Blogpoll Week 1

 

Rank	Team	PPB	StdDev	Delta
1	Southern Cal (40)	24.3	1.0	2
2	Georgia (10)	22.1	4.0	1
3	Florida (9)	21.9	2.5	2
4	Ohio State (9)	21.8	4.0	2
5	Oklahoma (5)	21.5	3.9	1
6	Missouri	19.6	2.4	--
7	LSU	18.3	3.4	--
8	Texas	16.2	2.9	3
9	Auburn	15.6	3.7	1
10	West Virginia	15.4	4.9	1
11	Wisconsin	12.5	4.2	2
12	Alabama (2)	12.3	4.9	12
13	Texas Tech	12.1	5.0	1
14	Kansas	10.2	4.4	1
15	Oregon	9.9	4.7	3
16	South Florida	9.3	4.7	3
17	Arizona State	8.9	4.0	1
18	Penn State	8.5	5.2	3
19	Brigham Young	8.2	4.1	1
20	Wake Forest	6.9	4.1	3
21	Utah	4.7	3.9	4
22	Fresno State	3.4	3.6	4
23	California	3.4	4.4	3
24	South Carolina	2.8	3.9	2
25	UCLA	2.4	4.0	1

Also Receiving Votes: East Carolina(1.8), Clemson(1.8), Illinois(1.5), Oklahoma State(1.0), Cincinnati(0.6), Tennessee(0.5), Boston College(0.5), Florida State(0.5), Mississippi(0.5), Colorado(0.5), Boise State(0.4), Stanford(0.4), Bowling Green(0.4), Virginia Tech(0.4), Miami (Florida)(0.3), Kentucky(0.2), Nebraska(0.2), North Carolina(0.2), Arkansas State(0.1), Louisiana Tech(0.1), TCU(0.1), Vanderbilt(0.1), Northwestern(0.1), Connecticut(0.1), Tulsa(0.1), Central Michigan(0.1), Notre Dame(0.1), Oregon State(0.0), Georgia Tech(0.0), Arizona(0.0), Michigan State(0.0),

Total Ballots: 75

Votes by blog here, votes by team here.

Like everyone else, the BlogPoll anoints USC #1 after they smoked Virginia. The main difference here is not order of teams but the strength of opinion: USC dominates all comers by over two points per ballot; in other polls the gap between Georgia and the Trojans is vanishingly small.

Also, the BlogPoll’s previous bullishness on VaTech? Not so much.

Wack Ballot Watchdog

A lot of the weird votes for particular teams are the result of “resume ranking,” about which more later. They won’t be covered here because at least they’re logically consistent.

• Lord knows what Garnet and Black Attack sees in #15 North Carolina. When ESPN says you “edged” the Cowboys and they aren’t talking about Dallas or Oklahoma State or even Wyoming, that ain’t good.
• From Old Virginia is hanging on to VT at #16.
• The Bama Sports report has Oregon State #23 but no Stanford, who basically smoked them.
• Miami at #11 seems… enthusiastic.

There’s still not much because we have little data. Extracurriculars after the jump.

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Standard deviation is all over the place this week for a lot of reasons: differences in voting philosophy, uncertainty about who or what is actually any good, and so forth and so on. Alabama leaps into the most-disagreed-upon category.

Ballot Math

First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.

Our traditional SMQ—now Dr. Saturday, actually—Mr. Bold award in week one. We’ve been over this before: SM—er, DS—er… DAMN YOU HINT-ONNNNN discards and and all preseason expectations in his first ballot and goes solely by what happened on the field. This is “resume ranking.” (Mr. Not Quite Bold Enough For An Award, Rakes of Mallow, is also a dedicated resume ranker.) This results in things like ECU #5, Utah #6, Fresno State #7, Bowling Green #10, Kentucky #12, no Ohio State or Oklahoma or Georgia, and so on and so forth.

This is supposed to bat away the preconceived notions that feature heavily in things like the coaches poll (hello, preseason ranking of Michigan) and result in a crystal-pure poll, but it just removes the assumptions to another level. Okay, Kentucky beat Louisville. Who says Louisville isn’t going 3-9? Or Pitt or—dammit—Michigan for that matter?

I don’t like it; we’ve had this debate before; we’ll have it again next year. ENJOY YOUR SHINY AWARD, HINT-ON. [/kodos]

Mr. Numb Existence goes to n00b Purdue blog Off The Tracks, though mysteriously consistently boring Double Extra Point—they are from Nebraska—is lurking.

Next we have the Coulter/Krugman Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.

The CK Award started off the year on the right foot, or the wrong foot, or whatever. Definitely an evil foot, sending vastly-overrated-by-MSU-blogger Michigan State down to ignominious defeat, although Michigan lost so it’s like they’re 1-1. (Ask State fans. I don’t get it.) Also, Tennessee had two bloggers significantly overrate their team and got Crafted.

So it’s bad to finish high up and it’s bad to have more than one blog finish high up and it’s definitely bad to crack double digits. Boston College, then, has some 'splaining to do as they go into the Georgia Tech game.

Bruce Ciskie of Wisconsin is the least enthusiastic about his adopted team and wins the Straight Bangin’ award. I wonder if he wonders if Bret Bielema feels dumb for dumping that Virginia Tech game now? Sean Glennon is easy pickings.

Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.

Swing doesn't exist in the preseason poll, obviously.

As you might expect, the kind of blog that utterly discards preseason notions except insofar as they apply to opponents tends to have a monster swing number. I should really go back through the database and figure out if this is an all time record. HINT-ON HERE IS ANOTHER AWARD.

And, of course, there’s a flipside to resume ranking. MOOS dings Clemson all of six spots for their faceplant against ‘Bama. Tennessee slides only three spots. And, egregiously, neither UCLA nor Alabama even enters the poll. Come on here, you’re killing me with this stuff.