Blog Pollin' 11

by Poseur on Nov 17, 2009 5:30 PM CST in Football Comment 14 comments

Read it and weep... Help me out in the comments.

Rank	Team

1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	TCU
4	Texas
5	Cincinnati
6	Georgia Tech
7	Boise State
8	Oregon
9	LSU
10	Ohio State
11	Pittsburgh
12	Stanford
13	Iowa
14	Penn State
15	Wisconsin
16	Oregon State
17	Oklahoma State
18	Clemson
19	Arizona
20	West Virginia
21	Utah
22	Southern Cal
23	North Carolina
24	Brigham Young
25	Virginia Tech

1 Bama

2 Florida

3 TCU

4 Texas

5 Cincy

I keep swimming against the tide on Texas. Hey, they might be great, but we'll never know. If you schedule four patsies out of conference, you deserve to get punished in the rankings. I just ask you play one good team. The collapse of the Big 12 this year doesn't help. And, by season's end, I'll move Cincy ahead as well if they win out for this simple reason: the Big East might be one of the strongest conferences top to bottom this season. Crazy, I know. But it has something almost every conference except the Pac-10 lacks, a really good middle class of teams.

6 GT

7 Boise

8 Oregon

9 LSU

10 Ohio St

GT is one horrible game away from being in the top three and in control for the national title game. Boise benefits from some poll inertia. I want to move them down, but there's really a lack of teams forcing my hand. I'm back to ranking Oregon highly. Ohio St finishes its long road back to the top ten. Welcome back, Buckeyes.

11 Pitt

12 Stanford

13 Iowa

14 Penn St

15 Wisconsin

I'm very close to putting Pitt in my top ten, but I just can't make myself fully internalize what I said about the Big East. If Pitt's a top ten team, then the Big East has a good elite and a great middle class, and therefore is one of the best conferences in America. I just can't make myself believe that. Stanford is looking more and more like the Pac-10's power team as they become the latest team to whack USC's lousy defense. Then I have the Big Ten logjam.

16 Oregon St

17 Okie St

18 Clemson

19 Arizona

20 WVU

WVU was pretty close to spoiling things, eh? That's a good team. I'm back on the Beavers bandwagon, as their losses are to Cincy, USC, and Zona. They even have a win over Stanford. When the dust settles, don't be surprised if OSU is the team standing. Clemson has completely rebounded since losing to Maryland, perhaps the most mystifying loss of the season by any team.

21 Utah

22 USC

23 UNC

24 BYU

25 VT

A little mid major love at the bottom of the poll as Houston drops out because they can't beat UCF and UTEP. This means SMU might be in the CUSA title game, just to warn you. What the hell are the Trojans doing slumming with these teams?

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Only problem I have

Is Oregon being ahead of LSU. I think that LSU should be ahead of every other 2 loss team, considering their losses were close, and to the top 2 teams in the country. Oregon’s 2 losses were never really in doubt, and not QUITE to the same caliber opponent.

by Ianoka on Nov 17, 2009 6:54 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I've been saying this

all year in arguments with my friends here in Oregon and they have a very good comeback. Who have we beaten? We lost to the teams in the top 3 at the time of the loss. It makes sense that we can hang our hats on playing both games hard until our offense ran out and that no one else can match our resume for impressive losses and the strength of schedule that gives us.

However, who have we beaten? Washington, for all their yardage against us and their fire against USC is still looking like what we expected them to be, a team on the upswing rebounding from the worst season ever in college football history.

ULL? Vandy, who can’t win a game in conference? MSU, who’s playing everyone tough this year but needs to beat Ark and Ole Miss to become bowl eligibile? Georgia, who’s barely bowl eligible and is looking at a probable 7-5 season? Auburn with 7 wins who barely managed to save a sinking mid-season ship but still might not make it to 8 against Bama? Tulane (really?)? La Tech?

Bama and Fla were our chances to really make a statement about this season. We didn’t make that statement, despite spectacular individual efforts by some of our players and a lot of heart being shown by the team as a whole. Ole Miss, if we win, becomes a 4 loss team and doesn’t make our resume look any better. The bubble already burst on them, it’s why they’re not ranked anymore. Arkansas is the same situation, their offense looked great at times this year but we’ll be against either a 7-4 or 6-5 team for the last game of the year. Either way, a win won’t be impressive to anyone but us.

So yeah, I need some argument fodder and maybe a little reassuring. Who have we beaten? Am I looking at it too negatively? I realize every team on that list (ok, maybe not Vandy, ULL, LaTech, or Tulane) is a good football team that can bring their A game and push anybody in the country (a couple of them even have pushed the best teams only to lose to generous spots and loose penalty calling). I get that, but it’s hard to make that argument stick. So please, help me win some arguments with my friends.

by ORtigerfan on Nov 18, 2009 12:45 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Who Have We Beaten?

Your friends have a point. Our two big wins are against Auburn and Georgia. Our 3rd best win is against Mississippi State. These aren’t bad teams, but there aren’t really any trophies on the wall yet. Wins against Ole Miss and Arkansas will mean that we have beaten everyone on our schedule except the REALLY GOOD teams. That would be a nice record, and while again there would be no big trophies, there would be enough medium-sized trophies to be proud of it. Losses to Ole Miss and Arkansas will sully that.

Father. Husband. Lawyer. Nerd.

And The Valley Shook

by Richard Pittman on Nov 18, 2009 5:56 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Well realistically you could now ask your friends...

…who has Oregon beaten? Their big wins have lost a lot of their luster, as USC is turning out to not be very good, same for Cal, ASU, and Utah just got absolutely killed by TCU. I think you could make an argument that we very easily could’ve won the Alabama game, who is the #1 team according to this, and barring certain unfortunate situations, we would’ve. Playing the #1 team that close in my mind is better than beating a 4 loss team handily.

by Ianoka on Nov 18, 2009 5:04 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Long shot, but you wouldn’t happen to be the guy at GameDay in Eugene who was waving the LSU flag?

WHO DAT!
The football monopoly in Los Angeles *is* officially over.

by AllSaintsDay on Nov 18, 2009 12:25 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

haha no I wish

I’m from an hour north of eugene but spent the night in portland with some friends from college and watched the game with some insufferable duck fans

by ORtigerfan on Nov 19, 2009 2:58 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

With respect...

Is the exclusion of Mississippi a test to see if we would catch it?

They’re 3pt favorites to beat us this weekend and you don’t even have them ranked in your poll???

If you’re going to use the “body of work” explanation, then please remove the word “Power” from this poll and instead put something “Popular Sentiment”.

by TigerPaw on Nov 17, 2009 8:11 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I wasn't aware that Poseur used "power" to describe his poll.

But if he did we would be in agreement.

At the end of the day

by Mikeno on Nov 17, 2009 10:49 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

The two comments above notwithstanding I think it looks pretty good

I’m OK with Oregon 1 spot ahead of us this week, but if we win, we should pass them. I agree Ole Miss should probably be somewhere in the last 5.

CHAD JONES! WOOOO!!!!

by The Bengal on Nov 17, 2009 10:22 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

We all know Poseur doesn't believe in Ole Miss.

by shelby924 on Nov 18, 2009 9:21 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I disagree with this statement..

But it has something almost every conference except the Pac-10 lacks, a really good middle class of teams.

I believe the SEC’s middling teams are better than any other conference’s middling teams this season. Although I do agree that top to bottom the Big East has a case for second best conference for the season.

Other than that I think this poll is spot on.

At the end of the day

by Mikeno on Nov 17, 2009 10:51 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Spot on?

It’s pure guesswork.

Cincinnati has played no one in this poll. Let that sink in for a moment…

Texas, they’ve played one ranked teams, #17 OK State.

Georgia Tech allowed 31 to Vanderbilt and got taken to overtime by basketball U Wake Forest.

Now these 25 teams, as a whole, do represent the best college football has to offer. But I could pull the first say 15 one at a time out of a hat and successfully argue that order too – simply because few if any teams have played each other.

No…we won’t really know who is decent and who the pretenders are/were until January. Definitely something to look forward to…

by TigerPaw on Nov 18, 2009 12:06 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Cincy did beat the other other OSU (Oregon State, who’s right above OkSt in this poll). The Beavers, however, like to stink it up at the beginning of the year, so it depends on if you give the Bearcats less credit for that.

WHO DAT!
The football monopoly in Los Angeles *is* officially over.

by AllSaintsDay on Nov 18, 2009 12:23 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

To answer some criticisms...

ONE. I’m not a huge fan of the Power Poll. There’s an element of power poll (how good do I think you are?), but I am more of a resume voter (what have you actually done?). That’s a major philosophical difference.

TWO. Oregon is ahead of LSU because of the question already mentioned “Who have you beaten?” In the case of our one similar opponent, Washington, Oregon wins that argument. UO has worse losses, though neither are very bad, and they have wins over USC, Utah, Cal, and ASU.

THREE. Ole Miss is fourth in my SEC Power Poll, but one win does not a season make. Beat LSU, and you get ranked. OM beat Tennessee and Arkansas. They’ve also lost to South Carolina, Bama, and Auburn. And the Bama game was not competitive,

FOUR. I am a huge proponent that Texas’ schedule is absolute crap. And Cincy has beaten Oregon St and WVU. And I think TCU’s big wins are actually better than Texas’ —

TEXAS: Oklahoma St, Oklahoma, Texas Tech
TCU: Utah, BYU, and Clemson

FIVE. Of course its guesswork. there are a 120 teams and not enough games to properely “link” all of them. Anyone who says there poll is NOT guesswork is a liar.

Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com

by Poseur on Nov 18, 2009 10:59 AM CST reply actions 0 recs