BlogPoll Week 11

Hurray, that's the poll hurray. If you're interested, you can see all the individual ballots here.

Fallers: UCLA's magic carpet ride died with a dull thud on Saturday and they're currently in the plummet-to-earth-with-bowling-ball phase of their totally trippy 2005 season, dropping an impressive ten slots to #15. Boston College dropped out from #19. Virginia Tech found itself relatively elastic after its its crushing loss at the hands of Miami, as did Wisconsin--both teams only fell four spots despite being thoroughly dominated.

Risers: Both Penn State and Miami made headway in the top ten by dominating highly ranked opponents. Blogpoll voters collectively resolved the Miami-Alabama debate by calling it a draw: we really have a 3(T). We also have an 8(T), as Notre Dame and Georgia both check in with the same number of points. Everbody else fell orderly upwards past the fallers.

Outrage!!! Still mystified at the votes Rutgers and Cal are getting, along with the brutal treatment given to a Georgia team that was without Shockley when they struggled against Arkansas and lost to Florida--why LSU in front of them? We continue to have the same issues that other polls do that rank almost exclusively by losses, preferring teams that haven't proven anything over teams that have proven they're good but not great.

Wack Ballot Watchdog: Er... okay, Rob, I see where you're coming from on the Alabama not so hot thing, but #9? This in response to JournoRock's continued placement of Alabama #1 for reasons that boil down to "no one else thinks Alabama is #1"?

Kyle King better watch out for some EDSBS Ninja Stars after squeaking the Gators in at #25. Vandy overreaction? Well, Kyle wasn't too impressed even before that: Florida was #23.

And let it not be said that Boi From Troy is stubborn. Instead of placing Texas #6, he listened to everyone's reasoned input and ranked them #5.

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.

Voters are clearly undecided on what exactly to do with a team that has one loss by a billion points to a crappy team and several other hair-raising escapes, as UCLA is the new King of Variance.

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.

Mr. Bold is Texas blogger actionBERG and his ballot is uh... yeah. New this week to the poll is (drumroll, please...) #15(!) UTEP, who rocket up into the poll on the strength of a 41-38 win over mighty Tulsa. Apparently this means that they are better than #16 Ohio State, #17 Notre Dame, #19 Florida State, etc. He also persists in ranking Texas Tech #7 and has a major mid-major (major major) fetish going with TCU #12 and Fresno State #13. This is what you get when you rank strictly on the basis of losses.

Mr. Numb Existence is Notre Dame blog the Blue-Gray Sky. Their one fobile is slightly overrating ND versus the poll at large. The Irish check in at #5.

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 goes to Northwestern blogger SportsBiz, who's probably just ecstatic he can plausibly win this thing. The Wildcats' cardiac win over Iowa vaults them up into 19th on his ballot, and not coincidentally forces Michigan far up the ladder: on their off week he bumped them up 7 spots.

The Straight Bangin' Award has new home, as RD didn't manage to get a ballot in on time this week. Bruins Nation takes over the top spot for dumping UCLA down to #22 after the Arizona debacle. Yet another example of a team blog getting vicious after a brutal loss. Straight Bangin' is back and kicking in this category, slotting Michigan behind the mighty Scarlet Knights for some reason.

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 include
d). 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's fixed. Yay.

Mr. Manic Depressive is Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, who apparently forgot about Florida last week and absolutely Yellow Hammered former #5 UCLA for their loss to Arizona, dropping them from the poll entirely.

Mr. Stubborn is the DJL Zone, and I can already tell this is going to be a category I'm not going to have a ton of interesting things to say about.