BlogPoll Week 2

Previously: Preseason.

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

Chaos reigns for another week. An influx of voters means more first place votes for everyone, including two for Tennessee. This marks the first time in poll history a team outside the top ten picked up first place votes. The irrationally exuberant are myself and SMQB. We'll no doubt hang our heads in shame after the Florida game, but for now we proclaim Cheesypoofs Sweatpants head of the greatest team of all time of the week.

The lone holdout with LSU at number one is 'Bama blogger JournoRock... we'll get to him later.

Fallers: Cal, obviously. Being out of your season opener midway through the third quarter tends to deflate expectations.

Risers: Tennessee, obviously.

BONUS Not-Moving-Anywhere Notes: BlogPollers weren't nearly as impressed with Michigan's victory over Vanderbilt as the AP was. In the BlogPoll, Michigan remained fixed at 14. In the AP they leapt to tenth. Also immobile: Louisville, fresh from a Brazilian waxing during the Kentucky game.

Wack Ballot Watchdog: Statistically Speaking is hanging on to Arkansas. Phil Steele was wrong, man. Let it go.

I'm not sure if this counts as wack or not, but Bruce Ciskie really hated the FSU-Miami game. Miami fell 12 spots after the loss; FSU also fell five.

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.

People are still divided on Tennessee's realness after their spanking of Cal. Their deviation is boosted by the schism between pollsters who vote with their eyes and those that vote with their expectations; to the former they're waaaay up there, to the latter not so much.

Oklahoma's close call against UAB made up no minds, either. The rest of this section is filled with teams that could be really good but could also be hideous frauds at year's end: Nebraska, Louisville, Oregon.

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 Sunday Morning Quarterback. Reasons:

• Tennessee at #1.
• FSU #3, presumably on the idea that Buster Davis is going to burrow his way into opposing quarterbacks' brains all year like those bugs from Wrath of Khan.
• UCLA, unranked in the poll at large, explodes all the way up to #9 after a resounding 31-10 win over Utah.
• Texas #10(!).
• Pitt #11(!)
• OSU down ten! To number #13!
• Florida, LSU, Michigan, Iowa all plummeting!!!
• Cats and dogs living together!
• Mass hysteria!

It all adds up to one of the most prodigiously BOLD ballots in the history of the poll. There's some method to the madness -- Matt's heavily, heavily weighted first week results to the exclusion of all speculation -- but can a brother get an explanatory post or something?

Mr. Numb Existence is BGSU's The DJL Zone. As per usual, this category is markedly less fun to talk about.

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 for oustanding bias in the name of making the poll look silly goes to Journalism Is For Rockstars, who features Alabama at #12. Hard on his heels is 50 Yard Lion, who put a team that managed 80 yards rushing -- half of that on a reverse -- against Akron #8 in the country. I'm just saying.

A note to potential over-raters: woe befell Rambling Racket and his first-week projection of Georgia Tech at #7. Do not tempt the football gods with your hubris.
Straight Bangin' Award returns to its rightful home this week over at, well, not Straight Bangin' but its SBNation incarnation Schembechler Hall. Also ote that you can change the Michigan blogger but not the pessimism: The MZone checks in third. Two SEC voters wary of the brutal road ahead also show.

Swing is essentially 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.

Mr. Manic-Depressive is, unsurprisingly, SMQB. When your memory ceases at last Thursday, you turn in wildly different polls. And try to drink bananas, probably.

(Don't get me wrong, I like voters in this category more than voters in this one:)

Mr. Stubborn PS
U blogger Black Shoe Diaries, who apparently saw nothing in the first week that changed his opinion about the upcoming season in any way at all until you hit team #18. Where are the wild swings? The nearly random opinions that make an interesting post? The evidence you watched anything this weekend? Ack!