Week Two BlogPoll, Take One
by Poseur on Sep 8, 2009 8:46 AM CDT
in Football
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PrintHere we go again. This is my first attempt at a ballot. Tell me why I'm wrong and maybe I'll change it before submission. My rationale after the jump.
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Southern Cal | |
| 3 | Texas | |
| 4 | Alabama |  2 |
| 5 | Ohio State | |
| 6 | Oklahoma State | 3 |
| 7 | Penn State | 1 |
| 8 | Mississippi | 7 |
| 9 | California | 10 |
| 10 | Virginia Tech | 1 |
| 11 | Michigan State | |
| 12 | Oregon State | 4 |
| 13 | TCU | |
| 14 | LSU |  4 |
| 15 | Missouri | 3 |
| 16 | Brigham Young | |
| 17 | Boise State | |
| 18 | Georgia Tech | 4 |
| 19 | Oklahoma | 15 |
| 20 | Utah | 1 |
| 21 | Kansas | 3 |
| 22 | Notre Dame | |
| 23 | Baylor | |
| 24 | Miami (Florida) | 1 |
| 25 | Cincinnati | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Let's take these in groups of five, and then the teams I dropped.
1. Florida
2. USC
3. Texas
4. Bama
5. Ohio St.
I should probably rank Bama #2, as they looked awesome. If you believe in Virginia Tech, and I do, then you have to think Bama is one of the very best teams in the country. I'm not overly concerned by Ohio St's close call. They were winning by 16, took the game for granted, and Navy came back. Don't lose focus again, but OSU looked like the far better team.
6. Oklahoma St.
7. Penn St.
8. Ole Miss
9. Cal
10. VT
Either OSU is a really good team or Georgia isn't very good. I erred on the side of caution and went with both for right now. I'm not sure the Pokes are the sixth best team, but they now have one of the best resumes in the country. Ole Miss and Cal rocket up my ballot partly because of their big wins, but also because the teams ranked ahead of them were all pretty sluggish. My poll is still volatile and I am living up to my promise of not even referring to my preseason ballot to create this ballot. VT actually moved up after losing, which requires a second of explanation. I originally ranked them in the top ten and was convinced to drop them due to the injury to Evans. VT hung with Bama, Tyrod Taylor looked like the real deal, but they still lost to a top five team. No shame in that. VT answered some of my questions positively, even in the loss.
11. MSU
12. Oregon St.
13. TCU
14. LSU
15. Mizzou
Still no Oklahoma. We'll get to that. I rank teams within their conference first and then place them in the top 25 nationally, and right now, Mizzou is the team in the Big 12 which has proven something. Illinois was actually favored to beat Mizzou and the Tigers went out there and beat the living snot out of 'em. Once again, Mizzou has accomplished something.
I'm still bullish on Oregon St. MSU was one of the few Big Ten teams who looked impressive. LSU falls in my ballot because no team that beats a team coming off a winless season by a touchdown doesn't get to be ranked in the top ten.
16. BYU
17. Boise St.
18. GT
19. OU
20. Utah
OU lost what was essentially a home game to BYU. Yes, Bradford suffered an injury, but BYU outplayed OU even before that injury. BYU seemed intent on shooting themselves in the foot, but they pulled out the win. However, I don't see how anyone can rank OU ahead of BYU right now. BYU didn't win by some fluke, they were the better team, and OU essentially had the homefield advantage. Boise shows up on my poll after dominating Oregon. My girlfriend asked me in the second quarter of that game, "Have the Ducks even had the ball yet?"
21. Kansas
22. Notre Dame
23. Baylor
24. Miami
25. Cincy
Ranking Notre Dame causes me physical pain, but they looked pretty impressive against Nevada. Yes, it was Nevada, but they absolutely dominated them, something the Irish wouldn't have done last year. Baylor makes an appearance for their win over Wake on the road. I've got a gigantic soft spot for the Bears, but Griffin looks like the real deal and they have lots of talented speed position guys. Cincinnati takes Pitt's place on the poll in my Designated Big East Slot. I love Brian Kelly and was waiting to rank the Bearcats, who spent most of last year in my poll, because I wanted to see how he rebuilt the defense. Looked pretty damn good on Monday.
Fell out of poll:
Georgia (#7), Oregon (#12), Clemson (#17), Arkansas (#20), Iowa (#22), Pittsburgh (#23).
Georgia had a disastrous first week and their offense, after an impressive first drive, looked lost. I put my faith in their offensive line and they lead me astray. Maybe I'm being to punitive to the Bulldogs, but they will have plenty of chances to work their way back into the poll. Color me a skeptic right now.
Oregon and Iowa are obvious omissions. Let's not rub salt in the wound. Clemson and Arkansas are casualties of strong showings of unranked teams. I still like both of them, but neither knocked my socks off. It's still early and they are certainly on my radar. Pittsburgh falls off in favor of Cincinnati, who I now have rated as the strongest Big East team.
What say you?
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Comments
LSU Of Course
Dropping LSU 4 spots seems kind of harsh. First of all, the environment in Husky Stadium reminded me of an SEC school. The place was loud, the building was shaking. Any team that goes into that environment on the road and gets a win should get some credit. Second, even the announcers for the game were noting how the time difference was affecting the LSU players. The last touchdown Washington scored was a giveaway because we already had the game won and the guys were just plain tired. Third, the offense was as basic as you can get and, unless we were in danger of losing, there was no way we were going to show anything special. Finally, even though Washington was winless last season, they have some good people back and the two coaches from USC to run things. Washington’s season may still go down the drain, but facing them the first game of the season with so much hype may have lead to them playing the best game they will play all season.
LSU's drop
I think all of your points are valid and I won’t attempt to refute them. I’ll just counter with this:
ONE. There was no intensity or effort. I don’t believe in rewarding that, particularly since intensity was a problem last year.
TWO. LSU allowed a boatload of yards. In fact, it was more yardage than a Miles team has ever allowed. Given that we’re coming off a season in which the defense was a concern, that is a huge red flag.
LSU will get a chance to move up as the season moves on, but they have to show me something. This is more of a correction for giving them too high of a preseason ranking.
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com
Actually...
In our season opener in 2005 vs ASU, we gave up 560 total yards:
http://www.lsusports.net/src/data/lsu/assets/docs/fb/05stats/ls01.htm
I’ve been present for both. Perhaps for the sake of the LSU defense, I should remain absent from west coast road trips.
Whatever. It took Pelini a couple games to get going, I’ll give Chavis some slack.
Yup Yup
I agree with your points as well and we have a long way to go. I’m hoping that a big improvement takes place between the 1st and 2nd games. The tackling was horrible. I am just a little embarrassed by LSU being considered a worse team than TCU. Maybe that is because I don’t know much about TCU. Anyway, thanks for the response.
Top Four
Love the top 4, but I put TX at 2 because of McCoy (What will Barkley do when tested against say, Cal…We know what McCoy can do!) and I think Bama and USC are a pretty close 3-4. If they make it through unscathed until the last week of the season (SEC Championship) how great of a Final Four would that be? (Not that I would like it, of course!) All four of those teams still look very tough, very focused, very impressive, doing what they had to do against a very good opponent (Va. Tech) or totally throttling a warm-up. (UW for us was somewhere in between, and we didn’t scare anyone.)
I understand dropping Georgia to a point. But that is a good team they played ON THE ROAD. OK State might be the 2nd best team in the Big 12! If Bradford doesn’t make it back soon, they will be.
I think you are exactly right in dropping us. We didn’t do anything to move up, for sure. If we don’t give up that final TD, maybe we stay even, but that one bothered me. Put the foot on the neck for crying out loud!
Two nits and a rant
I think Okie State deserves to be ranked above the other OSU. They beat what is supposed to be a worst a mid-tier SEC team rather handily, while OSU never put Navy away, cruise control or no.
Second, I think Mizzou deserves to be ranked ahead of us. They spanked Illinois while we struggled with the last place team in the Pac-10. Struggled may be too strong a word, but we definitely didn’t dominate. At least for week 1 Mizzou were better than us.
Finally, can we stop using the time zone and the 2500 miles as an excuse? They got up there a day earlier than usual. They’re 18-22 year olds and used to staying up late. And as my wife pointed out, they didn’t freaking walk to Seattle. The reason they were tired is because the defense couldn’t get a third down stop and the offense couldn’t make a first down for much of the game.
And you're right
I did’t realize I pushed Oregon St. up the polls as much as I did for essentially doing nothing. I’ll swap them with Mizzou in my ballot. LSU and TCU will stay the same.
I’m giving tOSU another week. The program has earned the beneift of the doubt and let’s face it, we’ll know a lot more after the USC game. Okie St. will probably move into the top five next week at the expense of the USC-tOSU loser (who, if its a close game, will likely stay in the top ten)
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com
I'm not convinced..
The Cowboys didn’t beat the Dawgs as convincingly in my eyes. Reminder, it was only a 7 point game before that terrible unnecessary roughness call was made against UGA that rejuvenated the OSU drive that was stalling at that point. UGA did itself no favors all game, OSU didn’t convince me that they should be ranked that high.
LOL, and did anyone catch that Big-12 chant at the end of the game? LMAO, “child please.”
I don't see an argument for ranking Bama anywhere but #1
Preseason polls are beauty contests, but once the season starts you have to judge teams by what they’ve done on the field. Beating the likes of Charleston Southern, SJ State, and ULM (And UT let them score 20!) shows me absolutely nothing. Going to a neutral site and beating the Hokies is impressive.
Also, I see no reason why Georgia Tech deserved to fall as far as they did. 37-17 doesn’t sound great against a 1-aa team, but they pulled their starters in the first half. Dwyer had under 7 carries – if they had wanted to give him the ball 25 times, I’m sure he could’ve run for 200 yards and four touchdowns.
by 4.0 Point Stance on Sep 8, 2009 11:13 AM CDT reply actions
taking the above comment a step further...
.defending a poll’s virtues after many of the schools have had glorified home scrimmages against glorified community colleges is, well, ridiculous.
It also kills the notion that anything but a playoff system is an equitable way of deciding who the best teams really are.
Most of the schools at this point in the season, should at best sit in a basket labeled To Be Determined.
Btw, it’s amazing how many people are forgetting what a good offense (the SEC doesn’t have many) can do against a team like ’Bama. Utah walked all over them in the Sugar Bowl, now a year later (without their returning QB) we should anoint them #1? I could easily make the case that Cali should be #1 after one game.
Btw II. When’s the last time VT had an offense anyone feared?
Bama, defense, etc
I understand your point on ‘good offense’ vs Bama, but there’s at least some reason to believe the Utah game was just a let down for Bama. I also think they just got outcoached. (Hah! But I do actually like Saban still…)
Florida’s offense was pretty damn good last year and Bama didn’t exactly get run over in the SEC Title game. And that Florida defense, which was good but no better than Bama’s, went on and stifled one of the most prolific offenses in NCAA history in the title game. They had something left to play for, Bama was playing for a consolation prize after an electrifying title run.
Not making excuses, just saying that I think these defenses CAN in fact deal with great offenses.
But I agree on the other point – John Parker Wilson may not have been a superstar, but man, everyone seems to just gloss over the issue of replacing him. We’ll see how that works out over the rest of the year. For now, impressive win for them, regardless.
I would favor a rule forbidding inter-division matchups entirely
But it will never happen, because those home games are cash cows for IA schools, and because teams will do anything to get the 6 wins necessary to get to a bowl.
I would also be in favor of much stricter requirements to be in Division IA, and the NCAA actually enforcing the already existing requirements (goodbye, half of the Sun Belt!) but again, that will never happen.
In my opinion the only way to really effect change is for pollsters to start hammering teams that play weak sisters and boosting teams that play good teams. For instance, if OSU has one loss and Penn State is undefeated, it’s pretty much guaranteed that the Nittany Lions will be ranked higher. But I’d rank the Buckeyes higher. Ohio State is playing a quality nonconference schedule — Navy is a decent, bowl bound team, and you can’t get a better matchup than OSC/USC — while Penn State is playing a row of pitiful cream puffs. There’s no inherent value to being undefeated if you’ve never actually been challenged.
As a footnote, somebody needs to point out the rancid Baylor homerism in this poll.
by 4.0 Point Stance on Sep 8, 2009 11:51 AM CDT reply actions
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| West | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
1 LSU Tigers  |
19 | 11 | 42 | 14 |
| 6 Arkansas Razorbacks |
16 | 14 | 39 | 17 |
| 7 Mississippi St. Bulldogs |
16 | 14 | 34 | 21 |
| 9 Mississippi Rebels |
14 | 16 | 34 | 22 |
| 10 Auburn Tigers |
13 | 17 | 30 | 26 |
| |
9 | 21 | 21 | 34 |
| East | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
| 2 South Carolina Gamecocks |
18 | 11 | 39 | 15 |
| 4 Kentucky Wildcats |
18 | 12 | 41 | 15 |
| 3 Florida Gators |
18 | 12 | 40 | 16 |
| 5 Vanderbilt Commodores |
16 | 14 | 29 | 25 |
| 8 Georgia Bulldogs |
14 | 15 | 31 | 24 |
|
8 | 22 | 24 | 31 |
