Let's take a look at this week's BlogPoll ballot. First off, as promised, I start from scratch and do not refer to last week's ballot at all, so movement can be a little random. Explanations are after the jump.
And The Valley Shook! Ballot - Week 3
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LSU Tigers | -- |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide |
 1 |
| 3 | Boise St. Broncos |
3 |
| 4 | Oklahoma Sooners |
 -2 |
| 5 | Wisconsin Badgers | -- |
| 6 | Florida St. Seminoles |
-2 |
| 7 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys |
3 |
| 8 | Stanford Cardinal |
5 |
| 9 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
| 10 | Oregon Ducks |
4 |
| 11 | Virginia Tech Hokies |
-3 |
| 12 | Texas A&M Aggies | -- |
| 13 | Michigan St. Spartans |
9 |
| 14 | South Carolina Gamecocks |
1 |
| 15 | Arizona St. Sun Devils |
2 |
| 16 | Nebraska Cornhuskers |
-9 |
| 17 | Florida Gators |
1 |
| 18 | USC Trojans | -- |
| 19 | Baylor Bears |
-3 |
| 20 | Ohio St. Buckeyes |
-9 |
| 21 | West Virginia Mountaineers |
3 |
| 22 | Maryland Terrapins |
3 |
| 23 | Houston Cougars |
-4 |
| 24 | Auburn Tigers | -- |
| 25 | TCU Horned Frogs |
-4 |
| Dropouts: Mississippi St. Bulldogs, South Florida Bulls | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
1-5. LSU hangs on to #1 with their marquee win looking better and finally blowing out a crappy team. Bama was impressive enough to climb to #2 and Boise climbs up because I'm giving them more credit for the Georgia win than I did last week. OU has looked like a top ten team playing scrubs. Wisconsin might be under-ranked. They haven't played Murderer's Row, but they have obliterated two teams.
6-10. Florida St gets to prove themselves next week. Oklahoma St looked great this week in a game of Name Your Score. Stanford and Arkansas are still beating tomato cans, but have looked pretty good doing so. Oregon looked like Oregon again.
11-15. VT seems to always struggle with ECU so I'm not going to read too much into this game, but I will drop them from the top ten. A&M is yet to face live ammo. Sure, Michigan St. beat an outmanned team, but they looked great doing so, and I wanted to rank them a little higher than I did preseason. South Carolina struggled, but won a rivalry game. Arizona St now seems like one of those teams that could be a lot of fun. They just can't get out of their own way, and still beat Mizzou.
16-20. That's the first Nebraska game I've seen and they looked pretty terrible. That's what Fresno does, but I'm punishing the Huskers for that effort. Florida and Baylor don't have much movement. USC jumps into my ballot for two ugly-looking wins, but they have two wins over BCS conference teams, and not many teams can say that right now. Ohio St. would've lost if Toledo didn't suck out loud. OSU didn't look like a good team.
21-25. WVU and Maryland both benefit from me running out of teams I want to rank. I probably overranked Houston after the UCLA win, and I've adjusted accordingly. Auburn is 2-0 and has a win over Mississippi St. I can't ignore that. TCU is clinging to the back of the ballot after a nice bounce back win.
DROPPED OUT: Mississippi St lost to Auburn. South Florida didn't lose, but their quality win over Notre Dame lost its luster, especially compared to Auburn's win.
LOOKING IN: I considered Texas for about two seconds before I realized they struggled mightily with BYU. Michigan beat Notre Dame in a fun game, but really, it was a fun game because neither team played a lick of defense in the final minutes.
SEC POWER POLL
- LSU
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- South Carolina
- Florida
- Auburn
- State
- Tennessee
- Georgia
- Vanderbilt
- Ole Miss
- Kentucky