My Top 25

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

Dropped Out:

A few thoughts:

1. I'm sticking with Southern Cal as my top team because their defense has been better than Ohio State's so far and I suspect they'll show more offense when faced with a more threatening opponent than Arizona. The big question with the Trojans is whether they shut down Nebraska or Nebraska shut down themselves out of fear of humiliation.

2. I'm of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with ranking a team that loses a tight game on the road slightly behind (or even ahead of) the team that beat them. For instance, no one who watched the LSU-Auburn game could have come away from it thinking that, on a neutral field, the two teams would not be very even. (Auburn fans, if you wish to dispute this point, then you're essentially arguing that your homefield advantage is worthless, or at least worth no more than a field goal. Do so at your own peril.) I have Florida ahead of Auburn solely because I'm concerned about the Tigers' passing game right now. I might just be bitter because I have Courtney Taylor on my fantasy team...but Steve Slaton keeps me warm at night.

2a. As a corollary to the point on homefield advantage, I'd have no problem later in the year ranking Oklahoma ahead of Oregon, but right now, my concerns about the Sooners' defense, not to mention the fact that they struggled with UAB and then Nebraska and Georgia both destroyed the Blazers, keep OU just out of the top ten.

3. Wake Forest and Missouri are on the cusp of the poll, only being kept out by the "yeah, but it was Ole Miss" rule. I enjoyed sticking Washington into the poll; there's something satisfying about Husky Stadium rocking again. I might still be in aferglow after going to the campus in April and deciding that it was a slightly more caffinated version of the University of Michigan. I have BC, Georgia Tech, and Florida State at the end of the poll and I'm not overjoyed to have any of them in the rankings. They're placeholders right now until some team strikes my fancy, as Washington did this weekend, and then I can dispatch them.