Rank | Team | Delta |
---|---|---|
1 | Florida | |
2 | Texas | |
3 | Alabama | 2 |
4 | Southern Cal | |
5 | Oklahoma State | 11 |
6 | California | 7 |
7 | Penn State | 1 |
8 | Brigham Young | 9 |
9 | Mississippi | |
10 | Boise State | 1 |
11 | LSU | 1 |
12 | Georgia Tech | 2 |
13 | TCU | 1 |
14 | Ohio State | 6 |
15 | Missouri | 6 |
16 | Nebraska | 6 |
17 | Oklahoma | 14 |
18 | Virginia Tech | 11 |
19 | Notre Dame | 4 |
20 | Miami (Florida) | |
21 | North Carolina | 4 |
22 | Oregon State | |
23 | Pittsburgh | |
24 | Florida State | |
25 | Navy | |
Last week's ballot |
That's right, it's that time of year where you tell me where I'm completely wrong about where I've ranked teams. For those of you who don't know, Double-T Nation has been asked, my second year, to participate in the BlogPoll. For those of you not familiar with the concept then check out MGoBlog BlogPoll (who is in charge of all of this stuff) with succinct definition:
It's basically the AP poll except with bloggers.
It's that easy.
Make sure and read the BlogPoll Voting Philosophy and Rock M Nation's summary of different voting philosophies. Obviously, there's quite a bit of disparity between theories, and the nice thing about the BlogPoll is that it's all transparent and it's somewhat understood that there will be biases because we're all human.
It happens.
But I need you! Yes, I need your comments to tell me where I've gone wrong and where I've gone right. Given enough encouragement and comments, I'll make the change on each week's BlogPoll ballot.
Flimsy Rationale:
Dropped Out: Oregon (#15), Georgia (#18), Iowa (#19), Texas Tech (#20).
1-5: The Alabama offense looks better than expected and they beat a quality opponent in Virginia Tech. The rest move up because of Oklahoma's loss and I may have severely underrated Oklahoma St.
6-10: All of these teams won and won nicely, especially BYU. California throttled Maryland, Penn St. won easily and Mississippi struggled early, but they still ended up blowing out Memphis.
11-15: I picked Missouri to be the Big 12 North champions and this week, that's looking like an outstanding pick. TCU was idle and Ohio St. didn't look great in a close win against Navy, but I think that's because Navy is a quality team. The same could be said for LSU in that Washington looks to be a better team than what some may have thought.
16-20: I struggled what to do with Oklahoma and Virginia Tech. The other teams in this grouping all won fairly easily. I don't like Notre Dame either, but they also won convincingly against a Nevada team that I thought would at least score. Maybe they are turning the corner.
21-25: I'm not real sure what to think about Oregon St. as their win over Portland state is similar to Texas Tech's. Portland St. cannot be as bad of a team as UND, which is why they get in the poll. I could also be convinced that teams like Georgia, despite the loss, and Iowa and Texas Tech should be here because they won albeit unconvincingly. Pitt also won fairly easily against an inferior opponent. As always, the last five are always the toughest for me and Navy gets a vote because I watched that game and they deserve some love.
Why Texas Tech is Left Off: Before I get a ton of comments as to why I voted the way that I did, is that of the teams that played inferior opponents in the bottom 8 to 5 teams, is that those teams did not allow a touchdown and had a greater margin of victory that Texas Tech. Texas Tech needs to earn the right to be in the top 25 and even teams with one loss, like Virginia Tech and OU, I think those teams deserve credit for playing tough opponents and playing relatively close. Virginia Tech was a stretch because they lost by 10 but I think that Alabama is that good.