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Wisconsin continued its slide down the rankings.  Michigan State and Clemson pick up a loss and drop out of the Top 10.  The leaderboard was full of people who had picked those three teams last week so this caused a big shakeup in the Pick Six standings.

Elsewhere in the country, the Texas schools, A&M and Tech, both dropped out of the rankings.  That leaves Houston as the only school from Texas ranked in the AP poll.  I wonder when the last time there was no Texas school ranked.  Is it possible we’ll see that happen this year?  Probably not.  Who is going to beat Houston?

Georgia Tech and Auburn get back into the rankings, so no new unranked teams this week.  Southern Miss is hanging on right at the edge of the poll.  A weak team could drop out and put USM into the poll for the first time since 2004.

Individual Ballot Analysis

Despite all the losses last week, the perfect ballot hasn’t actually changed teams.  It is still LSU, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Michigan State, Southern Cal and Clemson.  It has dropped from 109 points last week to 97 points this week though.

We have two new leaders this week.  AMazinBlue and orobs climbed up to first place with slightly different entries.  They both have Alabama, Stanford, Arkansas and Michigan as their unranked team.  In Group D and E they made different choices though.  AMazinBlue chose Michigan State and West Virginia which was worth the same amount as orobs’ choice of Georgia and Southern Cal.

At the complete opposite end of the leaderboard, there are now five people who have the absolute lowest possible number of points.  All five picked Oklahoma for 19 points and all their other picks are unranked.

Judging your Picks

Last week the MGoBlogosphere had the unfortunate shame of having a worse median ballot than a completely random one.  Fortunately this week we’ve improved to the same as a random ballot.

Someone who made their picks completely randomly would expect to earn 51 points.  The median of the Pick Six entries is 52 points and the mean is 51 points.

Weekly Brian Watch

I have not given an update on how Brian has been doing in a while.  It happened to coincide with a slide down the rankings

Week	Rank	Score	Reason
5	52	87	Everything looking good
6	70	79	Texas was blown out by Oklahoma
7	84	77	Texas loses to Oklahoma State
8	307	58	West Virginia loses to Syracuse! Wisconsin gets close loss to Michigan St
9	551	52	Wisconsin loses to Ohio State

He now has undefeated Boise State and Stanford with one good win (USC) between them but no really good wins.  Then Wisconsin, West Virginia and Texas all have two losses with one combined good win (Nebraska) and Notre Dame has 3 losses with one good win (Michigan State).  That is the perfect recipe for a completely average rank.

Games to Watch

#10 South Carolina at #8 Arkansas

(7:15 pm on ESPN)

Two of the 3 best second-tier SEC teams face each other.  This should probably be won handily by Arkansas handily now that South Carolina is without Marcus Lattimore and their QB situation has been Spurriered.  But who knows, Arkansas didn’t look that great against Vanderbilt last week.

#17 Kansas State at #3 Oklahoma State

(8:00 pm on ABC/ESPN2)

After starting out 7-0 Kansas State will probably lose their second game.  It’s entirely possible they’ll lose their final 5 games of the season.  Next week home against Texas A&M is probably their only chance to not have at least a 4 game losing streak.  They play at Texas and home against Iowa State after that.

#6 Oregon at Washington

(10:30 pm on FSN)

If Oregon can get by Washington who was briefly ranked two weeks ago then they’ll set up a Pac-12 showdown with #4 Stanford next week.  If Washington somehow pulls the upset then they’ll shoot back into the rankings probably around #20.

Am I forgetting anything?  Oh, I guess maybe you could watch

#1 LSU at #2 Alabama

(8:00 pm on CBS)

The second-favorite choice from group A (Alabama was on 33% of the entries) facing the least favorite choice (LSU was on 3%).  It probably won’t actually affect the standings very much though.  The loser will still be in the Top 10 unless it’s a blowout and probably will stay in the Top 5 if it’s close.