“We were losing a bunch of one-goal games, and now we’re able to pull these games out,” Hunwick said. “It’s huge in the second half to know you can play in games like that.”
Blogpoll Week 2
Filed under:
| Rank | Team | PPB | StdDev | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida (85) | 24.4 | 2.1 | -- |
| 2 | Southern Cal (13) | 23.3 | 1.4 |  1 |
| 3 | Texas | 22.9 | 2.1 |  1 |
| 4 | Alabama (4) | 22.3 | 1.6 | -- |
| 5 | Penn State | 19.4 | 2.7 | 1 |
| 6 | California | 19.1 | 2.1 | 1 |
| 7 | Brigham Young | 18.4 | 2.6 | 2 |
| 8 | Mississippi | 17.0 | 3.7 | -- |
| 9 | Boise State | 16.2 | 3.4 | 3 |
| 10 | LSU | 15.5 | 4.1 | 1 |
...also!
| 25 | Michigan | 3.2 | 3.8 | 1 |
|---|
It brings a tear to my eye. I had to remove Straight Bangin' from the poll last year ago when the huge number of blogs focused on Michigan football made keeping a vaguely M-affiliated blog mostly about the Knicks and rap infeasible, but today he'd be able to under-vote Michigan again. Woo. And since his beef was with Carr's style of coaching, he might not even.
The rest of the thing at CBS Sports, as per usual. After the jump, this blog's final ballot from Tim.
 |
||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 3 |
| 2 | Southern Cal | 1 |
| 3 | Florida | 2 |
| 4 | Texas | 2 |
| 5 | Penn State | 1 |
| 6 | Brigham Young | 1 |
| 7 | Houston | |
| 8 | Boise State | 1 |
| 9 | Cincinnati | 6 |
| 10 | California | 2 |
| 11 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 12 | Georgia Tech | |
| 13 | TCU | 3 |
| 14 | Mississippi | 5 |
| 15 | Virginia Tech | 2 |
| 16 | Ohio State | 2 |
| 17 | UCLA | |
| 18 | Nebraska | |
| 19 | Oklahoma State | 12 |
| 20 | North Carolina | 7 |
| 21 | Michigan | |
| 22 | Oklahoma | 2 |
| 23 | Notre Dame | 7 |
| 24 | Florida State | |
| 25 | Kansas | 1 |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Utah (#18), Tennessee (#21), Georgia (#22), LSU (#23), Oregon (#25).
I'd just like to clarify again that I'm ranking on resume, not perception of talent. Sure, a couple teams that have lost games may still be included (especially if they're close losses to good teams), but for the most part it's what you've accomplished that defines you, not some abstract power ranking. After week 3, this should become much more clear.
As far as changes from the draft: I tried to be a little less reactionary on some teams. I moved Alabama back to the top because I'm now convinced that a 10-point win over VT is better than a 3-pointer over OSU. A lot of teams that were bumped out have snuck back in, mostly for reasons like "Oklahoma State's resume is much better than Northwestern's, despite a loss." Utah is the only team I feel bad about removing for now, but they'll have a chance to get back in if they beat Oregon this week (and the Ducks don't look pathetic).
For any further questions, leave a comment. I'll take comments into consideration for next week's ballot, if they still apply. Hopefully this is a little more internally consistent than my draft ballot was, and I aim to be more accurate each week, as the evidence mounts for each team.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:49 AM | 
Overvaluing Wins?
Overvaluing Wins?
September 16th, 2009 at 12:19 PM |
Pretty Good
Pretty Good
I really like your top ten but Ohio State should be in there some where as they played really tough against Southern Cal who is number 2 on your list. I think if Michigan wins their next 4 games they will bounce their way to the top 15.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:27 PM |
Cincinnati?
Cincinnati?
At 9. Were they bestowed that honor by beating directional directional missouri state? Or because of an infatuation with Brian Kelly?
I know they won by 67 points, but geez. Now, if they beat the Beavers by 40 points, then I'm with you.
Other than that, pretty reasonable poll for only 2 weeks in.
When did your mother let you out of the basement Mr. Rosenberg?
September 16th, 2009 at 12:37 PM |
I agree about Cincinnati.
I agree about Cincinnati.
I agree about Cincinnati. Good dominant wins, but they were against Rutgers and Directional Missouri. They have a really good offense, but until they put up numbers against similarly-talented teams (and show me they can stop someone with some weapons), #9 seems a bit high.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:37 PM |
Am I the only one that feels
Am I the only one that feels
Am I the only one that feels resume voting this early in the season is just circular logic? I get that the resume voters feel you shouldn't make any assumptions on the accepted quality of a team, so preseason rankings don't matter. But nobody really knows much about anyone this early in the season. Aren't rather large assumptions made in assigning relative value to teams' victories at this point? For instance, DocSat has us at #4. Does he know that Western Michigan and/or Notre Dame are worth a damn? He may have inklings one way or the other, but he's making the some of the same assumptions about those teams that national pundits were making about Oklahoma and Oklahoma State going into the season. I can get behind resume voting maybe once we get into conference play, but it's too early in the season to ascribe to it.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:41 PM |
No, you are not the only one
No, you are not the only one
No, you are not the only one who feels that way.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:45 PM |
ND in top 25
ND in top 25
I think ND should be in the top 25 somewhere. It would look better for Michigan having already beaten them. I know they were #18 at the time, but it looks good on Michigan's resume.
The Original Voice of Reason
September 16th, 2009 at 1:05 PM |
what is a
what is a
"resume vote(r)"?
September 16th, 2009 at 1:29 PM |
"Resume voter"
"Resume voter"
It's a catch-all term for describing voters who will only use results from the current seasons' games to rank their opponents. You can get an idea of resume voting taken to an extreme by reading the BHGP links in this post; one of the main arguments against resume voting (made by "traditional" voters and like-minded readers, even in this thread) is that the difference between assuming "Team X is good because they were good last year and returned a bunch of starters" (anathema to resume voters) and assuming "Team Y is good because they beat Team X" (exactly what resume voters try to do) is merely one of degree -- the resume voters just bury their assumptions behind a single layer of indirection.
Further, everyone involves seems to feel that this is only an issue at the beginning of the season -- as the year goes on, "traditional" voters and "resume" voters meet somewhere in the middle, hopefully converging at the end of the year when both are using pretty much exactly (the last) twelve games worth of data.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:24 PM |
Not pathetic, but ...
Not pathetic, but ...
the Ducks aren't, well ... they're not something. I'm just not sure what the something is.
Purdue's defense doesn't seem to be that good (because Toledo put up a bunch of yards and points on it, and they're not that good, because Colorado's much worse, right? I think) and yet it was able to stop pretty much everything except that one weird play where the guy under center runs with the ball. I thought we agreed you couldn't do that, at least not until after a five count. Elliott made some awful decisions that kept Oregon in the game until they remembered how to execute for a bit ...
anyway, my point is that what's probably no more than a mediocre Purdue team fought Oregon nearly to a draw at Autzen at night. The Boise State road loss is understandable, but I'm not sure it says much more if Utah beats Oregon other than, well, Oregon is less than we thought they were. (And what will we learn in the Pac-10 schedule other than that, unless Oregon loses to a Washington team or beats Cal or USC?)
I suppose that it's also possible that Hope has revived Purdue and that magically both Purdue and Michigan will be back to normal at the same time that Notre Dame is having disappointing season after disappointing season ... sorry, I have to go clean myself up now.
I think having a resume ballot is tough this early in the year. Houston seems way too high to me based on one win against OK St. The cowboys had a let down and Houston got all the bounces. I expect TTU to beat them next weekend.
The only two other tweaks I'd make is Cal should be a bit higher (~7), and I think Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are better than teams ahead of them.
That said, the ballot looks pretty consistent.
"When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing." - Bo Schembechler