Blogpoll Draft Ballot Week 5
MGoBlog Ballot - Week 5
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | -- |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -- |
| 3 | Boise St. Broncos |  3 |
| 4 | Oregon Ducks |  -1 |
| 5 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
| 6 | TCU Horned Frogs | -2 |
| 7 | Stanford Cardinal | 7 |
| 8 | Wisconsin Badgers | 1 |
| 9 | Oklahoma Sooners | -2 |
| 10 | Auburn Tigers | 3 |
| 11 | LSU Tigers | 4 |
| 12 | Arizona Wildcats | -2 |
| 13 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -1 |
| 14 | Florida Gators | -3 |
| 15 | Miami Hurricanes | 3 |
| 16 | N.C. State Wolfpack | -- |
| 17 | Nevada Wolf Pack | 7 |
| 18 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | -- |
| 19 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -3 |
| 20 | Michigan Wolverines | 1 |
| 21 | Iowa Hawkeyes | -2 |
| 22 | USC Trojans | -- |
| 23 | Michigan St. Spartans | -1 |
| 24 | Texas Longhorns | -16 |
| 25 | Northwestern Wildcats | -- |
| Dropouts: Utah Utes, West Virginia Mountaineers, Penn St. Nittany Lions, Air Force Falcons | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
Pretty straightforward this week. I might have been a little overly schizophrenic in the middle section, so steer me right if that's the case.
Since this is a resume poll, and we'll have five data points for most teams next week, I intend to move to a full-resume ballot next week, with a resume chart to back up my rankings.
September 27th, 2010 at 8:44 AM ^
I realize that UCLA has been schizophrenic this year, but I have a problem with Texas being in the poll and not having UCLA. Texas really only has a win over a meh Texas Tech. UCLA's blow out to Standford doesn't look quite so bad now with Stanford on a tear. I'd say both of them should be out of the poll.
September 27th, 2010 at 8:50 AM ^
And both losses were bad. If they keep winning they can be ranked, but I don't think they deserve it at this point.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:03 AM ^
He wasn't saying that UCLA should be in. He was talking about having Texas in, when they haven' really beaten anyone, and got waxed by UCLA.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:01 AM ^
Don't know how bad their loss to K State was. I recall UCLA missing a 2-point conversion to tie in the last minutes and then K State breaking a long run for the final margin. And at any rate, K State is one of those teams we don't really know much about.
EDIT: Which is not to say they should be ranked. Just thhat they've been competitive against decent competition, other than Stanford, whose obliteration is a further point in Stanford's favor.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:06 AM ^
You should also remember that UCLA's 4 opponents up to this point have a combined record of 14-2, and those 2 losses were both at the hands of UCLA.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:50 AM ^
+1 on not including a team that lost 34-12 at home to UCLA, who in turn has a 35-0 home loss on their resume.
Texas needs to prove something before they get reranked.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:08 AM ^
I agree. I said before the season that I didn't think that Texas was a Top 10 team. Texas seems worse now than they did before the season. You can't score 6 points before trash time and still be ranked.
September 27th, 2010 at 8:44 AM ^
Guess I don't get the Miami love. Not sure what they've done to be that high. I can see them rounding out the top 25. Maybe it is just me.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:24 AM ^
They smacked around Big East-favorite and presumably decent team Pitt, in Pittsburgh
September 27th, 2010 at 8:48 AM ^
Not sure why you would drop Oregon. They beat a Dennis Erickson-coached ASU team on the road at night. I realize Boise St. had a big win though.
I personally think Auburn has the best pair of wins of any FBS team (Clemson & S. Carolina), except maybe Alabama (Penn St. & Ark.). #10 is a very good ranking but I might consider moving Auburn even higher.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:14 AM ^
Of course Oregon did get outgained by a couple hundred yards and benefited from 7 ASU turnovers. A win is a win, and they still should be considered the Pac 10 favorite, but saturday's game showed they aren't the unstoppable force they appeared to be through week 3.
As for Auburn, yes, two nice wins, but after watching the last three games, I think they're highly overrated. They struggled with Miss. St, Clemson should have beaten them when their QB missed a WIDE OPEN receiver in the endzone in overtime, and South Carolina turned the ball over on all four of their fourth quarter drives. Two of which came from the back-up freshman quarterback who was put in the game because Spurrier did his "i'm going to pull the starting QB because I'm Spurrier, and that's what I do" routine. I personally think that everyone in the SEC outside of Alabama is incredibly overrated, but it will never be said because they're only going to lose to each other when they're top 25 teams, thus the S.E.C. "gauntlet."
September 27th, 2010 at 9:04 AM ^
of a problem with dropping TCU two for a close win while raising Boise for an equally close win, but, I don't think there's really another way to put the top end together too much. Somebody up there needs to lose so they can be rearranged and create a little seperation.
I also still don't know for sure if Stanford is a Top-10, but it's hard to argue with the resume at this point. A week of conference play, even if they win, might see them drop simply because undefeated teams from other conferences will look stronger historically.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:46 AM ^
Stanford had the most impressive weekend of any team, so putting them 7th is entirely merited. Their own win over ND was less impressive than UCLA's thumping of Texas. Add the win over Houston, who may or may not be any good, but who were ranked #23 and UCLA has an impressive resume since getting their backsides handed to them 35-0 at home by Stanford.
I agree with you that Boise got too much credit for thier 13 point win over Oregon State at home. Ok, Oregon State were ranked, but their chief merit this season was losing to TCU by only 9 at home. If you blank out the names and compare Stanford and Boise's resumes, I think you would be all over Stanford as the higher ranked team. Of course Stanford plays Oregon away next weekend, then USC at home, while Boise St is barely challenged the rest of the way, so Stanford is facing an uphill battle to catch up.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:15 AM ^
I agree completely on BSU. I have been on their bandwagon all season, but they just don't look as impressive as I would expect the #3 team in the country to be. A close win to a meh VaTech and a close win to a meh OSU means that they will probably lose a close game to a top 5 BCS team. I could see them in the top 10, but #3 is way too high.
September 27th, 2010 at 3:50 PM ^
Assuming Oregon State is a better team than SMU (which at this point is reasonable), and considering the TCU-Oregon State game to be a mostly-home game for TCU, I think that's the case for keeping Boise State above TCU.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:29 AM ^
why is ohio state above bama? bama has 3 BCS wins to OSUs 1 and have beaten the higher ranked team (ark vs mia). big 10 bias?
September 27th, 2010 at 12:30 PM ^
1. Alabama does have 3 BCS wins, but one of them was against Duke, who is on par with Ohio.
2. Alabama's impressive wins came against Arkansas and Penn State. OSU's came against Miami. Alabama arguably wins this comparison based on beating two decent teams to OSU's one.
3. On the other hand, OSU's win against Miami is arguably more impressive than either of Alabama's wins. Penn State is not a very good team this year (their offense is simply bad) and Bolden got his first road start that game. Arkansas would have beaten Alabama if it weren't for some terrible interceptions by Ryan Mallett. And OSU clearly established itself as the superior team against Miami, who actually has a resume win of their own against Pitt. While Miami made numerous mistakes against OSU that helped OSU out, OSU would have won by a ton if it hadn't been for the special teams touchdowns. And as it stands, they won by two scores.
4. If Alabama beats Florida this week, then they definitely should jump into the number 1 spot.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:31 AM ^
I thought Nebraska wasa pretty underwhelming last week, only beating FCS South Dakota St. 17-3, so I would probably flip-flop them with TCU.
Miami at #15??? Need to dropped 3-4 spots.
Nevada should be about 20th or so, don't think they've done enough to warrant being above that.
Texas......lose them. They haven't been good this season. If they pull off the upset against Oklahoma this week, then reank them.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:54 AM ^
TCU was fairly underwhelming in their own right. I'd consider moving Stanford all the way up to #5 (note: this is as much about their win over UCLA looking better as their defeat over ND, but they've looked pretty overwhelming.) We'll certainly find out more this week. If they were to win in Oregon, in a pure resume system, Stanford would have a powerful case for #1.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:42 AM ^
Big jump for beating a 1-3 byu team. So big wins over byu and cal, both with losing records. Just seems like a big jump.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:47 AM ^
No Notre Dame love? Return to Glory, etc.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:59 AM ^
September 27th, 2010 at 10:12 AM ^
should be ranked somewhere. Agree with dropping Texas as well pending results from next week. Also, not sure what Oklahoma State has done to be ranked so high,
September 27th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
If you're going to ask why OSU is so high, you have to ask why Michigan is so high. Their offense has beaten good teams. Defense has done good enough. They've won. That's enough for resume rankings in my book.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:51 AM ^
I think a reasonable person could question the value of both teams wins (especially if Notre Dame countinues on their current trajectory), but I don't think their schedule of Washington St, The Troy Trojans of Troy (we're from Troy!) and Tulsa is top 20 worthy. Just my $.02, but playing 3 bad (sorry Cougars!) to decent teams is not deserving of so high a ranking. It's still early in the season though, so I could definately see including them on the basis of "who else should go in?"
September 27th, 2010 at 3:58 PM ^
in part because the two opponents we might otherwise respect don't seem quite so good yet (ASU and Tennessee). Their other wins are over a terrible I-A team and a bad I-AA team.
They did rip Tennessee in Knoxville, which will be somewhat impressive if the Vols right their ship ... but right now they look like they could be one of those middle-of-the-pack teams that do nothing to establish a clear position. Losing to Florida and Oregon = expected. Beating I-AA Tennessee-Martin = expected. The UAB win looks bad now, so I guess I'd think less of them now (and thus less of the Oregon win).
Agree that the Stanford game might tell us something; not sure what, though. Same problem with the Tree: how good is UCLA? If they're a so-so team, then Stanford's just doing what they're supposed to do, beating teams below them. (Wake = bad. ND = bad. I-AA = bad.)
I think a worst-case result for the Pac-10 is something like the Cal-Arizona game, a low-scoring game that doesn't necessarily help either team. (Of course it should if both teams turn out to be good, but we might not know that for a while.)
September 27th, 2010 at 10:10 AM ^
I hope Michigan is better than Iowa but I don't think it's true. Unless maybe the betting line / odds favor us in that matchup ? That's about the only justification I can think of now...Iowa can score points AND play defense, which is more than I can say for Michigan unfortunately. ESPN's bigten power rankings still have iowa ahead of michigan and iowa really only played one bad half in their loss this year...but then again, we did barely lose to Iowa last year, too. And that was before the Denardening...
September 27th, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
Actually, I would say we lost because of the Denardening process, but also lost a close game because of it too.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:51 AM ^
1 loss teams should be below 0 loss teams (in most cases).
<br>
<br>Who has Iowa beat? No one.
<br>
<br>Who has Michigan beat? A pretty damn good schedule.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^
Well, I don't know that our schedule can be considered "pretty damn good" any more. ND doesn't look like they will make a bowl game this year. UConn looks like a middle-of-the-pack Big East team. UMass is still an FCS team and BGSU is Baby Grey Seal University. I still think our wins over 3 of those 4 teams are impressive, but the competition is not as high as it once appeared.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:12 AM ^
To me, LSU is far too high. They beat UNC's JV team (UNC had 6 defensive starters and 13 players overall out) by 6. Their only halfway impressive win is a 6 point win over WVU. However, WVU barely beat a Marshall team that got thumped by both OSU (not so bad) and Bowling Green (really, really, really bad). Despite being 4-0, I don't see LSU being any better than somewhere around #20. No way are they the #11 team in the country based off current resume.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:18 AM ^
Stanford jumps 7 spots after beating ND? What?
September 27th, 2010 at 10:24 AM ^
(just a guess) but their thumping of UCLA looks more impressive now that UCLA whupped Texas. Like how our win over UConn looks less impressive since they lost to Temple (Dammit)
September 27th, 2010 at 10:18 AM ^
It looks like the poll reflects some overreaction on Nevada (who I like) and Oklahoma State. I agree that Nevada should be ranked (I said as much a week ago), but a 7-spot jump for beating BYU is a bit much. OK State's best win is a 3-point victory over a decent at best Troy. For perspective, Troy squeeked out a victory against the same Bowling Green team we just annihilated. I'm not sure what OK State done at this point to enter the poll at 18. Wazzu is currently in a tight battle with Minnesota and Duke as the worst team in a BCS conference, and Tulsa is down from where they've been in years past. I'm also trying to figure out what Utah did to drop out of the poll.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
Nebraska underwhelmed and i don't think they deserve a top 5 spot. They've played one probably mediocre team (UW) with false hype. Looks like they've struggled against 2 weak teams including this past weekend against a D2 school. And lets be honest - TMagic was not so magical, and by no means a Denard
September 27th, 2010 at 10:20 AM ^
I dunno what Florida did to get dropped this week...they easily handled a pretty decent SEC team. They should still be ahead of LSU and Arkansas in the SEC pecking order.
September 27th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
MSU...Florida.
Go NU! Persa is a force...?
September 27th, 2010 at 11:09 AM ^
And it's not Tim's choices, it's something with the deltas. How can USC stay at #22 from last week, but MSU drops one spot to #23? Were both teams ranked #22 last week? Is it possible to rank two teams at the same spot? Smells like a bug in the code.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:19 AM ^
The deltas a frequently wrong. Pay no attention to them.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:28 AM ^
NC St. is way too high, I think you're overrating their victories over GA Tech and Cincy. Cincy played OK well, but got killed by Indiana St. They're not good. And GA Tech is mediocre playing football equal to KU and UNC.
Ok St is also too high. Yes, they've put up points, but the only team they've played of note is Washington St and WSU allowed USC to score all over them, too.
And Northwestern came away with squeakers against an SEC bottom-feeder (Vandy) and C Michigan, while beating Rice by roughly the same margin as Baylor and Texus. Every team that's played Rice has put up +/- 30 points. They should be unranked, certainly behind WVU and PSU for sure.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:32 AM ^
Good to see Nevada and NC State in there, but get Northwestern out of there. They've done nothing. Their best win was by 2 points over Vandy, aided by a bad call. Also, Texas sucks. Their defense is ok but their offense is like ours in 2008.
Air Force and Utah have played better than a number of teams in your top 25.
Stanford at #7 is fine, that win over UCLA looks a lot better now than it did 2 weeks ago.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:51 AM ^
Alabama (wins over PSU, Arkansas, Duke, and San Jose State) should be in front of OSU (wins over Miami, Ohio, Marshall, and EMU).
The Arkansas win alone should be enough, but each teams second best win makes it a lock for Alabama.
September 27th, 2010 at 12:00 PM ^
Stanford should be 5 behind Oregon. Not only have they been winning, they've been rolling. I think they'll beat Oregon on Saturday also.
September 27th, 2010 at 12:50 PM ^
I think it's unfair to have TCU fall behind Nebraska for beating SMU decisively, even if it was close until the 4th quarter. It was a rivalry game which means it will necessarily be closer than it should be. More importantly, Nebraska did not look like a top ten team beating South Dakota State 17-3, especially with Taylor Martinez throwing two INTs and losing another fumble. When Nebraska gets into a situation where they have to throw, they're in deep shit.
I don't agree with Florida falling behind Arkansas. Even if it was Kentucky, they won convincingly against an SEC opponent and Arkansas did lose...even if it was Alabama.
Also, I'm not entirely sold on Stanford yet. They've played very well thus far, but I don't think we'll know if they're "for real" until next week. Considering it's in Eugene, if it's even close it speaks highly of Stanford.
September 27th, 2010 at 2:06 PM ^
Stanford has played against 3 BCS opponents and beaten them all decisively. They beat UCLA (road), Wake Forest (home), and Notre Dame (road) by a combined score of 140-38. Their resume is very good for a non-conference slate.
September 27th, 2010 at 5:22 PM ^
Stanford definitely has a strong resume, I won't dispute that. But do they really deserve to jump teams like Auburn and LSU? For all the offensive questions, LSU beat 4 BCS teams, including a ranked West Virginia. Meanwhile, Auburn has beaten 3 BCS teams including a very good South Carolina team. While UCLA made Stanford look better this weekend, those opponents aren't very good. Maybe in a resume-based system Stanford deserves a spot in the top ten, but we won't know how good they are until this weekend.
September 27th, 2010 at 7:21 PM ^
This is a resume-based poll and if you factor in margin of victory to the wins, Stanford has simply been dominant. However, I'll agree that Stanford's next two games (@Oregon and vs. USC) will give us a much better look at how good Stanford really is.
It'll be interesting to see how the Pac 10 plays out this year. It'll be very hard to justify not letting an undefeated Pac 10 team into the national championship*, with Oregon, Stanford, Arizona, and USC ranked and good to decent teams below them in Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona State, and Cal (and arguably Washington, if you want to go that far). It's very deep this year.
*Unless it's USC. HAHAHAHAHAHA
September 27th, 2010 at 2:23 PM ^
But it gives us things to endlessly debate...
My only wish is that Michigan were ranked #25 at this point. I would want MSU to be higher. I would like to sneak up on a few of our foes, and work our way up on these opinion poles.
It wouldn't matter if we were, say... FSU where the players can't read. I don't want our guys to lose the underdog "us verses the world" mentality.
September 27th, 2010 at 11:20 PM ^
back to back wolfpacks ftw. that is all.
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