Tuesday, September 25

BlogPoll ballot #5: The football been berry, berry good to me.

Not much commentary necessary this time around -- what can I say? You already know exactly how my weekend went.

Games watched: Oklahoma-Tulsa, the first part of LSU-South Carolina, most of Florida-Ole Miss and Michigan-Penn State, and, of course, Georgia-Alabama (in person b1tchez!1!1!!!!one)

1. LSU (last week: 1)
Here's how good LSU is: Allowing 16 points and 261 total yards to South Carolina actually qualifies as a defensive meltdown by their standards.

2. Southern California (2)

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. West Virginia (5)

5. Florida (4)
Had to knock them down at least a little for letting Ole Miss look like they could actually play some offense, but I think that has more to do with a young defense not knowing how to follow up the dominating performance against Tennessee than anything else.

6. California (6)

7. Ohio State (9)

8. Rutgers (7)

9. Oregon (13)

10. Boston College (11)

11. Wisconsin (8)
Somebody let me know when these guys actually put together a complete performance on both sides of the ball.

12. Texas (16)

13. Kentucky (17)
Is Kentucky really the 13th-best team in the country? Probably not, now that the Louisville win has been devalued faster than Enron stock and Arkansas has been pretty clearly exposed as a team severely lacking in defense or defense-like substance. But then, I didn't really think much of them last year either until they whacked Clemson pretty convincingly in the bowl game. So I guess the Wildcats deserve some benefit of the doubt for the time being.

14. Arizona State (22)
A 12-point win over a not-as-good-as-advertised Oregon State team probably doesn't merit an 8-spot jump all by itself, but I've also probably been undervaluing ASU for a while now.

15. South Carolina (15)
How do the Gamecocks stand fast in the rankings despite getting whacked by LSU? Two reasons: One, I don't feel like I can put them below Georgia or Alabama t this point, and two, if you think about it, if LSU is the best team in the country and South Carolina the fifteenth best, 12 points on the road is probably the number of points they should've gotten beaten by. In a vacuum, at least. If Chris Smelley doesn't provide a noticeable boost for the SC offense, though, they'll probably get moved down some.

16. Georgia (20)
Not sure about putting Georgia this high, either, since as I've already explained, their win over Alabama was not exactly a pretty one -- but if they can win in Tuscaloosa, ugly or no, then they can win in Knoxville and Atlanta (not to mention a few in Athens along the way).

17. Alabama (10)

18. Penn State (12)

19. South Florida (18)

20. Clemson (NR)

21. Virginia Tech (24)

22. Michigan (NR)
Obviously this may be highly premature, but I kinda get the feeling that the Wolverines are back -- not back in the ready-to-contend-for-the-Big-10-title sense, but at least in the not-nearly-as-godawful-as-they-looked-the-first-two-weeks sense.

23. Arkansas (14)
There's a part of me that thinks "As long as they've got Darren McFadden, they're not completely out of it," but that voice gets quieter and quieter with each passing week.

24. Hawaii (NR/26)

25. Missouri (NR)

The next five: Georgia Tech, Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Nebraska, Tennessee.

Dropped out: Louisville (19), Georgia Tech (21), Nebraska (23), Texas A&M (25).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

'K, so why did you advance Ohio again this week? 'Cause they were big and bad enough to whup Northwestern, who is the doormat of the Big 10, to paraphrase something or other! Move 'em when they actually beat a team of some note! Say, Michigan, or such!

Erik Tylczak said...

ASU isn't that good. We're still playing sloppy shitty football and it's going to bite us in the ass in the next two weeks.


And you are aware that BYU got beaten by Tulsa, right?

Josh M. said...

Dude, Georgia Tech anywhere near the top 25? Their Notre Dame win is the most devalued victory of the year for any team. I'm more concerned about Troy than GT.

oreo said...

A couple of things:
1. Clemson - looking really good right now (until their yearly Tommy Bowden meiltdown). I'd put them in front of UK around #13...or maybe flip-flop them with...
2. Arizona St - ...just not sold on them just yet.

rw said...

i think Clemson should be higher...bammer should be in the 20's and south florida wont be in the top 25 long