Blogpoll: Better Ingredients, Better Football Team Edition
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio State | -- |
| 2 | Michigan | -- |
| 3 | Louisville |  7 |
| 4 | Auburn |  1 |
| 5 | Florida | 1 |
| 6 | California | 3 |
| 7 | Texas | 1 |
| 8 | Notre Dame | 2 |
| 9 | Southern Cal | 2 |
| 10 | Arkansas | 5 |
| 11 | LSU | 8 |
| 12 | Rutgers | 4 |
| 13 | Boise State | 2 |
| 14 | Wisconsin | -- |
| 15 | Tennessee | 10 |
| 16 | Oklahoma | 4 |
| 17 | Georgia Tech | 1 |
| 18 | Wake Forest | 3 |
| 19 | West Virginia | 7 |
| 20 | Texas A&M | 3 |
| 21 | Nebraska | 5 |
| 22 | Oregon | 2 |
| 23 | Maryland | 3 |
| 24 | Brigham Young | 2 |
| 25 | Hawaii | 1 |
Dropped Out: Boston College (#13), Virginia Tech (#22), Clemson (#23), Tulsa (#25). | ||
- Right, one and two. Both teams sputtered against insanely bad competition this week, but found their "championship guts" or whatever you want to spin it as and made things right in the end. Escaping Ball State and Illinois are sad results, but as long as the guy gets the girl at the end, we can overlook that it was in the Chillout Tent while hooked up to saline drips.
- Congratulations, Petrino. You have won my heart. Be gentle. That's right, I'm taking a big swig of Louisville Kool-Aid. I've always been impressed this year by Louisville's ability to sling it, run it, and at least put some semblence of defense forward regardless of the competition or any injuries they've faced. The SMQ broke out the tape measure and really pointed out some of the great things the 'Ville has done this season during the prodcast, and even this loudmouth anonymous poster in the comments of Dink & Dunk pointed out a lot of things that I, too, have noticed this year. Okay, so it's the Big East, but this year has shown that the Big East isn't the complete garbage conference we had thought. One thing's for sure, Big Ten fans (and fans of Independent teams that play a Big Ten-heavy schedule) might be a little bit cautious about throwing stones.
- The Irish slip down. Blasphemer! I've certainly been vocal against unfairly punishing a team after a comfortable win, but even I, the fiercest and most blindly optimistic Irish supporter, felt a little bit queasy watching North Carolina rack up four touchdowns for the first time against a Division 1 school all year. The growth and increased comfort of the defense has not been evident on the Irish defense. It's saddening watching the team week in and week out lose the "yards per carry" battle, even if they can comfortably blow the game away with a dominating passing attack. Furthermore, it's been several weeks since the Irish have proved anything on the field, mostly whipping up on downtrodden programs. Two more service academies on the docket don't do any favors, either.
Don't call it a crisis of confidence, let's just say that the Irish deserve to be locked into the bottom of the top ten until they do something admirable. We'll have to wait until Thanksgiving in Los Angeles to update the evaluation. - Arkansas jumps up in the contender region. They've still gotten by on a very nicely-spaced schedule (which Phil Steele pointed out as a big reason to expect success from the Hogs). They beat South Carolina, which is the first quality opponent they've played in a while, so they're doing well now. I'm still pretty sure this bubble is going to burst over their next few games, but the Hogs are enjoying a healthy bump for the time being.
- And a bunch of other stuff. I think I might be stretching a little bit with two mid-majors at the bottom of the poll, but I did that to avoid giving the bottom five spots to very mediocre ACC teams. I didn't feel it would be fitting to reward the conference with a ton of ranked teams simply because they've got a bunch of 3 loss teams who can brag about beating (unranked) Miami or Florida State.
As you know, I have until Wednesday to revise. Any comments are appreciated.
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