preseason Blogpoll ballot

Maybe you know the drill, maybe you don't. Let's pretend for a minute you don't. The Blogpoll is what it sounds like: basically the AP and coaches' poll for bloggers. That makes it better. Other things that make it better, as taken (mostly) from the Blogpoll's official front page:

1. By virtue of their tendency to sit around and watch 12 hours of college football every weekend, BlogPoll voters are often better informed than mainstream media members, most of whom spend their Saturday obsessively covering one particular game, or coaches, who all obsessively cover one game.

2. All votes are totally transparent. Better yet, not only do you get to see who voted for what, you get to influence the vote.

3. It has a flexibility that mainstream polls do not. In 2009, for instance, ownership of #1 passed to and from Florida and Alabama. Before the SEC championship game voters settled on Alabama, whereupon they were proven correct by events on the field. Conventional polls seem to adhere to the idea that if you're #1 you stay #1; the bloggers are more responsive.

4. I have a vote in this one and not in the other ones.

It works like this: Every Sunday during the season, I'll post my ballot, as I've done below. Between then and around Tuesday-ish, you'll have your chance to weigh in and tell me what I'm screwing up and how to fix it, and if your reasoning is sound I'll even listen. Sometime Wednesday, the owner and proprietor (Brian of MGoBlog) writes up the statistical analysis, which is actually way more interesting than it sounds, and hands out awards for "winners" of certain categories, which is way less shiny-trophy involved than it sounds.

Astute readers who are more familiar with the subject matter will notice the poll has a new home at SB Nation, having been moved from CBS.

Below is my official preliminary preseason ballot. You have until, I guess Sunday or thereabouts, to poke holes in it. Reasoning, or a pretense thereat, follows the ballot.

From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 1

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
2	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
3	Oklahoma Sooners	--
4	Wisconsin Badgers	--
5	Georgia Bulldogs	--
6	Miami Hurricanes	--
7	TCU Horned Frogs	--
8	USC Trojans	--
9	Florida Gators	--
10	Iowa Hawkeyes	--
11	Texas Longhorns	--
12	Boise St. Broncos	--
13	Clemson Tigers	--
14	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
15	North Carolina Tar Heels	--
16	Stanford Cardinal	--
17	Oregon St. Beavers	--
18	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	--
19	Boston College Eagles	--
20	Nebraska Cornhuskers	--
21	Connecticut Huskies	--
22	Oregon Ducks	--
23	Pittsburgh Panthers	--
24	Florida St. Seminoles	--
25	South Carolina Gamecocks	--

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

If I could do an in-depth analysis of every team in the country like I have been for the ACC, I'd be educated enough to fill out my own ballot. I have not. Seeing who the media and coaches have already ranked in their polls seems like cheating, even if I then shuffle it around a bit.

So the methodology is like this: I looked at the watch lists for the individual awards - you know, like the Biletnikoff for receivers and the Outland for linemen. I used most of the applicable ones that are in the National College Football Awards Association, except for the Groza (kickers) and Walker (RBs) because they don't have watch lists out yet, and the Nagurski because it's the same as the Bednarik. And the Heisman doesn't have a watch list, but the Maxwell does and it's basically the same thing. I added up the number of times each team had a player appear on the watch list, and that's the top 25. Alabama did, in fact, come out on top. Afterwards I shuffled things a bit based on the two-second eye test, because, among other things, there's no way UNC is the #3 team in the nation. But a lot of teams, Wisconsin and Georgia for example, I just kinda shrugged and left 'em. Hey, they got players. Good ones. Lots of em. There's no reason to assume Wisconsin isn't the fourth-best team in the country just because a bunch of reporters in Mobile and Salt Lake City and San Diego think otherwise.

Granted, there's overlap because for example a linebacker can be (and often is) nominated for two, even three awards. I call that a plus, since most of the overlap is on defense and that's more important anyway. I compensated a bit by giving two points for an O'Brien (QB) nomination.

So leave your comments below.

linkpile

'Cause sometimes that's what blogs are, y'know?

Anyway, first up is this here over at accsports.com, where they have published up an interview with Kris Wright, the brains, brawn, and wits behind TheSabre. Go check it out - Kris and his band over at TheSabre are as close to the program as you can be without a media credential from a Serious Newspaper or a letter-letter-letter-number-letter email address. Closer, in many cases; the article happens to be about the feelings of the fanbase and Kris is certainly in better position to know that than ckl9e@virginia.edu. And I agree with much of what Kris said, with one major exception: I don't think Al Groh's magic number for staying put is six wins. I think it's higher. I think the team will really have to pull off a stunner of a second half to save Groh's job, because when the AD and not the coach is dismissing players from the team, it says something.

Next up is the Blogpoll breakdown. It's a little late this week due to whatever issues, but it's up, and you can go read it at CBS, right here. And yes, I'm the one who bounced LSU entirely, and by the looks of it the only one. And they're going to stay that way unless they make South Carolina's mothers cry this weekend.

There is some fluffitude about Marc Verica and Mikey Groh at the RTD. Verica gives MGroh credit for his development. Which is fine: Mikey has done some quality quarterback developing during his time here. The stats, however, speak for themselves, and I don't mean just this year's stats: Mikey is still a lousy OC. A fine QB coach, yes. The best I can say for his OC'ing is that the ECU game boosted us into the top 100 in total offense. Rocketed up to 99th, we did.

Further fluffitude - and this is a good article worth your time - about verbal commit Laroy Reynolds, currently playing ball at Maury down in the Ghent area of Norfolk. Nice place, if you've never been. Warms one's heart to see the future of the team in a positive light. Self-deprecation: I checked my own archives to see what I'd written in the past on Reynolds just for some background reference on what I might write for this one, and you know what, don't even go looking, cause I don't know who or what wrote that stuff back then.

"Hey, Coach Groh, remember Peter Lalich? Nobody's mentioned Peter Lalich in a while. Don't you think it's funny that nobody's mentioned Peter Lalich? Aren't you happy you're not getting any more questions about Peter Lalich?" And a question for you, Mr. Doughty - what's so fragile you can break it just by saying it's name?

It's almost time for the NC State-FSU game to start. While that's going on, I'll be writing the game preview for this weekend and it'll be up, snappy, tomorrow morning.

Bonus link, added as an edit: the ACC Roundtable roundup is up at BC Interruption, and Brian has done an excellent job mixing up the usual doldrummy way of doing things.

Hey, and I'll leave you with a cheerful thought: today we're just exactly one month away from the start of basketball season. Tipoff with VMI is at 4 PM, a month from today on November 16.

weekend review

Those of you who saw the Blogpoll ballot on Sunday may have noticed a slight corporate flavor to it. As its banner may have hinted, the Blogpoll is now featured at CBSSports.com. And hey, look! There's even a little link right back here at the bottom of the page. Giggity giggity! Alphabetical circumstances cause this link to be at the bottom of the list; were the state named "Birginia" or "Nirginia" we would be higher up, but N-Sabres wouldn't even be half as cool. How this will work is that on Sunday, I post my ballot here; Monday, you can see the early results at CBS Sports; and then on Wednesday, MGoBlog has the full ballot with revisions and analysis, and (presumably) the poll posted at CBS Sports will also change.

Here is the press release. I can't find it on the web, although admittedly I did not look for more than about a minute or so. It was sent to me, anyway, so looking for it very hard was not a high priority.

CHICAGO, IL – CBSSports.com will become the exclusive home of the College Football BlogPoll beginning on Monday, October 6. The CBSSports.com BlogPoll Top 25 is a weekly ranking of the top 25 college football teams as voted on by nearly 100 of the leading college football bloggers, representing every BCS school and several non-BCS schools. TeamWorks Media, a Chicago-based sports and entertainment content company and the rights holder of the College Football BlogPoll, has created a partnership with CBSSports.com.

Since 2005, the most influential, popular and expert college football bloggers have weighed in each week of the season, combining to create a weekly Top 25 ranking unrivaled in its authenticity and transparency. Each blogger's weekly ballot is publicly available, and the bloggers themselves post their ballots on their blogs, subject to the scrutiny of the fans.

As the new home for the BlogPoll Top 25, CBSSports.com will continue this tradition: The BlogPoll's initial results will be released on Monday, displayed side-by-side with the more traditional AP and Coaches' polls. Fans will be encouraged to review the ballot of the blogger associated with their favorite team and, if interested, even challenge them to defend their decision-making. The BlogPoll voters will take this fan feedback into account before submitting their final ballot, released each Wednesday exclusively at CBSSports.com.

The BlogPoll's founder and administrator, Brian Cook -- who publishes MGoBlog.com, the leading blog dedicated to Michigan football -- will continue to provide his weekly analysis, calling out individual bloggers for qualities like excessive deviation from the overall poll and "homerism."

Voting bloggers are vetted for editorial integrity before being allowed to participate and comprise many of the most knowledgeable, responsible and influential experts in the sport. The weekly BlogPoll ballots are among the most highly anticipated posts each week.

CBSSports.com will begin hosting all aspects of the College Football BlogPoll, including the week's preliminary rankings, individual ballots and final rankings, on Monday, October 6. Visit http://www.cbssports.com/ to view the rankings and get in on the action.

"Many of the most knowledgeable, responsible, and influential experts in the sport." Boy does that ever boost the ol' ego. Knowledgeable! Responsible! Influential! The "MOBILE AGILE HOSTILE" of the blogging world. I was half waiting for the other shoe to drop and the phrase "and also that From Old Virginia guy," to get thrown in there.

Catching up on the other football - there is yet more good news here. Friday saw the team knock off UNC 1-0 on a penalty kick. After a four-game stretch in which they allowed 2.5 goals a game, they've now gone five games and given up just one goal. The team is now ranked again - #18. Tomorrow they host Liberty (5-3) and on Friday, Clemson (4-4-1, 3-1). In other soccer news, Tony Tchani is still a freakin' beast.

I love the UVA Notes section in the RTD. Sometimes it provides some really good important tidbits about the team. Other times it is awesome for making fun of. Thanks, Jeff White, for pointing out that the crowd wore a lot of orange despite the call for blue. Slow news week? White also points out that the 'Hoos also "rediscovered the aerial game." This is true. I had damn near forgotten what it looked like when we threw for a touchdown, but Verica and Ogletree reminded me in very stylish fashion. Make no mistake though - this was possible because the ground game opened it up. Ogletree was single-covered on the 51-yard touchdown throw that opened up the scoring, because Peerman had just gashed the defense for 8 yards on 2nd and 6. There was no safety help on the TD throw because Maryland was worried about another 8 yards. Duke was never worried that we might pick up 8 yards on a routine carry - they comfortably dropped 6 into coverage at times because the running game was useless.

When the good news comes, it keeps on coming. Will Barker and Dave Roberts are cleared of theft charges that resulted from the Club 216 incident in August. Roberts still has to go through the whole underage drinking process that tripped up Peter Lalich, though.

And speaking of good news, we have TV coverage news for the UNC game. A 3:30 start time (my favorite time - plenty of pre-gaming and the party can start early upon return) and ABC/ESPN2 will carry the game.

Finally, never overlook a good Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reference. They've been waiting to use that one ever since Verica was named the starter, I just know it.

It's never the wrong time to make fun of Maryland.....

Now for the high schools.

QUINTIN HUNTER: Ouch. 9 of 29 passing for 75 yards against James Monroe. Hunter ran for one touchdown and threw for another, but the story here is the five picks. Yikes.

ROSS METHENY: Back on track in a 47-7 blowout of Central. 16/21 for 236 yards, 3 TDs and a pick.

PERRY JONES: Oscar Smith is nasty good. 48-7 dismantling of Western Branch, in which Jones scored twice and carried 9 times for 72 yards. Tim Smith, who's looking very, very hard at UVA, hauled in three touchdown passes.

TUCKER WINDLE: Scored a touchdown and racked up some TFL in Charlotte Catholic's 30-6 win over E.E. Waddell. (You have to click around a bit because the link doesn't go directly to the article, but it's not hard to find.)

KEVIN ROYAL: Scored two touchdowns but left the game with an arm injury in a 33-27 loss to King. Of note, Silas Redd, a junior in the class of 2010 that we've offered (along with BC), is King's star RB, and he ran for 170 yards and a touchdown in this game.

Only one update to the recruiting board this week. Pat Muldoon added Duke to his top four, making it a top five; he's been downgraded from Good to Fair on the board. Just too many factors here to feel as confident about a UVA pick. Tim Smith was in town on his official visit for the Maryland game, which is good timing but doesn't affect the board. I really like our chances with Smith.

Weekly spin around the ACC....

Duke is Duke again, losing to Georgia Tech 27-0. Never mind that, somebody tell Dane over at TheLegacyx4 that we're not the worst team in the BCS. I'll see your UVA and raise you a Washington State, dude.

Boston College took down NC State in a shootout, 38-31. Eagle in Atlanta has some historical perspective on the stats BC racked up.

VT slogged through a 27-13 win over Western Kentucky. Gobbler Country describes the Turkies last four games as three heart attacks followed by a let-down game.

FSU beat Miami 41-39, in the game that was billed (by me, just now) as the one to decide Which Team Is Back. Scalp 'Em is pretty happy about not playing the game in the OB any more. (Major negative points to the Canes for playing their games in the sterile environment of a pro stadium, by the way. This should never happen in college football except for bowl games.)

UNC shellacked UConn 38-12. If Bad UVA shows up for that game in two weeks, we can say goodbye to that home win streak against Carolina.

Maryland lost. Did you notice? Turtle Waxing has a rant. Virginia, really? Yes, Virginia.

Yes, Virginia, indeed.

weekend review

Ah, sweet hilarity. The first blurb in RTD's UVA Notes section on Sunday was headlined "Spin Control," and it's hard to tell whether they were referring to Groh's press conference or the article itself. Groh says, "Despite what we see up there (on the scoreboard, you know, the one that said Duke Lots, Virginia Not So Much), in a lot of different areas we saw some positive movement with the team."

Uh, OK. You know what, you don't even need my commentary, you can see it coming a mile away. Hint: the first word starts with "B" and ends with "ullshit."

Next we move on to further hilarity:

Even so, the Cavaliers got strong performances from Rashawn Jackson and Keith Payne and finished with a season-high 110 yards rushing......Yesterday, the Cavaliers totaled a season-high 304 yards...

Both from the same "note." Of course, we picked up 20 yards on three carries on the final drive to end the game when Duke cared just barely enough to tackle, but we'll ignore that for now. 110 yards, boy howdy, and 304 total. Right now we rank 118th and 119th in the land, respectively, in those categories. Just imagine if we could have gotten 110 rushing yards and 304 total yards every game, why, we'd be all the way up to 103rd and 106th. Cry-muh-nitly. Even on his best day, Mikey Groh can't drag us into the top 100.

One thing they can't put a positive spin on is Keith Payne's injury, a hand issue. The best that can be said is that it's not a season-ending deal or one requiring surgery. Well, I'll put a happy face on it if they won't: it doesn't matter, because even if Peerman can't go against Maryland either, Simpson and Rashawn Jackson can run smack into a wall of advancing defensive linemen as well as anyone. But don't let me blow sunshine up your ass or anything.

Well, I've just been Mr. Raincloud so far, haven't I? How about some good news then? Friday was our one chance this fall to say SUCK IT TECH as the soccer team went to Blacksburg and knocked off the Hokies, 2-1. VT is a terrible terrible soccer team and we tend to dominate them. Matt Mitchell took care of all the scoring, which is nice that we're not relying entirely on the freshmen to do this. Next up is a Friday match against UNC, which is a pretty darn good team.

One more tidbit before we go to the high schools: the ECU game on 10/11 will be at noon and not broadcast on any channel that I've got here in Rhode Island.

All right, let's see what happened in the high schools this weekend:

QUINTIN HUNTER: Not a good week, as Orange dropped one to Monticello 44-13. Hunter was just 5/22 passing for 97 yards, 1 TD and two picks, and carried 15 times for 115 yards.

ROSS METHENY: Completed 13 of 22 for 202 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT in Sherando's 21-19 loss to Handley.

LAROY REYNOLDS: Caught a touchdown pass as Maury beat Norcom 17-7.

PERRY JONES: Scored a touchdown in Oscar Smith's 37-0 romp over Grassfield. Tim Smith, who has UVA in his top three, scored three.

KEVIN ROYAL: Moved to tailback and carried 20 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns in Brunswick's 20-12 win over Kingswood-Oxford.

Around the ACC:

Murralin 20, Clemson 17. Mickey Plyler breaks his call-for-the-coach's-head-on-a-platter cherry. Block-C requires two separate posts to get through all the meltdown madness from happy Clemson fans, one of which hasn't even happened yet. Scroll about a third of the way down that last link for a little perspective on our very own Al Groh. I frankly think the problem with Clemson is not so much Tommy Bowden as much as those horrendous purple unis.

UNC knocks off Miami. Tar Heel Mania is sorry for being mean to Cam Sexton. Beating Miami has a way of making fans of the team that did it very very happy, even if Miami isn't really all that good.

If Boston College beats hell out of RIU in a driving monsoon and nobody shows up, does anyone care? (Picture is at Eagle In Atlanta.)

FSU beat Colorado. Scalp 'Em has thoughts. Me speak short sentences.

Navy dropped Wake, and Old Gold & Blog worries that the Deacs' national title aspirations are finished.

NC State got housed 41-10 by USF, and State Fans' Nation remains pissed that we, Virginia, are not on their schedule. We feel your pain, man. We wish you were on our schedule too.

Finally, VT took down Nebraska. Effin' CGB is effin happy, eff you very much.

That's all, folks! Those expecting to see some kind of recruiting update, never fear. I am working on one with a little bit better format than the usual. It will have colors'n'shit. And it will have its own separate post so that it can go into the brand-spankin' new Clemons Library section.

Oh! One more thing. Next week, look for some very exciting news regarding the BlogPoll. I am not at liberty to say more. I may not even technically at liberty to say as much as this, but this is a smallish blog still and I doubt the big surprise is all that spoiled. It's a unique thing and très passionnant.

well that was awesome

Observations on the most embarrassing thing to happen to UVA football in the eight-plus years I've been a fan......

- Fuck.

- Two touchdowns in four games. 120th out of 120 in scoring offense. 118th out of 120 in rushing offense. 119th out of 120 in overall offense. (FIU must really suck.) This is the most pathetic display of pathetic patheticness I've ever seen in an offense. Mikey Groh must be relieved of duties, immediately. He has yet to lead the team to the top 100 in offense, and that won't change this season.

- Mikey must indeed go, but it won't make a lick of difference for this season. The offensive line is absolutely putrid. I'm tired of seeing yet another rushing attempt end up with Mikell Simpson extricating himself from the bottom of a big pile of defenders as four linemen stand around helplessly. Most of them need to be benched. At the very least the interior line must be. Time to see what Austin Pasztor, Mike Price, and Isaac Cain can do with a full-time gig - they can't possibly be worse than Shields, Stair, and Cabbell.

- Nice to see the Duke coaches bawling out Jabari Marshall for his dive into the end zone. Good for them, building a team not only with a more-than-competent head coach in Cutcliffe, but with some discipline as well. I rewound the tape about four or five times trying to hear what exactly came out of that one coach's mouth (it was Ron Middleton, the second-in-command) but all I could make out was "HAMINASEPTAWAHMAHOOMANAVA" which I guess is probably about ten different swear words all rolled into one.

- Duke fans: When you hold out your arms and wave your fingers at a guy inbounding the ball at Cameron, it is obnoxious, yet intimidating. It makes for a nice two-page Zoom Gallery picture inside the Mag. It is copied by schools around the country, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When you do it at Wallace Wade, separated from the players by seventy yards of rubber track, officials, game staff, and grass field, in a half-empty stadium, you are not intimidating. You are tools.

- It's obvious who the best two players on defense are. It is no accident that the game went all to shit when Sintim and Dowling simultaneously went down with cramps.

- Calling for a quarterback change now would be the most counterproductive thing we could do, because:
1 - taking Verica out means no quarterback on the '09 roster will have any kind of extensive recent game experience at all. We can't throw Sewell back into the fire without any dependable backup, because a year away from football is enough time for the wax paper to go back over the eyes.
2 - Verica is the nominal 2010 starter, by which time hopefully things will be fixed somewhat, and we'll need a QB with experience.
3 - No sense in wasting Smalls' redshirt on this wasted season.
4 - Quarterback play is not the problem anyway.

- I have no idea why ESPNU would want to carry another UVA game this season, but they are. Great - we have already grabbed the title of Sorriest-Assed Team In All The ACC (SATIATA) with style and flourish, and now it is time to take a thorough beating at the hands of a hated rival. And technically it's on national TV. Things are gonna get really emo around here, really fast.

- Do you realize Duke is halfway to bowl eligibility? Would a Duke-Vanderbilt matchup be some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe?

- I have no doubt Mikey Groh needs to be demoted to third assistant to the tight ends coach, if not fired outright. I'm still on the fence about Al himself. On the one hand, the team is totally uninspired and directionless, which is 100% a reflection on the coach. On the other hand, you can't blame him for the absurd amount of attrition this team has seen, and I think we have a decent recruiting class coming in and worry about screwing that up, which coach-firings always do.

- Thank God I'm also a Michigan fan. Also thank God Wisconsin underestimated the Blue.

- Fuck.

Let's go to tape and look at Verica's stats/adjusted stats:

Actual stats: 19/42, 194 yards, 0 TD, 4 INT
Adjusted stats: 20/43, 200 yards, 0 TD, 5 INT

How do we get here from there?

5th throw: Koch had to stretch high, but should have caught the ball. Add a completion and 13 yards.

8th throw: Pass interference call that doesn't show on the stat sheet. Covington was interfered with. Probably doesn't matter, as it was a low-percentage throw, overthrown a bit, and probably wouldn't have been caught. Add one incompletion - I don't think the PI prevented a catch.

12th throw: That's right.....as many picks as Verica threw, he should have had one more, but Green broke up the catch nicely.

22nd throw: Torchia dropped it, though he was crushed at the same time the ball got there. Not Verica's fault, the throw was on target. Add a completion and one measly yard.

38th throw: Burd made a nice leaping grab on a way-high throw. Take away a completion and 8 yards.

Blogpoll ballot:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	--
2	Penn State	6
3	Texas	4
4	Oklahoma	5
5	LSU	1
6	South Florida	4
7	Missouri	2
8	Brigham Young	9
9	Virginia Tech	2
10	Utah	2
11	Connecticut	15
12	Ohio State	2
13	Auburn	8
14	Georgia	10
15	Oklahoma State	4
16	Texas Tech	--
17	Vanderbilt	7
18	Southern Cal	15
19	Oregon	7
20	Florida	18
21	Ball State	5
22	Boise State	--
23	Michigan State	3
24	Kansas	11
25	North Carolina	1

Dropped Out: Clemson (#15), Nebraska (#18), Wisconsin (#20), East Carolina (#23), Wake Forest (#25).

- I wouldn't have dinged UGA so hard for just losing. Alabama laid the beat-stick. In Athens. With the special black uniforms. (Has any uniform gotten more obnoxious coverage than when Georgia wears black? It makes the front page of both ESPN and Yahoo. What's so special about this?)

- Northwestern is close at 5-0, but their wins just are not quite impressive enough. 16-8 over Ohio. 24-20 over Duke. Not really awe-inspiring. But if they beat MSU next week, it'll be their ticket to rankingdom.

- Wisconsin gets the boot for not having a whole lot of impressive wins, and for losing to a team that Notre Dame beat. Notre Dame also failed to make the cut, as it came down to them and UNC. Kansas, off a bye week and without a ton of impressivity on their resume, was in danger of missing out as well, but they squeak in.

- Just missed, in no particular order: Notre Dame, Northwestern, Nebraska, Tulsa, TCU, Wisconsin.

- I was one of two to put Alabama at the top of last week's ballot. I suspect I won't be so unique this time around.

Kindly do tell me how jacked up the ballot is.

Blogpoll ballot

Here it is, Week 4 in all its glory:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	5
2	Florida	7
3	Southern Cal	1
4	Georgia	4
5	Missouri	1
6	LSU	9
7	Texas	3
8	Penn State	1
9	Oklahoma	6
10	South Florida	5
11	Virginia Tech	10
12	Utah	4
13	Kansas	5
14	Ohio State	5
15	Clemson	9
16	Texas Tech	6
17	Brigham Young	--
18	Nebraska	7
19	Oklahoma State	6
20	Wisconsin	6
21	Auburn	1
22	Boise State	4
23	East Carolina	22
24	Vanderbilt	1
25	Wake Forest	2

Dropped Out: Oregon (#12).

Various points:

- I will be one of the very few stubborn holdouts not putting USC in the #1 slot; in fact, I was last week too, as USC received 65 of 69 first place votes. This is because they have played two games. Beating OSU, yes yes, very impressive, but: They are lucky OSU did not also get beat by Troy. Had that happened, both USC and OSU might have dropped off the list entirely. Slamming UVA does not make you awesome, it makes you Connecticut. Slamming OSU is nice, but OSU struggled to beat Ohio and dispatched of Troy rather efficiently, but not brutally, and in a manner which did actually cause the ESPN guys to use the phrase "upset brewing." So, third place, which is actually a drop from last week because they sat around watching film of Oregon State while Florida was busy crushing Tennessee.

- So take a bow, Alabama. After four games, your resume looks better than anyone else's. They have pasted everyone they've played, and not like Texas Tech, who has double-dipped into the I-AA ranks. Florida gets a little boost to #2 after beating Tennessee very badly, which is a good win, not a great win.

- ECU loses their spot on top of the hill, but they were going to anyway after West Virginia got themselves beat in Boulder on Thursday night. Suddenly beating them doesn't seem so impressive. That win over Virginia Tech is looking much better these days. That's also what keeps them from making the precipitous drop out of the poll entirely, because losing to NC State is not a good way to keep a high spot in the rankings. In any case, they're on notice and likely to drop out soon unless they start winning by hefty margins.

- Also on notice - like big time - is Wake Forest. They're still on the list because they've positioned themselves well in their division by beating FSU, but man did they look bad doing it. That's two ugly wins in a row now, and I had a very tough time deciding between them and TCU for that last spot, and if they don't shape up, they're gone. Especially if TCU gives Oklahoma a run next week.

- Boise State spent Saturday removing Oregon from the list. That game was not as close as the score says. That qualifies as a stomping. That plus last week's squeaker against Purdue means no Ducks this week; Boise State gets their spot.

i haven't died

Just so you know. But I have perhaps gone crazy? And as proof of both, I offer my Blogpoll rankings for the week:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	East Carolina	10
2	Southern Cal	--
3	Oklahoma	2
4	Missouri	2
5	South Florida	20
6	Alabama	11
7	Penn State	15
8	Georgia	5
9	Florida	5
10	Texas	3
11	Nebraska	15
12	Oregon	4
13	Oklahoma State	13
14	Wisconsin	4
15	LSU	6
16	Utah	10
17	Brigham Young	4
18	Kansas	6
19	Ohio State	18
20	Auburn	5
21	Virginia Tech	3
22	Texas Tech	8
23	Wake Forest	4
24	Clemson	3
25	Vanderbilt	1

Dropped Out: Arizona State (#8), West Virginia (#20), Illinois (#23), Fresno State (#24).

Explain yourself, dude. OK. This week I shift hard over to resume voting, with some biases included.

Example of said bias: Team A has done the following:
- Stomped a I-AA tin can.
- Narrowly beaten Ohio.
- Got stomped by a team considered to be elite.

Team A sure looks like Ohio State, but Central Michigan has the exact same resume. OSU is on the ballot because they're still a good team. CMU still needs to earn themselves something. One purely resume alone, I'd probably include a couple of teams and give the Buckeyes the boot entirely.

This should not be taken as predictive at all. I do not think South Florida or ECU would beat most of those teams below them. But USF has a win over a team I ranked, and ECU has those nice shiny upsets to start the season.

Credit is given for woodshedding three bad teams. Penn State, for example. The thought is that good teams are supposed to kick the ass of bad ones - if you do this three straight times, you are probably a good team. For example again, Illinois has been on this ballot three times in a row and is now gone. Losing by 10 to Missouri is forgivable; combining it with a nailbiter win over a lousy ULL team is not.

There is one major problem with resume voting so early, and I am dealing with it by pointing it out to you and then ignoring it. The example is USC. They have stomped two teams with lousy resumes, one of which actually is terrible. This should put them much lower than they are, but clearly, beating Ohio State was a landmark win and deserving of much credit. Thus, a paradox: utterly stomping a good team makes them look really bad and thus appears to lower your own resume. This goes away later in the season. But meantime, I give USC high marks for beating a good team and also put that good team quite low in the rankings as punishment for getting beaten so badly. (Partly. The Bobcats played a big role in that too. If that game had been 42-10 like it should have, OSU would be at least 10 spots higher.)

Anyway, as always, feel free to stamp out any stupidity on my part before it becomes official. Keep in mind the criteria though. What I'm looking (hoping) for is people to point out inconsistencies in my own method and results, not try to rerank based on their own.