Braves & Birds Ballot - Week 2
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama Crimson Tide |  2 |
| 2 | Boise St. Broncos | 6 |
| 3 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | 2 |
| 4 | Oregon Ducks | 9 |
| 5 | TCU Horned Frogs | 1 |
| 6 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 1 |
| 7 | Texas Longhorns |  -3 |
| 8 | Wisconsin Badgers | 11 |
| 9 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | 2 |
| 10 | Arizona Wildcats | -- |
| 11 | Georgia Bulldogs | 3 |
| 12 | Clemson Tigers | -- |
| 13 | Auburn Tigers | -4 |
| 14 | Florida Gators | -13 |
| 15 | Oklahoma Sooners | -13 |
| 16 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | -6 |
| 17 | Oregon St. Beavers | -1 |
| 18 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | -- |
| 19 | Miami Hurricanes | 2 |
| 20 | Iowa Hawkeyes | -5 |
| 21 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -- |
| 22 | Missouri Tigers | 3 |
| 23 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | -- |
| 24 | USC Trojans | -4 |
| 25 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -8 |
| Dropouts: LSU Tigers, North Carolina Tar Heels, Stanford Cardinal | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
- Yeah, I have Boise State in my top two. I'm not a pure resume ranker, but it's hard to overlook a quasi-road victory against a top ten team. As anyone who has read this site for years will know, I am not a fan of the non-BCS teams by any stretch. I'm not of the opinion that Utah's 12-0 is the same thing as Florida's 11-1. The test for a mid-major should be this: did they perform against their schedule the way that I would expect a true national title contender to perform? Margin of victory is an important measuring tool and it's especially important with non-AQ teams. To take 2008 Utah as an example, they had a number of close games against opponents that Florida or Oklahoma would have detsroyed. (The same criticism can be made of 1984 BYU.) 2009 TCU, on the other hand, showed that they were on a different plane than the teams on their slate, so I was happy to plunk them into the national title picture just behind Texas. Boise State has been putting up similar numbers on teams in the WAC. If the Broncos put up a number on Oregon State and don't have close calls against the minnows, then they should be in the heart of the running for the top two spots at the end of the season. In other words, I co-sign on Mr. SEC's opinion, although I'd go a step further and state that there are conditions in which Boise State should certainly go to Glendale ahead of a one-loss BCS conference team. It depends on the conference and the team.
- And to take that point a step further, I am feeling more love for Boise State than I am for Texas right now. Boise State doesn't control who they play in their conference, except to the extent that they can move up to a better league, which they have done. They do control who they play outside of the league, so they went across the country to play Virginia Tech and they have lined up a game against Oregon State. Compare their non-conference scheduling with that of Texas. How many ranked non-conference opponents have the Horns played in the last decade? The two games against Ohio State and...? A game against TCU? A couple games against Arkansas, a lower tier team in the SEC? I believe the expression is "all hat, no cattle?" Yes, the Big XII is stronger than the WAC, but Oklahoma doesn't seem to have an issue with scheduling, now do they? Moreover, Texas has control over who they play in their conference and they made the decision this summer to stay in a weakened Big XII that they can dominate instead of stepping into another conference with more competition. Frankly, I'd like to see a bit of a backlash against Texas for their cowardice.
- My ballot reflects both the results over the weekend, as well as a re-think that I had about certain teams after I did my preseason ballot. For instance, I think I needed to give more love to Wisconsin. (We were speaking about teams that are apparently terrified of non-conference challenges, weren't we?) They return a ton of starters from a team that was quite good last year. They seem to me to be a solid second team in the Big Ten behind Ohio State and they looked good in the opener. I dinged Georgia Tech mostly because I decided that I had them a little high after week one.
- Yeah, that Florida 1, Oklahoma 2 sequence at the top of the ballot didn't look so good by the end of Saturday night, did it?
- The first weekend of college football is like the first week of the World Cup. The favorites are typically playing teams that they should handle easily, so we're all looking to see if they are up big early. It's worth keeping in mind that one week into the past World Cup, the eventual champions were 0-0-1, having lost to unfancied Switzerland.
4 comments:
And that same Utah team went on the road and destroyed the team Florida struggled to beat (Alabama). Pick and choose the facts you like chachi. I also enjoy your biased assumptions (they struggled against teams others would destroy).
Leaving Utah out of your top 25 poll is nonsense. Their defense completely shut down Pitt -- the only reason the game was close was because of the 4 turnovers (one inside their 10, one in the endzone, and two more inside their 30). Couple that D with what will be an explosive offense, and you will see another undefeated season this year. Let's face it, Utah should have two titles in the last 6 seasons (the 2004 team obliterated every team on the schedule, including the Fiesta Bowl).
We've had this argument a million times. Yes, Utah was great in the bowl game. No, the Alabama team they played was not the same as the Alabama team that Florida beat in the SEC Title Game. That performance was also out of character for a team that was in a bevy of close games, including a game against TCU in which they were comprehensively outplayed and a two-point win over a really bad Michigan team (but that seems to be a qualification for teams from Utah with spurious claims to national titles). Yes, I rate '04 Utah very highly and would have loved a four-team playoff with the Utes, USC, Oklahoma, and Auburn.
I didn't rank Utah this week because I didn't rate Pitt and beating an unranked team at home in overtime isn't a major accomplishment.
Texas is pathetic and should not have made the title game last year over TCU (or arguably Boise), but they seem to be ramping up their future schedules a bit to compensate for the rabble in their conferece, with ND, BYU and USC.
I'd love to argue with you regarding some of your placement in a Week 1 poll, but outside of obvious performances such as Ole Miss getting upset by Jacksonville St, etc., it would be about as fruitless as arguing over a Preseason Poll.
And coming from me, you know I want to say something about GT, but honestly, they probably should have been around 12-14 in your last poll and around there after week 1.
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