Blogpoll Ballot, Week #7

Rank Team Delta
1 Ohio State
2 Florida 4
3 Michigan 1
4 West Virginia 1
5 Southern Cal 2
6 Louisville 1
7 Texas 2
8 Tennessee 6
9 California 7
10 Notre Dame 2
11 Auburn 9
12 Clemson 3
13 Arkansas 13
14 Iowa 4
15 Georgia Tech 2
16 Georgia 5
17 Boise State 2
18 Oregon 8
19 Missouri 2
20 Rutgers
21 LSU 13
22 Virginia Tech
23 Nebraska
24 Wisconsin 2
25 Oklahoma 12

Dropped Out: Texas Tech (#24), Wake Forest (#25).

As a whole, we watched a lot of games. Sylvester-Yon Rambo watched all of them, I think.

A couple comments:

One of our voters didn’t include Arkansas in their top 25. See below for their reasoning. (I don’t agree, I think he should have Arkansas there, but that’s my opinion) Houston Nutt did forget West Virginia last year, so…

We actually have Michigan and Florida tied for number 2, but since that won’t work with the system, I put Florida at #2 and Michigan at #3. Alphabetical order and all…

A few comments from the other MotSaG’ers:

Arkansas’s ranking is based on how far I decided to drop Auburn. I know I the AP & Coaches Poll a team can lose and still be ranked above the team that beat them. I don’t get that logic. Since Arkansas and Auburn have the same record of 5-1, Arkansas gets ranked above Auburn in my poll even if the jump is huge. Plus I watched the whole game and Arkansas looked good. (Zeke)

After the third week in a row that USC struggled against an unranked opponent, they dropped 2 spots. Five may even be a little high, but they are still undefeated. (Zeke)

Florida is unquestionably #2 right now. They’ve beaten Tennessee, Alabama, and LSU in three of the past four weeks, and their “breather” opponents were totally destroyed. Night game at Auburn this weekend, though… so they’re still in the thick of it. If they don’t lose in the next two weeks, they’re going to Arizona in January. (sportsMonkey)

UM had a decent game against MSU, but again, it’s so hard to tell what the _real_ UM is. They haven’t played _anyone_ yet. One ranked team, and that team (ND) completely folded, so it’s difficult to judge how good UM is. I think they’re better than USC, though, so I have them ahead of the Trojans. Finally, this Saturday and next we’ll get to see UM tested. Night game at PSU, then Iowa. (sportsMonkey)

Tennessee jumped into my top five. I’m a little uncomfortable with jumps that huge, but after seeing how nearly-unstoppable Florida is, and how Tennessee’s only loss was by one point to Florida, it seemed obvious to me that the Vols would probably beat the WVU/Louisville combo, and probably Texas too. So I had to bump them up. (sportsMonkey)

I really wanted to put Arkansas in [Sure you don’t want to reconsider? -ed], I feel that a one-loss team that crushes the #2 team in the country should be ranked. I’m not sure where, though. I don’t feel right about bumping Penn St. – they lost to the #1 team in the country, and won at Minnesota last week. I guess for now, Arkansas is my #26. If UM beats JoePa this weekend, then maybe I’ll bump Arkansas up. (sportsMonkey)

Comments

  1. Where to start with my complaints about this weeks poll……rofl.

    Sportsmonkey the mere fact that you have Penn St in your top 25 should get you bannished from the poll for a week. The fact that you left them in with 2 losses and choose to exclude Arkansas with 1 loss to Southern Cal no less amazes me. PSU has 0 quality wins and Arkansas beat the no 2 team at their home no less by a lot.

    I am glad to see USC finally was ranked properly.

    I agree with Zeke on if you beat a team you get ranked ahead of them if records are the same.

    As a whole I believe the SEC is completely overrated.

    My other complaint would be having Tennesee in the top 5. At some point we as a group of pollsters have to say being unbeaten is the top priority for rankings. Going undefeated is much harder than losing 1 game to an undefeated team. We have to reward people for winning and not for I think they would beat them on a neutral site. If Rutgers is undefeated at the end of the year, Would you have them in the top 5? I would hope so and the same for Boise St. and Missouri.

    As a whole though I agree with the poll. I would like to see 2 loss teams dropped out and teams with better records moved in.

  2. SYR:

    I do not think that a team that has more losses is automatically weaker than a team that has fewer.

    To jump Arkansas 13 spots – from unranked – after only one decent game is what is shocking to me.

    Arkansas got destroyed by USC. Utterly humiliated. Also, it took a strong gust of wind to keep Vanderbilt – Vanderbilt! – from beating them.

    Conversely, Penn State played OSU at the Shoe, and played them hard. Comparing PSU\’s loss to OSU and Arkansas\’ loss to USC, JoePa\’s crew comes out looking better. As for the other PSU loss (ND), I\’d say losing to ND when it was clicking on all cylinders is just as impressive as barely beating Vanderbilt.

    Like I told el Kaiser, this weekend will tell us whatever we don\’t know about PSU. As for Arkansas, they\’ve got another, um, \”challenge\” this week, playing another I-AA team.

    I respectfully disagree with you on automatically ranking unbeaten teams as higher. You rank a team higher by who you think would win the game, not by who was lucky enough to play against the weakest opponents.

    If OSU had lost a close game to Texas, do you honestly think that you\’d be ranking Boise St. higher than the Bucks?

  3. By the end of the year yes……..a team that wins week in and week out has earned the right to be ranked higher than a team that loses. This isnt the NFL where every team who wins gets a shot at the title. In the NCAA winning is all that matters in the regular season. I just dont like the theory of guessing WHO would beat WHO on a neutral field. Otherwise OSU wouldnt have a 2002 NC cause no one said we would beat them on a neutral field (except OSU fans). There are 119 Div 1 schools a team only plays 12-13 of them that leaves a whole lot of guessing out thereas to who would win the rest of the 100+ games. All I am simply saying is WIns matter MORE than guesses.

    This is why we need a PLAYOFF system and why polls are flawed badly. We are no better than the AP or the USA today polls. We have pollsters who have completely different ways of voting and it ends up in controversies.

    P.S. I hope you can see that I write my responses with some sarcasm and not with any malicious intent to anyone. I know it is hard to see sarcasm in written form. But seriously Your poll sucks or at least I think it does since I dont get to see it lol @ Tony for not forwarding them as asked for weeks.

  4. I’ve never been able to pin myself down on the playoff issue. Part of me wants it, the other part doesn’t.

    IMO, the issue with the rankings is a separate one from the playoff issue. As far as rankings go, I would support a system that did NOT rank a team for a few weeks, but rather waited for a month of play to pass. There would be less ambiguity in that type of system.

    Still, though, you have a point about Arkansas. Consider me persuaded.

    The main problem I have, though, is that the Arkansas/Auburn victory means only one of three things:
    (1) Arkansas is the real deal, a top-five team. If that’s the case, then Auburn shouldn’t be overly punished for losing to a top-five team.

    or,

    (2) Auburn is a joke, and the Arkansas game revealed it to everyone. If that’s the case, then Arkansas shouldn’t be overly _rewarded_ for beating a pretty bad team.

    or,

    (3) The game was an aberration. Auburn choked, and Arkansas was hitting on all cylinders. Both teams played each other opposite of how they’ll play everyone else this season. So the issue there is, how do you reward Arkansas and punish Auburn fairly? You can’t raise Arkansas too high, because they shouldn’t be higher than teams that could beat them. But you can’t drop Auburn too low, because you’d be dropping them _below_ teams they would probably beat, which is unfair in a system that uses rankings to determine title shots.

    I’m still divided on it. I did update my ballot, though. Not sure if it came too late or not.

  5. I will answer your question on Auburn/arkansas. The SEC is way overrated and there will be none in the top 5 by the end of the year. If Florida wins this weekend @ Auburn. I will move them to No. 2 in the poll. But my gut tells me they will lose……by a lot

    P.S. I dont like the theory of a playoff system very much either. I hate that humans with all there BIASES are in charge of rankings though as well…..There is too many people voting based on ESPN highlights and too many based on well they were good before so they must still be.

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