This man may end up having a better year than you think.

I'm proud to announce (technically, re-announce) that WWAHT will be participating in this year's blogpoll, and trying to follow the general set of guidelines as best as possible. One of the recommendations made to participants by MGoBrian is to vet our ballots with our readers, in order to make sure they aren't quite as jankity as they would otherwise be. Since practice has been uneventful after the chaotic first day and non-fluffy news is hard to come by, I'll reveal the ballot slowly over the coming weeks. First up are numbers 21-25.

Since preseason polls are largely meaningless, I don't have much rationale behind much of the rankings aside from the fact that, generally, this is where I expect the teams to finish at the end of this season. This is not necessarily how "good" I feel a team is heading into the season, if you catch my drift.

21. Iowa

I put the Hawkeyes here because I'm a genuine believer in Ricky Stanzi, and I think a competent quarterback to go with Iowa's typically stellar running game and defense is a recipe for an 8 win season, at the very least. But, the schedule is brutal; they travel to Penn State, MSU, and Ohio State - all winnable games for the plucky bastards from Iowa City, but enough of a rough stretch that I have my doubts.

22. Nebraska

I think Nebraska has found a keeper in former Buckeye safety Bo Pelini, but things aren't going to get much easier in the second year of his regime: Virginia Tech on the road is tough for any team (and will be tough for the Buckeyes when they make the trip down to Blacksburg in 2015), and although Oklahoma and Texas Tech come to Lincoln, splitting the two would be an absolute dream for a team that's still lacking in talent compared to the rest of its league, especially the behemoths from the Big 12 South. Nebraska also needs to find a way to keep within 20 points of rival Missouri, who thoroughly dominated the Huskers in Chase Daniel's final two years.

23. Michigan State

Mark Dantonio has finally transformed Michigan State into a solid, vaguely consistent Big Ten outfit. Success against Ohio State and Penn State is still hard to come by, but this season, they miss the Buckeyes, and they get Michigan in East Lansing. I'm a little worried about having the Spartans this low, however; eyeballing the schedule, there is only one game in which I'd even come close to guaranteeing a loss, and that's against Illinois in Champagne. They also get Penn State in East Lansing to close the season, so it's a bit of an understatement to say that the schedule sets up for a breakout season. In the end, I just don't have enough confidence in a post-Javon Ringer MSU offense to place them any higher than this. But consider yourself warned: these guys have the schedule any dark horse Big Ten championship candidate would die for.

24. Miami (FL)

I put Miami here based on accrued defensive talent alone, and not for Randy Shannon's ability to manage a football game. Shannon is a good coach, one who actually seems to be taking advantage of Miami's massive talent hauls on the defensive side of the ball. Sean Spence was absolutely horrifying as a true freshman; if Miami just fielded him on defense, I think they'd still win five games. However, this is still the Miami we've seen the last couple years  to the outside eye (minus offensive coordinator Patrick Nix, which is a huge, huge plus), and I think we can expect one more year of the same before a big 2010.

25. Notre Dame

Many people are predicting big things for the Irish, and when I can, I remind those people of this:

Under Charlie Weis, Notre Dame can (and in some instances will) lose any game to any opponent. I look at Notre Dame's schedule and I see blah:

Notre Dame will likely be favored in every game but the obvious one, but if it can lose to GERG Robinson-led Syracuse, you're telling me it can't lose to Boston College, Michigan State, Michigan, Navy, Pitt, UConn and Stanford? I don't think it will, of course, otherwise, I wouldn't rank them here. But I simply don't see the Irish rolling in every game except USC; it's gotten to the point with Weis where anything less than three losses, even with seven home games (eight if you count the "neutral site" outing against WSU in Texas, in which the seven-strong WSU Dallas Alumni club will show up, and that's about it), seems like a miracle.

Alright, so if you see any grave injustices in this, the most boring part of the blogpoll, let me know.