Tuesday, September 18

BlogPoll ballot #4: Take me to "Rainbow," please.

Sunday night I had this weird dream where I was back in Athens, taking classes at UGA, and I walked into the (newly renovated) journalism building and got into the elevator to ride up to the fifth floor -- only there were no numbers on the buttons. Instead, each floor was marked with a word like “Sky” or “Moon” or “Rainbow” or something like that. Eventually someone informed me that I wanted the “Moon” floor.

I don’t know what this portends for the Alabama game this weekend. Probably nothing good.

But anyway, until one of you readers well versed in dream interpretation steps in to help me out, here’s this week’s BlogPoll ballot:

Games watched: West Virginia-Maryland, Georgia-Western Carolina (with bits of Mississippi State-Auburn sprinkled in), Tennessee-Florida, flipped back and forth between Alabama-Arkansas and Boston College-Georgia Tech.

1. LSU (last week: 1)

2. Southern California (3)

3. Oklahoma (2)
The top three was kind of a puzzle for me this week -- I felt like USC needed a bump for dismantling Nebraska in Lincoln the way they did, but it was hard to explain why either of the other teams above them would deserve to get knocked down a notch. In the end I just had to sit back and try to decide who would beat whom on a neutral field -- the main criterion I use for coming up with these ballots to begin with -- and this is what came out.

4. Florida (8)

5. West Virginia (4)

6. California (7)

7. Rutgers (9)

8. Wisconsin (5)
Tied with the Citadel at halftime? Seriously? And allowing them a total of 31 points? I thought the Badgers were supposed to have a defense.

9. Ohio State (6)
I apologize for docking them three spots after what was a very solid win over Washington; this is mainly a correction for having them too high last week.

10. Alabama (19)
I heard on the radio Sunday morning that Alabama hadn’t had a fourth-quarter comeback since 2001. If Saban has taken the talent Bama already had and gotten them to believe they can actually win games like this, then look out.

11. Boston College (14)

12. Penn State (12)

13. Oregon (13)

14. Arkansas (10)
I can’t whack them too hard for playing a better-than-expected team and getting beat on the next-to-last play, but they better figure that defense out quick.

15. South Carolina (21)

16. Texas (11)
Time to “correct” the Longhorns’ ranking . . . again. About the only thing you can say with any certainty about them right now is that they’re inconsistent, and that ain’t good.

17. Kentucky (NR)

18. South Florida (24)

19. Louisville (15)

20. Georgia (22)
I probably shouldn’t bump them up any for what was a pretty lackadaisical win over Western Carolina, but what the hell. I don’t think they’ve played their best game yet by a long shot, and Mark Richt has a weird habit of making those pop up in the most unlikely circumstances (like in Tuscaloosa, at night, for instance).

21. Georgia Tech (16)
After another Chan-gasmic outing, the rest of the world now has a ready-made blueprint for beating the Jackets: 1) Stop Tashard Choice, 2) defend against the blitz at all costs. And with Choice potentially being unavailable for the trip up to Charlottesville this weekend, it’s not totally out of the question for Tech to lose again in a venue where they’ve stunk for years.

22. Arizona State (25)

23. Nebraska (18)

24. Virginia Tech (23)

25. Texas A&M (NR)

The next five: Hawaii, Cincinnati, UCLA, Missouri, Texas Tech.

Dropped out: UCLA (17), Tennessee (20).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, so you corrected the Ohio ranking issue - now, following your sister's list of things to do when you make a mistake, is promise you will never do it again (you can skip the validating my feelings part...)

beast in 'bama said...

As for your sky-moon-stars conundrum: old-timers used to carve moons and stars above the thresholds of their outhouses... You just had to go pee, that's all. I've never been to the journalism building in Athens, but I bet it has really nice bathrooms.

About the only thing I can say with any certainty about the Longhorns is that at least one of them will get arrested on or about October 2. This is turning into a very long season already for Texas fans.

Good luck Saturday. That should be a very interesting game. From what little I've seen of him, I'm impressed by Moreno (sp?). Of course, Grant's been very good for the Tide so far, too. We might be watching next year's all SEC backfield on Saturday.