Blogpoll ballot #14: A very rewarding weekend of college football . . .

Very, very, very rewarding.

. . . because for the first time since October 10, I get to put Georgia back in the top 25 -- well, my own personal top 25, at least. Call it rampant homerism if you must, but the Dawgs have just knocked off two straight ranked teams -- the first one (Auburn) is the only team to have beaten Florida this season, while the second (Georgia Tech) could very well be the ACC champion come Saturday. If Georgia was 5-7 at the moment, those two could be written off as blind-pig-finds-a-pair-of-truffles wins, but the Dawgs are 8-4 and most likely headed to the Peach Bowl. I may have to give up my Straight Bangin' Lifetime Achievement Award, but so be it.

My ballot is as follows; this week's official Blogpoll results are here.

Games watched: Miami-Boston College, last half of Texas A&M-Texas, first half of LSU-Arkansas, Georgia-Georgia Tech, flipped back and forth between Florida-Florida State, South Carolina-Clemson, and Tennessee-Kentucky.

1. Ohio State (Last week: 1)

2. Michigan (2)

3. Southern California (3)
I suppose I could've ratcheted USC up over the Wolverines after their win over Notre Dame, as the sportswriters in the AP poll elected to do, but guess who else whupped Notre Dame's ass? Yup, Michigan. And they took ND out of the game a lot earlier than USC did. And they did it on the road. And I know, I start comparing these two games too closely and I run the risk of asking how many Michigan linebackers could do the Hustle on the head of a pin, but basically it comes down to this: I think Michigan would beat SC on a neutral field. It'd be close, but they'd do it.

4. Florida (5)

5. LSU (10)
I'd just about written them off after the loss to Florida, but they've worked their way back and are now in pretty good position to snag an at-large BCS berth.

6. Louisville (6)

7. Arkansas (4)
I hesitated to drop them too much because I think their loss to LSU was more the product of lousy coaching than lousy play on the field -- you're looking for some momentum going into the SEC title game and still hanging on to hopes of getting into the national-title game, and instead of sticking with the "Wildcat" game plan that's been rocking the house all season long, you're all of a sudden going to make Casey Dick win the game for you? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Nevertheless, if that's their game plan, they're going to have a very unpleasant day against Florida's defense in the Georgia Dome this weekend.

8. Wisconsin (8)

9. Oklahoma (12)

10. Rutgers (14)

11. Boise State (13)

12. West Virginia (7)

13. Auburn (17)
Not crazy about jumping them four spots on a weekend when all they did was sit around drinking hot cocoa and braiding each other's hair, but a bunch of people above them lost, so there you go.

14. Tennessee (16)

15. California (18)

16. Notre Dame (9)
Cory McCartney got to it before I could, but has Notre Dame really been all that impressive this year? They've now faced exactly two elite teams (Michigan and USC) and gotten suckerpunched both times; their most impressive win is, what, Georgia Tech? Yet they're still going to get snatched up by a BCS bowl while Wisconsin, Rutgers, and as many as three 10-win SEC squads get passed over. Life's not fair sometimes.

17. Texas A&M (NR/26)

18. Texas (11)
If Hank Hill had seen Colt McCoy coming into the Texas-Texas A&M game, he would've pronounced, "That boy's not right." Kind of a shame that that injury basically screwed Texas's whole season.

19. Virginia Tech (20)
Looking back over their defense -- four shutouts, an average of fewer than 10 points allowed per game -- I'm starting to wonder if I want to go up against them in the Peach Bowl after all.

20. Wake Forest (22)

21. Boston College (15)

22. Nebraska (23)

23. Brigham Young (21)

24. Georgia (NR)
Yup, here they are. No, I didn't put them way at the top of the rankings, but they deserved to be somewhere. Certainly higher than . . .

25. Georgia Tech (19)
Jou fuck wit da bull, jou get da horns.

The next five: Texas Christian, Penn State, Hawaii, Oregon State, Missouri.

Dropped out: Clemson (24), Texas Christian (25).