Blogpoll Week 5 Comment Count

Brian

Michigan is up three this week thanks in large part to the failings of others:

SB Nation BlogPoll Top 25 College Football Rankings

Results for Week 5

# School Points/blog SD Delta
1 Alabama Crimson Tide (97) 24.9 0.36 --
2 Ohio St. Buckeyes (10) 23.4 1.53 --
3 Oregon Ducks (2) 21.8 2.17 --
4 Boise St. Broncos (1) 21.5 2.68 Arrow_up 1
5 TCU Horned Frogs 20.6 2.19 Arrow_down -1
6 Nebraska Cornhuskers 18.1 3.89 --
7 Florida Gators 17.4 3.19 Arrow_up 2
8 Oklahoma Sooners 17.3 3.50 --
9 Stanford Cardinal 16.9 3.48 Arrow_up 4
10 Auburn Tigers 15.1 3.76 Arrow_up 7
11 Arizona Wildcats 14.1 3.73 --
12 LSU Tigers 13.6 4.12 Arrow_up 4
13 Wisconsin Badgers 13.3 4.05 Arrow_up 2
14 Utah Utes 12.6 3.71 --
15 Arkansas Razorbacks 10.4 4.35 Arrow_down -5
16 Miami Hurricanes 8.7 4.54 Arrow_up 3
17 Michigan Wolverines 7.7 3.75 Arrow_up 3
18 Iowa Hawkeyes 7.4 3.90 --
19 USC Trojans 5.9 4.86 Arrow_up 2
20 South Carolina Gamecocks 5.9 3.75 Arrow_down -8
21 Nevada Wolf Pack 4.3 3.95 Arrow_up 3
22 Michigan St. Spartans 4.2 3.36 Arrow_up 3
23 Texas Longhorns 4.2 4.03 Arrow_down -16
24 N.C. State Wolfpack 4.1 4.22 Arrow_up 6
25 Penn St. Nittany Lions 3.0 3.52 Arrow_down -2
Others Receiving Votes: Missouri Tigers | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | Kansas St. Wildcats | Florida St. Seminoles | Clemson Tigers | Air Force Falcons | West Virginia Mountaineers | Northwestern Wildcats | Texas A&M Aggies | Oregon St. Beavers | UCLA Bruins | Virginia Tech Hokies | Houston Cougars | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | North Carolina Tar Heels | Indiana Hoosiers | Toledo Rockets | Temple Owls
Updated: Sep 29, 2010 7:10 AM PDT

This week the eyebrow-cocking gets real in the poll analysis and the CK Award has its lamest week ever—our winner over-ranked his team by a single slot. Tim's final ballot after the jump.

Changes (and non-changes) from draft ballot:

  • I'm OK (for now) with having Texas on the ballot and not UCLA. Though the Bruins won a head-to-head matchup, they're also .500, with a 0-35 home loss on their resume. The Horns have no such indignity, though with a likely loss to Oklahoma this weekend, I'll be OK dropping UT.
  • Switched TCU and Nebraska. Though the Frogs' win over SMU was unimpressive, Nebraska's effort on Saturday was much worse. I don't think it'll be a recurring issue, so the Huskers are likely to move up later.
  • Re-inserted Utah around the middle of the poll, after completely overlooking them in the draft. Though their Pitt win is seriously de-valued, they've crushed the other opponents they've played.
  • I'm OK with moving Stanford up as much as I did because their smackdown on UCLA looks much better with the Bruins' win.

A clarification on poll methodology (which should be clear by now, but it's obvious some aren't paying attention: This is a resume ballot. Teams aren't "moving down despite winning" if they do indeed happen to move down. Other teams are moving up past them on the basis of stronger resumes. Teams aren't put in a range where they "seem like they should be," they're ordered by resume. If a team doesn't "feel" like a top 5 team, and they have the fifth-best resume, then so be it.

Comments

BlueTimesTwo

September 29th, 2010 at 1:02 PM ^

That might depend on your view of PSU.  If they are still ranked just because of their initial ranking rather than their performance (i.e. if they are an outlier because they were overrated and are likely to drop soon), then Alabama's win over PSU doesn't carry much weight.  That would leave one impressive resume win for OSU (making a decent Miami team look really bad), and a decent resume win (Alabama needing a Mallett implosion to narrowly beat a decent Arkansas team).

318wolverine2007

September 29th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^

You're right, we don't know whether Penn State is better than Miami, but Penn State is the second best team Alabama has beat.  On top of that, Miami has typically imploded on the road in big matchups in recent years.  It was an impressive win for the Buckeyes no question, but it eerily similar to the thrashing Miami took in Blacksburg a year ago.  With wins over Penn State and a good Arkansas team on the road, it would be pretty hard to make a case that the Miami win by itself would come close to trumping that.

Hardware Sushi

September 29th, 2010 at 4:20 PM ^

That you can say Miami is as good as or better than Arkansas after destroying Pitt on the road, 31-3, and OSU beat them handily. What has Arkansas done other than have a tremendous NFL talent at QB? They only beat 1-3 Georgia by a touchdown on the final drive. You could argue that Auburn, Arkansas, and South Carolina haven't proven anything because all they've done is beat up on a name-brand program like Georgia that happens to suck this year. But you'd never hear anyone from the South admit it. Additionally, OSU manhandled a Marshall team that shoulda coulda woulda beaten Big East favorite (if there is such a thing) West Virginia and ended up taking them to OT. The same West Virginia that LSU could barely beat. I mean, if you play the common opponent game (or use 'strength of wins') this early in the season, it's still just guessing, because we don't know yet.

I'm not saying those teams suck (well, Georgia does). Don't get me wrong. I'm just playing devils advocate that you can make an argument for 5-6 teams in the number one spot. The debate is the fun part and I think we'll learn a lot more this weekend. (I don't think Penn State is very good. Solid D, but not like Iowa or OSU)

318wolverine2007

September 29th, 2010 at 5:20 PM ^

Not to belabor the point, because you're right, we don't truly know what teams are at this point, although we're getting close.  Miami thrashed Pitt, but Pitt isn't good, their only victory is over New Hampshire.  Marshall played over its head against WVU in a rivalry game, only to come back down to earth against Bowling Green (yes that Bowling Green) a week later.  The argument wasn't ever about how many teams you could put at number 1, it was simply a comparison of Alabama's resume to this point vs. Ohio State's.  Even if you argue that Miami is better than Arkansas, are they so much better that beating them is more impressing than beating both Penn State and Arkansas?

Hobbes

September 29th, 2010 at 12:58 PM ^

So, has Dr. Saturday stopped submitting ballots or something?  He's usually right up there with the other resume rankers in Mr. Bold and Manic-Depressive, but he's been notably absent the past couple weeks.  Anyone know what's going on with Hinton?

Jeff

September 29th, 2010 at 2:58 PM ^

I think he always submits them after the deadline, so his ballot doesn't appear in Brian's writeup.  I'm not sure whether he is doing it on purpose to avoid winning Mr. Manic-Depressive.  I'm not exactly sure how the deadline to submit ballots works but it seems like you can submit ballots after Brian's deadline for the writeup.

Week 3 is when I figured out what was happening.  In Brian's writeup he talks about (and the charts show) Michigan having 1 first place vote.  When I clicked to see votes by team, I saw that Michigan actually had 2 first place votes.  One from Dr. Saturday and one from Purple Wimple.  Since Purple Wimple was 2nd in Mr. Bold and won the Straight-Bangin award I figured his ballot obviously had counted.  Therefore, Dr. Saturday submitted his ballot after Brian's writeup but before I looked at it.

jamiemac

September 29th, 2010 at 1:04 PM ^

I will admit to being one of the wierd voters still with Oregon State on the ballot.

1.) It's slim picking once you get past the top-15 or so. They arent many candidates.

2.) They have lost twice to two consensus top-5 teams. One game was on the road in the toughest place to play in the country. The other was a nuetral game in their foes home state. They covered the spread in both. To me, that's worth keeping them in at the 25th slot and see what happens in Pac 10 play.

3.) I cant bump them out in favor of 4-0 Missou, NW and the like because those teams havent played anybody. The Beavers have challeneged themselves. Big time. And, I thought about UCLA, but in the end, I thknk OSU beats them. They are the better team. Their game this year will bear that out.

4.) At some point, you just have to fogroe the record and resume and go with the eye test. Despite a pair of losses, I think they're still one of the 25 best teams in the country.

But, we shall see.

SpartanDan

September 29th, 2010 at 9:50 PM ^

Nittany White Out overrated Penn State by substantially more than one spot, and the ballot was in well in advance. I'm not sure exactly how you do the calculations (I assume there's a script somewhere), but you might want to check that you've listed their primary rooting interest correctly in your software. This isn't the first time they've been omitted when they should have made the top 5.