was it all a crazy plot to get what he wanted? "A way to exceed expectations is to manage them [laughs]. We were in a situation where it was absolutely unclear what the ultimate decision was going to be and I wanted to make that known that it was unclear and the fan reaction was very helpful and very important."
BlogPoll Week 2
| Rank | Team | PPB | StdDev | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southern Cal (44) | 24.2 | 1.8 | -- |
| 2 | Georgia (10) | 22.7 | 3.2 | -- |
| 3 | Oklahoma (9) | 22.6 | 2.0 |  2 |
| 4 | Florida (8) | 22.3 | 1.7 |  1 |
| 5 | Missouri | 20.2 | 1.9 | 1 |
| 6 | Ohio State (1) | 19.0 | 4.5 | 2 |
| 7 | LSU | 17.9 | 4.1 | -- |
| 8 | Texas | 16.8 | 2.8 | -- |
| 9 | Auburn | 15.6 | 3.1 | -- |
| 10 | East Carolina (3) | 13.6 | 4.7 | 16 |
| 11 | Wisconsin | 13.3 | 4.6 | -- |
| 12 | Penn State | 12.2 | 4.3 | 6 |
| 13 | Alabama | 11.6 | 4.4 | 1 |
| 14 | Texas Tech | 11.4 | 4.9 | 1 |
| 15 | Oregon | 11.4 | 4.2 | -- |
| 16 | Kansas | 10.5 | 4.8 | 2 |
| 17 | Arizona State | 10.3 | 4.0 | -- |
| 18 | Wake Forest | 7.9 | 4.2 | 2 |
| 19 | South Florida | 7.4 | 4.1 | 3 |
| 20 | California | 6.1 | 5.4 | 3 |
| 21 | Brigham Young | 5.7 | 4.2 | 2 |
| 22 | Utah | 4.8 | 3.5 | 1 |
| 23 | Fresno State | 4.0 | 3.7 | 1 |
| 24 | UCLA | 2.6 | 4.3 | 1 |
| 25 | Illinois | 1.6 | 2.2 | 1 |
Also Receiving Votes: West Virginia(1.2), Georgia Tech(1.2), Vanderbilt(1.1), Clemson(1.1), Oklahoma State(1.1), Florida State(0.6), Arizona(0.4), Boise State(0.3), Kentucky(0.3), Colorado(0.3), Nebraska(0.3), Tennessee(0.3), Virginia Tech(0.2), Tulsa(0.2), Mississippi(0.1), Arkansas State(0.1), TCU(0.1), South Carolina(0.1), Cincinnati(0.1), Northwestern(0.0), Ball State(0.0), Kansas State(0.0), Miami (Florida)(0.0), Purdue(0.0),
Total Ballots: 75
We have the standard Ohio State fall coupled with the expectation of USC dominance, a monster leap for the—hyyyyarrr!—East Carolina Pirates coupled with three first-place votes from resume-rankers. Elsewhere, Penn State gets a major boost after clunking Oregon State, South Florida falls after a narrow escape against UCF, and Cal’s epic whooping of Washington State earns them a few spots.
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.
- My Opinion On Sports has a stupid opinion about #13 Clemson, which has now lost by a billion points to a team that was just massively outgained by Tulane. Speaking of…
- The three top-five voters for ‘Bama—all resume proponents—seem a bit much.
- Arizona?
- Wake Forest is #5 to Rakes Of Mallow, five spots higher than any other voter provided.
- Whee three top ten votes for Vanderbilt—same set of resume guys.
- Not even the other resume guys think USC should be #15 after completely obliterating an ACC team that had nine wins last year, Saurian Sagacity.
- Falcon Nation is the last believer in the OBC, ranking South Carolina #18 after they lost to Vandy, which is Vandy.
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.
Cal wrests the “WTF do I do with this team?” trophy from Penn State; East Carolina also leaps forward into the breach, and if any team has a birthright to high standard deviation it’s Texas Tech, who never plays anyone until November.
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.
Aw, hell, I hate showing up on these. For the record, I was way enthusiastic about ECU, Missouri, Penn State, and UCLA while being down on Wisconsin, Kansas—not even in the poll—, LSU, and Texas.
But that’s nowhere near enough to garner me a Mr. Bold award, and shockingly Doctor Saturday, nee SMQ, was also beaten out. Saurian Sagacity takes it for such oddities as:
- Ohio State #25
- ECU #1
- You get the idea
It’s a RESUME RANKING ballot that is preposterously heavy on the RESUME and puts VANDERBILT #8 because WELL I’M NOT SURE. Also, Arizona is #16 after beating Idaho (not even a state) and Toledo (also not even a state), in front of LSU, Auburn, Oregon, Georgia, Wisconsin, etc etc etc, which is just wanton weirdness.
Mr. Numb Existence a tight battle for the dullest/most predictive ballot goes to The Red Zone Report, a new Mississippi State blog. Double Extra Point is nowhere to be found. Maybe they didn’t submit a ballot.
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.
Moooohahahahaha! The CK Award claims another victim as Boston College could not survive the double-whammy of finishing 1-2 and falls to Georgia Tech. The award is 2/2 so far this year.
Unfortunately, it looks like it’ll be a tough go for it this week as Auburn, placed by Auburn blog The Auburner (We’re from Auburn!) at #5, faces a Mississippi State team that had a whole damn season on the margins last year and should roll over like the mewling babes they are. But never underestimate the sheer evil power wielded by the CK Award.
Roll Bama Roll, an Alabama blog I have had no interaction with over the past six months, is your Straight Bangin’ award winner. As we get further into the season you’ll often see rope-a-dope from disillusioned fans of teams that have just lost, and this board is the early-season version of that: neither Alabama or Florida lost, but they did struggle against overmatched opponents.
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.
It’s early in the season so some batty resume ranker usually wins both this and the “Mr Bold” award; this is not an exception.
I usually have bigger issues with the men who strive to possess Mr. Stubborn. Danny Ford is actually no longer God—these guys have relocated and now call themselves Block C—and their ballot hardly moves anyone, but they did have the requisite big jump for ECU and big drop for WVU and I can’t really say anything about their ballot is terrible. Cie la vie.
