Blogpoll Ballot - Week 3
Here again we present the Big Red Network ballot for the college football top 25 poll at M Go Blog. USC continues to look like the best team in the country and no one seems all that close.
Oklahoma jumps Georgia who played another “too close if your team is special� game. Auburn played the ugliest game perhaps in college football history and thus takes a back seat to Wisconsin and BYU. Penn State continues to embarrass opponents. I bounced Ohio State completely. There are too many undefeated teams at this point to need to rank any with losses. If Ohio Sate is the kind of team Buckeye fans hope for, then they could easily climb into the top five by season's end. But they'll have to earn it. A close game with win-less Ohio and a one-sided blowout loss to USC doesn't earn a ranking after three games even if they did embarrass Youngstown State (with a healthy Beanie Wells).
1. USC
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. Florida
5. LSU
6. Texas
7. Mizzou
8. BYU
9. Wisconsin
10. Auburn
11. Texas Tech
12. PSU
13. South Florida
14. Alabama
15. Oregon
16. Wake Forest
17. Utah
18. East Carolina
19. Florida State
20. Oklahoma State
21. TCU
22. Boise State
23. North Carolina
24. Vanderbilt
25. Nebraska
9/15/2008
Steve,
While I understand your principle here, I can’t make it work in the reality of this ballot. Meaning - Is Ohio State really worse than Vanderbilt, TCU, Florida State and others? Probably not. Like I said, I get the principle of being undefeated. But, the other polls (AP, Coaches) clearly don’t operate in that way. Otherwise, NU would likely be ranked in those.
One other comment on polls in general, not on Steve’s ballot specifically:
- If ECU is one of the 15 best teams in America, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Seriously, they barely beat Tulane. The Pirates are a nice story. But, that’s where it ends. VT and WVU were overrated at the time when ECU beat them. I don’t think ECU is *bad*, they could be quite good. But, they are not a top 15 team.
9/15/2008
The weakness of a “prove it with wins” mentality to ranking in September is it overly penalizes the “traditional brands” (i.e. Ohio State) when they stumble early. But if we stopped doing polls prior to Halloween then you’d see that mostly corrected as OSU and the like would have had time to “earn” a higher ranking (if they deserve it).
As for ECU, they’ve won their 2 toughest games of the regular season. Seriously, this team might be 12-0 by the end of the regular season. Would you give them a top 15 ranking then? And unlike Hawaii of last year, they just played two teams that played in BCS bowls a year ago and beat them. Sure they played an uninspired game against Tulane. Put yourself in their shoes, how fired up would you be to play Tulane after beating VT and WV? They’ve got some moderately tough road dates that could knock them back, but if this team runs the table I can’t see how they can be kept out of a BCS game (which should go to top 10 teams).
9/15/2008
I would place OSU outside the top 10 based on previous ranking, weekly game performance, but I also think that OSU could beat some of those undefeated teams. I like the list as long as Notre Dame isn’t on it. The season will wash it all out in time but it’s fun to see what people’s perceptions are at this point. KU, pretty good performance against a pretty good South Florida team. I said 5 losses minimum at the start of the season just because of their schedule.
9/15/2008
From what we’ve see thus far, nobody can sniff USC and Oklahoma. The rest of the top 25 are craps dice - just shake them, toss, and see what comes face up.
Kansas City, MO
9/16/2008
East Carolina is like the KU of last year. They’re just good enough to win close on the road and just good enough to beat the opponents that are overrated. KU’s easy schedule karma is coming back on them this year. The loss at USF is the first of more than their fans expect.