Back to poll results >>

_THE__BOULDER_ Ballot for 2026 Week 10

Ballot Type: Human

Submitted: Nov. 1, 2026, 12:51 p.m.

Overall Rationale: CFB has been so damn weird this year that the chaos hurts my brain when I'm trying to fill these rankings out. Anyway, these are my personal takes. I combine my thoughts on the individual games and the eye test, as well as trying to take SOS, SOR, and SP+ into account. Biased towards the Florida Gators.

We've gotten to the point where I have to start ranking 3-loss teams so, to be honest, anything after 20th place is fair game and you could pretty much argue for and have me agree with you.

Changes from Last Week

Teams In:
Iowa
South Carolina
USC
Louisville

Teams Out:
Florida
Cincinnati
Wisconsin
Oklahoma State

Rank Team Reason
1 Miami Hurricanes Tough win in Chapel Hill. I do think UNC is the best 4-4 team I can think of at the moment. Miami's inability to separate themselves in 2 of the last 3 games and dominate teams that they are much better than talent-wise does have me wondering if they will get got eventually. Next game is against ND and that one is in Notre Dame Stadium. That one should be interesting. If Miami beats them, there's no one else on the schedule that should challenge them but we'll see.
2 Utah Utes Dominant win over Cincy. A lot of teams have faltered after a big win, and I was wondering if Utah would do the same after beating Houston, but they won emphatically.
3 Georgia Bulldogs I hate this team.
4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish ND played around a bit and Navy went up early, but then ND came back and won in a pretty dominant fashion. They seemed to have a tad more trouble early than they have other recent Navy games under Freeman's tenure but ultimately they won. Hosting Miami this weekend.
5 Indiana Hoosiers They get credit for winning and I don't think Minnesota is bad but they only moved up from 6th place last week because OSU lost badly and dropped.
6 UCLA Bruins They dominated Nevada as they should. Still unsure of how to handle this team because they're getting it done but they're not very convincing imo. Let's see how they do against at Minnesota.
7 Kentucky Wildcats Bye
8 BYU Cougars This game against Arizona State was much closer than it should have been for BYU imo, but BYU did win so props I guess.
9 Texas Tech Red Raiders Good win in an entertaining game against Arizona. TTU did not have it easy in this one and did trail for good chunks of the game before ultimately pulling ahead and away during and after the 3rd quarter.
10 Alabama Crimson Tide Bye
11 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Dominant win over UVA.
12 Ohio State Buckeyes I know Sayin is out but God damn. This normally astounding defense was carved up and OSU was never in the game. I mean, a screen pass that went 69 yards on the 2nd play of the game is just crazy work.
13 Houston Cougars Bye
14 Tennessee Volunteers Bye
15 Texas Longhorns Dominant win over a Miss St that doesn't have Kemario for the rest of the season. Unfortunately not much to take from this.
16 Ole Miss Rebels Dominant win hosting Auburn. They host Georgia next.
17 LSU Tigers Bye
18 Missouri Tigers Dominant win over Arky. They host Texas next.
19 Arizona Wildcats Loss in a tough game at TTU. Arizona looked good and led for chunks of the game but ultimately came up short.
20 Iowa Hawkeyes Iowa previously dropped from the rankings (for the last week before returning) due to getting out-Iowa'd. This weekend they absolutely destroyed Wisconsin. Even my Iowan friends are not entirely sure where this came from but it was a good win and puts Iowa back into the rankings.
21 Northwestern Wildcats Last week I had Northwestern at 15. They now move down due to the loss to Oregon. Unfortunately for NW, they have a bit of a gauntlet on their schedule, playing Iowa, OSU, and Minnesota in the next 3 weeks. Curious to see how they'll manage but they're not out of the rankings yet for me.
22 USC Trojans I mean I know Sayin was out but I gotta give USC props here. I've been pretty hard on them all year and they dropped out of my rankings weeks ago. I won't claim this is a turnaround but it was impressive against a normally stout defense.
23 South Carolina Gamecocks At this point I think South Carolina is much better than we gave them credit for early in the season. Or, at least, they're better than I gave them credit for and have been getting into form. Oklahoma's defense is no slouch and South Carolina scored 45 on them. This was an offensive performance and SCAR did very well to bounce back after Sellers threw a pick 6 allowing Oklahoma to tie it up early in the 2nd quarter. This is South Carolina's 3rd straight win. I'm curious to see if they keep it up. Their next two games are very winnable - TAMU and Arkansas. They do play UGA in 3 weeks but then face Clemson after Thanksgiving. Of those games, 3 of 4 are very winnable and I wouldn't be upset to see them go the distance.
24 Boise State Broncos Won by 1 point at home. Boise was actually down late in the 4th, took the lead with a touchdown but missed the 2 point conversion to go up 3, and then stuck it out for the win. Have not been particularly impressed with Boise in the weeks since the Oregon loss. They have not been as dominant as I feel we are used to and I am curious to see if they get got by the end of the year. Oregon State did just lose but Boise does host them in 2 weeks. For now, though, they will be traveling to Colorado St.
25 Louisville Cardinals After weeks being left out, Louisville has finally battled their way back in after a dominant win over Stanford. To be honest, you could easily convince me to put another 5-3 team here, but Louisville has talent and, despite their struggles, I don't think they should be ignored.

Back to poll results >>