My ballot for the AP Top 25 – If they let me have one.
It’s been a while, but I’m back now. Labor Day was a holiday for me too. I have a lot to say about some of the week one games. I’ll touch on some of them here, and I’ll address others later this week.
If the AP Top 25 let me have a ballot, this is how mine would look. It’s a ranking, not a power rating. We finally have some games to go off of now. The games this past week will heavily influence my top 25. Not all wins are created equal, and this list should change drastically over the course of the first few weeks as we all find out who’s actually good and who we just thought was good.
I’ll explain my picks in groups of 5 from 25 to 1. Then, at the bottom, I have a list of 1-40. I went 40 deep to show what my personal “others receiving votes” section would look like.
25-21
25 – Wisconsin
24 – Clemson
23 – TCU
22 – Texas A&M
21 – Oregon State
Wisconsin looked rough in their opener vs. Buffalo. I’ll have more to say tomorrow in Wisco Wednesday, but here’s a stat: Wisconsin Defense – 0 INTs, 0 Forced Fumbles, and 0 sacks… against Buffalo. Not good. I think I might even have them too high at 25, but they did win, and the running game was phenomenal (as per usual).
Clemson and TCU were both losers in monumental upsets. I’m keeping them in the Top 25 with the understanding that Colorado and Duke are just good teams. If Colorado and Duke turn out to not be good teams, it could hurt Clemson and TCU in future rankings.
Texas A&M dominated New Mexico. They have a very high ceiling, but I’m still gun-shy after last year’s 5-7 debacle. They will have plenty of opportunities to move up as the season progresses.
Oregon State fell mostly because other teams moved up. They were good vs. San Jose State, but San Jose State isn’t very good themselves. DJ Uiagalelei looked great. I picked Oregon State to make the Pac-12 title game in the preseason, so it wouldn’t shock me to see them climb the rankings over the season.
20-16
20 – Tulane
19 – Colorado
18 – Oklahoma
17 – Kansas State
16 – Duke
Tulane deserves some credit for beating South Alabama. They were a 10 win team last year and a possible spoiler for Tulane’s NY6 campaign. Tulane’s best opportunity to move up is next week’s matchup vs. Ole Miss.
Colorado is good, possibly great. I was wrong in my week 1 picks when I had Colorado losing by 21+ to TCU. Now, I have no idea where to rank them. Coach Prime, show me more, and you will keep moving up. The Buffs are going to take college football on one hell of a ride this season. Also, Travis Hunter should win the Heisman barring injury. He played WR and CB, both at an elite level. 129 snaps total in 105 degree heat. Absolutely insane.
Oklahoma won 73-0 over a bad Arkansas State team. Kansas State won 45-0 over squints Southeast Missouri State (who you just learned has a D-1 football team). I can’t knock either team for anything, but I don’t want to praise them too much for wins over bad teams. More data is needed.
Duke with the win of the week. I’d say I’m shocked, but I picked them to win in my week 1 preview article. Duke looked like the better team for all 4 quarters, and the 28-7 score reflects that. Honestly, it could’ve been even worse for Clemson. Duke had miscues early that prevented good drives from ending in TDs, instead settling for FGs. And Clemson’s only 7 points came off a muffed punt by Duke. Head coach, Mike Elko, should be the most sought-after HC next offseason with what he’s doing at Duke.
15-11
15 – North Carolina
14 – Texas
13 – LSU
12 – USC
11 – Tennessee
North Carolina had a quality win over South Carolina, and it didn’t require Drake Maye heroics to pull off. The defense looked way better than expected, holding SCAR to only 17 points. Wild Week 1 overreaction: The winner of North Carolina vs. Duke in Week 11 will play Florida State in the ACC title game.
Texas beat Rice. Yay? To quote Josh Pate “Good teams don’t lose to food.” Texas didn’t look amazing, but my rationale is that they were likely looking ahead to Week 2 this whole time. I don’t think people are ready for the Texas is Back hype train that will storm the internet if Sarkisian’s team rolls into Tuscaloosa and leaves with a W.
13th. That’s as high as I can rank a team with a “quality loss” right now. LSU is at 13th. If they don’t like it, start winning games. If the season ended today, they would be winless. It’s a good thing we have a long way to go.
USC fell compared to my preseason top 25. They are on a very short list of teams that are 2-0 (because week 0 is a thing), and that should mean something. Caleb Williams looks amazing and the offense will score 50 every game… but that defense man. USC has played 2 terrible teams; And if you watch the games, the defense still looks like garbage. All offseason we were told it would be a better unit than last year. We may have been sold a bill of goods on that one.
Tennessee, you played a P5 team, and you beat that P5 team. Good job. Too bad Virginia is likely terrible. But kudos to Tennessee for having a good running game. That was a pleasant surprise. QB Joe Milton is still under evaluation and judgment is pending.
10-6
10 – Utah
9 – Oregon
8 – Notre Dame
7 – Alabama
6 – Ohio State
I appreciate Utah for backing my claim that they deserve a top 10 spot in the preseason. They dominated Florida which while being a bad SEC team, is still an SEC team with SEC talent. Utah started their 3rd string QB and rotated to their 4th stringer occasionally. It didn’t matter. Utah was just better.
Oregon scored 81 vs. Portland State. That’s pretty cool.
Notre Dame’s offense with transfer QB Sam Hartman looks way better than I or most of the media expected. They were 20 point favorites over Navy and blasted them 42-3. Notre Dame can actually score now. I regret predicting them to go 9-3, this seems like a 10+ win team – easily.
I doubt Bama. So, I place them at 7. That’s the lowest that logic will allow me to place a team with Nick Saban as head coach. But, if I’m right and the losses start coming, expect Alabama to start falling. A win over Middle Tennessee State by 49 does not impress me. Let’s see Bama play real competition.
Disclaimer: A “bad” Alabama team is 9-3. That is obviously still a good record for most of the country.
Ohio State looked bad against Indiana. And Indiana is bad. OSU didn’t even have a TD pass, in the entire game. Still, it’s a P5 win, and the defense was lights out. And I would take them over Alabama today.
Top 5
5 – Washington
4 – Penn State
3 – Michigan
2 – Georgia
1 – Florida State
Just looking at the top 5, it’s split into 2 categories.
Teams with quality wins.
Teams relying on last year’s success.
Georgia and Michigan are getting the benefit of the doubt based on how good they were last year. They played nobodies and won big. We won’t have much to evaluate for these 2 for a few more weeks.
Washington crushed a really good Boise State team 56-19. Penix Jr. looks like he’s more than capable of challenging Caleb Williams for the Heisman. I don’t care that Boise State is a G5, that was a quality win (definitely more quality than skating past Indiana)
Penn State beat an okay, possibly bad, West Virginia team by 23. But that is not the main takeaway. QB Drew Allar was a stud. It’s only a 1 game sample size, but he looks good enough to elevate PSU into the elite tier of college football.
Florida State is #1
If you only look at this year. Florida State has to be #1. They have the best win, and it’s not even close. They blew out a quality LSU squad that is very much in the SEC West division race. Although we are still relying on last year for context (last year is propping up Michigan, Georgia, USC, and many others), but that benefits FSU too. They were great in 2022 and returned rockstar QB Jordan Travis. There’s a long season ahead, but today FSU is #1.
Top 40
Below is my top 40, I will not elaborate on teams outside the top 25.
1 – Florida State
2 – Georgia
3 – Michigan
4 – Penn State
5 – Washington
6 – Ohio State
7 – Alabama
8 – Notre Dame
9 – Oregon
10 – Utah
11 – Tennessee
12 – USC
13 – LSU
14 – Texas
15 – North Carolina
16 – Duke
17 – Kansas State
18 – Oklahoma
19 – Colorado
20 – Tulane
21 – Oregon State
22 – Texas A&M
23 – TCU
24 – Clemson
25 – Wisconsin
26 – Kentucky
27 – UCF
28 – Minnesota
29 – Miami
30 – UCLA
31 – Ole Miss
32 – Maryland
33 – Pitt
34 – Illinois
35 – South Carolina
36 – Louisville
37 – NC State
38 – Iowa
39 – Nebraska
40 – Arkansas
Want more Walk On Fan?
Check out our series where we predicted the top 3 CFB games to watch each week this fall. Start with week 2 here!
Follow us on Twitter (or X) to get updates when we are posting.
This article was written by Cole Tollison and edited by Hayden Breene