blogpoll ballots

Blogpoll Ballot Week 9 Comment Count

Brian

[ED: No podcast this week since there is no game to talk about.]

The no deltas of shame for me as I forgot to submit a ballot last week:

Teams of interest:

OBVIOUS AT THE TOP. Draw lots between the SEC teams, and Stanford for the top 3, with Oklahoma State and Clemson hot on their heels and Boise State hanging out waiting for everyone to lose twice. Then it's the two one-loss juggernauts.

ARKANSAS. I don't like having them up there, but they beat A&M who beat Texas Tech who beat Oklahoma and their only loss is to Alabama and they put it on Auburn, I guess. They've got a better resume than Kansas State and the various Big Ten teams thanks to an extremely understandable loss. Speaking of…

BIG TEN MESS. I had no idea what to do with the many, many one-loss Big Ten teams. I eventually settled on MSU—has beaten two of the other one-loss Big Ten teams—as the top one and gritted the teeth to put Wisconsin above Nebraska since Nebraska's one loss is to Wisconsin; Nebraska has the advantage of having played more than one actual foe, but 48-17 is not something you can overlook.

Penn State somehow sits between the two. I don't know how they're doing it but they are. Rob Bolden will transfer by Wednesday and a top 20 team will have a walk-on and nobody else at QB.

Michigan slots in below that mess due to a lack of quality wins. Notre Dame shot itself in the head again, their Big Ten victims are 0-fer the conference so far, and past that it's directional Michigans and San Diego State. Does anyone else feel like Glen Mason-era Minnesota?

Oh, and Illinois. Yeah. So they do still have a win over Arizona State and when you get to that #25 spot pickings are even thinner this year because there aren't any mid-major sorts worth throwing in there (other than Boise, which does not count as a team you want to chuck in at the end of your ballot).

As always, call me an idiot in the comments.

Comments

AAB

October 24th, 2011 at 11:26 AM ^

Losing to Texas Tech at home in a game that never really felt that close seems worse than, say, Oregon losing to an awesome LSU team.  

edit: aaaand the ballot already has Oklahoma ranked below Oregon.  Apparently I'm drunk.  Anyway, I'd still hammer Oklahoma more for that loss.  It was a really, really bad one.  

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zlionsfan

October 24th, 2011 at 11:32 AM ^

Houston was not the team that made Purdue look a) like a legitimate football team for 30 minutes and b) prescient for scheduling Illinois for homecoming. And that was the week after making Ohio State look like it had an actual offense. I don't know if that is justification for putting Houston 25th, but someone has to go there, and I don't feel that Illinois is a top-25 team right now.

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Hardware Sushi

October 24th, 2011 at 11:34 AM ^

I'm still not buying Arkansas. When Penn State(!) did better than you against Alabama, you aren't really that good.

Then again, look at Penn State back up there in the rankings, soooo......

Idiot.

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joeyb

October 24th, 2011 at 11:46 AM ^

Well, MSU @ Nebraska and Illinois @ PSU should help you out a bit next week. If Michigan doesn't blow Purdue out of the water, that should help, as would Wisconsin losing to OSU.

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BiSB

October 24th, 2011 at 11:51 AM ^

They've lost to Ohio State and Purdue (!), and they beat Northwestern and Western Michigan (!!) by three points each.

How long does one quality win kepe them in the poll?

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Logan88

October 24th, 2011 at 10:30 PM ^

RE Illinois: Brian loves him some read-option offense, yo!

Why does UM's weak schedule keep them down while PSU's weak schedule is ignored, espcially considering that PSU has won several of their games in squeakers? UM's wins are by 4, 18, 21, 24, 28 and 58. PSU's wins are by 4, 5, 6, 10, 10, 28 and 34 and those narrow wins were not against good opponents (Temple, Purdue and Indiana). UM should be ahead of PSU.

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CompleteLunacy

October 24th, 2011 at 12:01 PM ^

when you get to that #25 spot pickings are even thinner this year because there aren't any mid-major sorts worth throwing in there
What about Houston? Yeah yeah I know, they haven't played anybody yet (a win over UCLA isn't exactly a key victory...neither is a 1-point squeeker against Louisiana tech). But, they are still 7-0, and they've mostly beaten everyone by wide margins. And they still have Case Keenum, who we know is a pretty darn good passer and who had 6 passing TDs last game. In any event, the question comes down to is Houston better than Illinois? Illinois has one key victory but 2 bad defeats. Houston may not have any key victories, but they at least haven't been badly beaten yet by a ho-hum team.

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Lionsfan

October 24th, 2011 at 12:04 PM ^

The only thing I have to disagree with, is not having Houston at 25. At this point in the year I definitely have no qualms about saying they would beat Illinois and probably a few other teams on the list too

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Needs

October 24th, 2011 at 12:36 PM ^

They should be in that conversation. Stanford has the best QB in college football and has won 10 straight games by more than 25 points. There are quality of competition questions in this year's portion of that streak, sure, but no one's done that since 1936!

And they might just have the best o-line in the nation too. They put up 446 rushing yards against Washington, who had looked decent to this point, and at least 3 of the linemen are expected to be picked in the upper half of the draft.

Their defense is more of a question, but they'll be challenged the next few games, against USC, Oregon and ND. Unfortunately for them, they're likely to face a pretty mediocre ASU team in the championship game, but if they win out, they should be the frontrunner to face the Alabama/LSU winner. 

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BlueTimesTwo

October 24th, 2011 at 2:54 PM ^

I don't understand the BSU hatred.  Yeah, they don't play in a top conference, but they are a very good team, even beyond Kellen Moore.  They shut down Georgia, and have blown out everybody but Air Force (which was mostly just a sloppy, injury-plagued game).  Their competition is not exactly comparable to that of SEC teams, but they are constantly trying to improve their strength of schedule.  They have shown that they will play anybody anywhere, and when they tried to upgrade their conference the new conference subsequently lost some of its best teams.  You can't blame them for trying.

A Michigan fan hating them for not having an elite stadium and a century of football tradition is like having a trust-fund baby hate the kid working multiple jobs to put himself through school.  They are doing the best they can with the hand that they were dealt, and have consistently over-achieved in the process.

If, on the other hand, you are jealous of an offense that makes passing the ball look effortless, then I am with you.

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JeepinBen

October 24th, 2011 at 3:30 PM ^

because they play 1 real game a season. If they really wanted to "play with the big boys" they would. They'd join a real conference (Like the Big 12 doesn't need some new good teams?) and have more than 1 non-body-bag game a year. Yeah, they beat Georgia and Air Force. Those are the best 2 teams they'll face.

By my count AF will be the 7th best team we face next year. Not 2nd:

1. Bama 2-5 in some order: ND, OSU, State, Neb 6. Ill...

And that's if AF is better than Purdue.Play more than 1 BCS AQ team a year and I'll take Boise's success seriously. 

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BlueTimesTwo

October 25th, 2011 at 1:30 PM ^

Is the Big 12 going to accept a team with a 35,000 seat stadium and whose other sports are not on the level of the Big 12?  There is a difference between saying that they don't deserve to play in the NC and saying that their team is no good because they don't have a great schedule.  You can think that they play a crappy schedule and still believe that they are a good team.  The fact that they have ruined the seasons of teams like Oregon, VT and Georgia early in recent seasons (and won bowl games over teams like Oklahoma and TCU) is precisely why teams don't want to play them.  They are not invited to play in a Big Boy conference because they don't have the facilities and the money to throw around (I think they are trying to expand the stadium to about 50K), and most BCS teams don't want to start the season with a loss, so they don't get too many non-conference bigshots either.  Basically they perform well every time that they get on the big stage, but the BCS teams would prefer to ignore them until they have a down year so that they can say that they were pretenders all along.

If they go undefeated this year and generally win convincingly, they should be rewarded with a BCS game against a BCS team.  At least give them a shot before writing them off.

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Yeoman

October 25th, 2011 at 12:52 AM ^

...Air Force is the 7th best opponent on Boise's schedule this year (Ed.: I've added the Sagarin predictor ranking after the /):

  • 15/13 Georgia
  • 32/16 TCU
  • 37/30 Toledo
  • 43/42 Nevada
  • 46/53 Tulsa
  • 53/51 San Diego St.
  • 73/56 Air Force

I don't know about the rest but I have no doubt that TCU and Toledo are better than AFA.

Boise's full schedule ranks 45th, which would put it about in the middle of the B1G. (No, I didn't expect that either.)

 

 

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StephenRKass

October 25th, 2011 at 9:36 AM ^

Boise has been extremely clear they will schedule games on the road without a return game. Michigan won't touch them like the plague. Even though the fans would rather see Boise than Baby Seal U, Michigan schedules gimmes (like Appy State?) rather than face a Boise State. They're more than willing to "play with the Big Boys." And no conferences are ecstatic about having Boise join in. Because of the size of their stadium, and the physical distance from most places, (and the exorbitant travel cost to fly,) no one wants to go there. You can hate on Boise. No one controls your emotions but you. But don't suggest that they want to load up on snacky cakes. That's more the province of Wisconsin et al, including Michigan, when they schedule Delaware State.

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WolvinLA2

October 24th, 2011 at 2:26 PM ^

Comparing Iowa and Illinois, both have two losses, although I would argue ISU and PSU are better than Purdue and OSU, and the Iowa State game went into OT. Pitt probably isn't as good as ASU in terms of OOC wins, but their resumes are close. I would argue Iowa looks like the better team at this point.

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Yeoman

October 24th, 2011 at 4:23 PM ^

...and then not list anyway:

The Sagarin predictor has TCU at #16. I'm surprised they're that high with no quality wins and a loss to SMU but they are scoring over 40 per game and I don't think the predictor should be ignored.

I'm also going to toss Toledo out there as a mid-major team of interest. They got jobbed at Syracuse (that was the OT game with the missed extra point that replay inexplicably failed to overturn) and their other losses are to Boise and by 5 at Ohio St. The Sagarin predictor now has them at #30, ahead of Houston (and every other mid major except Boise and TCU).

 

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