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Blogpoll Final Ballot: Week 9 Comment Count

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

Why yes, that does indeed look very similar to the first draft

Only one big change from the draft ballot. As someone mentioned in the comments, Texas's resume looks better than Alabama's now that all of Alabama's opponents have waned in recent weeks (OMG the SEC is just too strong to have any good teams other than the top two). That pushes the Longhorns to the top of the poll.

The other major quibble people had in the comments was where to rank Boise and Oregon in relation to each other. A lot of people said "Head to head, Boise must be first," and the counter-argument is "You can't rank teams based on one game." I clearly fall into the latter camp, as you can see by the ballot to your left.

Despite Boise head-to-head victory, and even their better overall record, I am of the opinion that the Ducks have put together a better overall resume to this point. Ironically, many of those pushing for Boise State to be moved past Oregon were saying things like

"In those cases, you have other data points,"

which, dude, that's an argument against your position, not for it. The two teams' respective resumes are below, along with the Sagarin ratings and records of all their opponents. You can decide for yourself what you think, I say it tips in favor of the Ducks. If enough people can put together MULTIPLE DATA POINTS and come up with legit reasons for Boise to take the crown, I'm all ears. "They stay ahead until they lose" is not legit, it's idiotic AP Poll-ism.

The only other qualm people brought up in the comments was potentially moving TCU past Boise State. For now, the main reason I left it as-is was that I didn't want to separate Oregon and Boise by more than one poll position. This week, they play relatively similar opponents in San Diego State and Louisiana Tech. If there's a big enough difference in their outcomes, I'll consider a move.

Oregon Boise State Edge
1 47-20 #9 USC 6-2 19-8 #2 Oregon (7-1) Slight Boise
2 42-3 #16 California (6-2) 51-34 #32 Fresno (5-3) Big Oregon
3 31-24 #20 Utah (7-1) 49-14 #88 Bowling Green (3-5) Medium Oregon
4 43-19 #38 Washington (3-5) 28-21 #92 Tulsa (4-4) Big Oregon
5 24-10 #45 UCLA (3-5) 45-7 #98 San Jose State (1-6) Big Oregon
6 38-36 #79 Purdue (3-6) 54-9 #123 Hawaii (2-6) Push
7 52-6 #119 Washington State (1-7) 34-16 #136 UC Davis (4-4) Big Oregon
8 8-19 #6 Boise (8-0) 48-0 #145 Miami NTM (1-8) Big Boise
H2H L @ Boise, 8-19 W v. Oregon, 19-8 Medium Boise

Comments

formerlyanonymous

November 5th, 2009 at 12:13 AM ^

First, general note: Your numbers are for the entire season including bowls. So selection of the team to the MNC would be between a OU team that was 3-1 against the top 25 and 1-1 against the top 10 going in and a Utah team that was 4-0 against top 25 and 1-0 against the top 10. Second, That made the comparison for who to send to the MNC that much tougher. Comparing a 1 game difference is much closer than a 2 game difference, especially when that loss was to the team that arguably should have gone to the MNC instead of OU. The whole circle of death in the Big12 South really left a bad taste in my mouth. At the time, I thought Texas was surely the better team, but they were jobbed. So bias had me saying it should have been Texas not OU in the title game, probably overlooking Utah entirely. Looking back on it now, I think what hurt Utah more than anything was how shaky of a top 10 team TCU was. The Horned Frogs had only beaten a shaky BYU team. The rest of their schedule was pretty pedestrian (wins against UDub and UCLA weren't worth much last year). TCU didn't get their second win over a ranked opponent until they beat Boise in the bowl game. People just didn't know enough about them at the time. Since Utah's best win was either a shaky TCU/BYU team or an Oregon State team that faded a bit down the stretch, I could see voters being a little skeptical, and I think that's fair. Was it right in the end? Probably not. Was it fair? I think you could say so.

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Seth9

November 5th, 2009 at 12:27 AM ^

My original point was that the AP voters, at least, should have voted Utah #1 if going by resume voting because Utah finished undefeated with a slightly weaker schedule, which should trump a 13-1 record. I threw in Oklahoma as a side note. I too, feel that Texas probably deserved a shot at Florida. However, I wouldn't have ranked Oklahoma over Utah in that situation, especially as Texas Tech had a shaky end to the season with a close win over Baylor and Oklahoma was a poor defensive team. At the time, I was understanding of the decision to place Oklahoma above Utah because they beat TCU by much more than Utah did. At the same time, one team finished undefeated against a decent schedule, the other didn't. In the end, my main problem with the situation is that if Notre Dame (or any other big name school for that matter) were to have played the same schedule that Utah did and went undefeated, then they would have played for the championship. And I think that if Notre Dame did exactly what Boise State has done thus far, there would be no discussion of ranking Oregon over them (well, there would be here, but that's because we hate Notre Dame).

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formerlyanonymous

November 5th, 2009 at 8:16 AM ^

Yeah, I think I agree with just all about all of that. That said, I think you've got to look at how Iowa and Cincy are being talked about right now, too. They're kind of getting the Utah treatment. It'll be interesting to see the final shakedown.

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Seth9

November 5th, 2009 at 9:17 AM ^

At the end of the day, I don't see Iowa being passed by a one-loss Oregon or LSU team, particularly with wins over OSU (who is overrated; their offense is possibly worse than Iowa's) and PSU. Probably won't happen to Cincy either, unless the rest of the Big East rips itself apart and it appears that Cincy has no quality wins at the end of the year.

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formerlyanonymous

November 5th, 2009 at 9:28 AM ^

I'm not sold that a one loss LSU won't jump one or some of the undefeated. If they defeat Alabama, then they beat Florida in the SEC championship game, what happens then? Do you think the pollsters leave the SEC champ out of the title game if Iowa, Cincy, TCU, and Boise all go undefeated? I could see Cincy being hard to exclude. Even Iowa and TCU have a really sound argument, but do the pollsters leave out their beloved SEC, especially if LSU gets two top 5 wins over the next 5 weeks, including the SEC title game? Someone's going to get shafted in that scenario. I don't think Oregon has enough left on the schedule to make major jumps (assuming, as I've probably beaten into the ground, they have already passed Boise). Oregon only has Arizona left who is ranked. After that, the only other one loss team with perhaps enough schedule left to make a run is Pitt who has ND and Cincy. That seems infinitely unlikely.

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Seth9

November 5th, 2009 at 9:40 AM ^

LSU probably still wouldn't have the quantity of quality wins to match Iowa or Cincy in the computer polls. I imagine that the human polls would break just about even, and the computer polls would rank one of them (probably Iowa) number 2. TCU and Boise would get passed though (and in that scenario, they should because there's no head-to-head). I personally hope that the BCS screws over multiple teams this year, as every year the BCS screws up, we come closer to a playoff.

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