WWAHT Blogpoll Ballot Week 9

by Sam @ WWAHT on Nov 2, 2009 10:00 AM EST

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Alabama
2	Texas
3	Florida
4	Oregon	8
5	Iowa
6	TCU	3
7	Cincinnati	1
8	Boise State	1
9	Penn State	1
10	Georgia Tech
11	LSU
12	Pittsburgh	3
13	Houston	3
14	Utah	3
15	Ohio State	3
16	Southern Cal	12
17	Miami (Florida)	2
18	Oklahoma	3
19	Oklahoma State	6
20	Virginia Tech	6
21	California
22	Wisconsin
23	Notre Dame	1
24	Tennessee
25	Brigham Young
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: West Virginia (#20), Mississippi (#22), South Carolina (#23), Central Michigan (#25).

I sorta wish the blogpoll cut off at 24, because I could only find 24 teams that I felt should even be ranked, and even then, past about 15 or so, I had no clue in what order they should be ranked.

Next up, mea culpa: USC is not actually who I thought they were. For whatever reason, what looked like yet another dominant Trojan defense has regressed considerably the past few weeks. I shall no longer assume that USC will dominante the conference as it could be counted on to do for about seven years in a row. They're still very good, but for the first time since Pete Carroll's second year, they are emphatically "just one of the guys", just trying to catch up, get themselves back in the top ten, and hopefully make a BCS game. Jesus, that's a little jarring.

I was quite close to moving Texas up to number one and switching Florida and Bama after doing so, but... I don't want to punish the Tide that much for a bye week, and I don't want to reward Florida and Texas too much for taking care of business against teams with inconsistent, intermittently productive offenses (whose best numbers have come against bad defenses) and sub-par defenses. The top three is static.... for now.

Oh, hello, Oregon. How nice of you to muscle your way into the top 5 by being Chris Brown to USC's Rihanna. (Hey, don't look at me like that, it was either that or an Ike/Tina Turner joke)

Not a whole lot in the way of upsets outside of Eugene, so the only other interesting moves of note come in the 21-25 range. I was a little lost here; I tried to look to the AP poll for help and didn't get much, so I decided to include the following : Tennessee, because they trumped my old #23, Wisconsin, because they totally trucked Purdue in a way Purdue hadn't been trucked yet this year, California, because I've been absolutely brutal in leaving them out of the poll since their loss to what's clearly an excellent Oregon outfit. Brigham Young? Uh, I'm still trying to figure that one out. If you can think of a better #25, I'm all ears, because I don't like having a team that has been rocked by each competent opponent it has played showing up, even here.

I think I've been a bit lazy in recognizing what TCU has accomplished, but I may be overreacting by moving them up 3 spots, over the likes of Boise State, Cincy and Penn State, who all did what they had to against clearly outmatched opponents this past weekend.

Speaking of Cincy, their game against Pitt at Heinz Field should be quite entertaining when it finally rolls around, as it might match an undefeated team with a one-loss squad.

Thoughts? Not my best ballot, but it should be enough to get me not kicked out of the whole poll this week.

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Comments

Sam,

looks pretty good overall. I think one of the teams at the bottom you are missing is 5-2 Arizona. Their resume is better than Cal’s.

Here is my system’s (highly SOS related and penalties for FCS schools) ranking for this week:

1. Florida 8-0, 8.15
2. Texas 8-0, 8.01
3. Alabama 8-0, 7.97
4. Oregon 7-1, 7.93
5. Iowa 9-0, 7.56
6. TCU 8-0, 6.87
7. LSU 7-1, 6.86
8. Cincinnati 8-0, 6.74
9. USC 6-2, 6.66
9. Boise St 8-0, 6.66
11. VA Tech 5-3, 6.52
12. GA Tech 8-1, 6.51
13. Miami 6-2, 6.14
14. Pitt 7-1, 6.08
14. Arizona 5-2, 6.08
16. Utah 7-1, 5.98
17. Notre Dame 6-2, 5.94
17. Troy 6-2, 5.94
19. Houston 7-1, 5.81
20. Wisconsin 6-2, 5.75
21. Okla St 6-2, 5.72
22. Penn St 8-1, 5.71
23. Ohio St 7-2, 5.60
24. West Virginia 6-2, 5.33
25. Cal 6-2, 5.31

Next 5: BYU, Washington, Clemson, Auburn, Ore St.

In my rankings, VA Tech and Troy are too high, and GA Tech, Ohio St and Houston are too low.

by talonk on Nov 2, 2009 11:38 AM EST reply actions

I love the big Oregon and TCU moves actually. It’s not popular to put Oregon ahead of Boise after losing head-to-head, but it’s clearly a different and, in my opinion, a better team. And, as I have said in one of your previous polls, TCU is still underrated. Glad to see you giving them respect.

by wesgd62 on Nov 2, 2009 12:00 PM EST reply actions