Two Upsets, 250 Beers, and One Broken Femur Later...

The House Rock Built is back from Florida, and I've gotta admit, I got every penny's worth of entertainment in my 36 hours in the Sunshine State. The Friday night showdown at Raymond James Stadium was thrilling, and I stormed the field with the USF students after the Bulls pulled off an improbable upset against the #5 West Virginia Mountaineers. Throw in the fact that they sold beer in the stadium and that I got to grab singlet guy, and you've got the makings of an awesome day.

The guy giving the shocker... his t-shirt says "Groethe > Tebow"

Saturday we took the show on the road to Gainesville and casually watched the Irish game. The Irish Outsider and I decided to do a shot every time the Irish made a grievous blunder, and a half full of interceptions, fumbles, failures to field punts at the 12 yard line, 3rd and 29 conversions acceded, and ridiculous penalties left us staggering drunk before we knew what had happened. The game improved a bit and it looks like this team is slowly learning to play football, which I guess is good. i compare it to a baseball player finally reaching the revelation that you're supposed to hold the skinny end of the bat and immediately having his batting average jump 100 points. Baby steps.

More drinking, more shennanigans, me knocking Orson Swindle unconscious and doing a Shawne Merriman "lights-out dance" over his mangled body during a pickup football game, and the War Eagle pulling out a shocker in the swamp made for a great day. I'm going to post my full travel recap later this afternoon, but I'm back, I'm alive, and I won't be back in Florida until my court date next month.... but I'm telling you, that police horse was just asking to get punched in the face. It was entrapment.

The House Rock Built Woke Up in Ybor City

Well, kids, the Hobo Tour 2007 continues this weekend with a doubleheader of monster proportions. I'm just heading out to O'Hare to cruise down to Tampa to take in the USF-West Virginia game tonight, and will cap off the weekend by surfing up to Gainesville to watch Florida-Auburn. I've packed my deep south survival kit, and will report back on my covert operation deep in the heart of the scary South. Anyone want any souvenirs? I'm already going to try to stuff Percy Harvin into my carry-on bag and give him to Charlie Weis, so I'm not going to have a lot of extra room.

Anyway, take care of the joint while I'm gone. Go Irish and War Eagle and Go Gators and whatnot.

You don't wann go there, mama. Dem's a bad place.

Blogpoll: The Deeper The Wound, The Harder I Swoon And Wish That That Was Me

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	--
2	Southern Cal	2
3	Florida	2
4	Oklahoma	2
5	California	2
6	West Virginia	--
7	Clemson	1
8	Oregon	1
9	Boston College	12
10	Alabama	16
11	South Carolina	2
12	Texas	2
13	Wisconsin	2
14	Ohio State	4
15	Kentucky	11
16	South Florida	3
17	Missouri	9
18	Michigan State	8
19	Penn State	3
20	Cincinnati	6
21	Rutgers	8
22	Nebraska	7
23	Arizona State	3
24	Hawaii	1
25	Texas A&M	3
Dropped Out: Georgia Tech (#12), UCLA (#14), Arkansas (#17), Louisville (#20), Georgia (#23), Washington (#24).

Happy fun times! Week three is in the books and my ballot is up. At first glance, I'm seeing a lot of green and red arrows. I'm not completelyl schizophrenic, I just think that this third week has given us good cause to re-evaluate the top teams, cut losses with the dogs at the bottom, and reward scrappy little guys who have strung together wins against quality competition while the big boys are feasting on scrumptious cupcakes like Coastal Carolina, the dregs of the Sun Belt conference, and Notre Dame (d'oh!).

Oh, and the title of the post is from the song "Broken Heart", by Motion City Soundtrack. Their new album, "Even if it Kills Me" just dropped today and is in heavy rotation at the HRB bunker. If you like upbeat, synth-heavy whiny white boy rock, I'd recommend you give it a spin.

• Southern Cal regains its rightful place at 1A. Yeah, it's a little unfair to dump a team four places after a bye week like I did in my last ballot, but with the paucity of data on this Trojan team, I really had no choice. Just as I predicted, though, Southern Cal showed that they remain that insurmountable force we all knew they were going to be, and that they will have no problem trouncing the skulls of all the poor bunnies that are led to sacrifice against them. It's a tossup now between them and LSU, but when in doubt, err on the side of the gorilla with a chainsaw for a penis.



Worth another look on my blogpoll ballot.


• Florida storms back onto the scene. Florida had a bit of an inauspicious start on my preseason ballot, clocking in at number 11 mostly because of a hefty 15 points in the "show me first escrow". Suffice to say, I've been shown. Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow have not only taken those 15 points from me, but also my wallet, my girlfriend, and bitchin' Camaro. Welcome to the show, Gators. October 6 is going to be a horrifying bloodbath that will likely leave the southern half of the United States coated in smoking, radioactive ruins and werewolf fur.



• Bama, Boston College, and Kentucky catch a rocket ride. Sure, it might seem a bit irrationaly exuberant to bump two unranked teams into the top ten, but I like the cut of these teams gibs. Boston College has started the season with 3 in-conference games and cruised through them quite effortlessly, including a convincing pasting of Georgia Tech. With a veteran quarterback and some good mojo, they're beginning to look like a big fish in the admittedly small pond in the ACC.
  
  The same thing with Bama. Their win over Arkansas was inspired, and they're 2-0 in conference with an evil genius at the helm. Kentucky gets love just because watching highlights of students storm the field makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.



Wee! Tear 'em down!


• A big whatever for the rest of the pack. This is where the biggest swing is. The last ten spots more or less go to whoever has put together a couple impressive games in a row. Anyone who breaks my tenuous confidence gets unceremoniously booted from the ship in favor of a new, jazzier team to round out the bottom of the top 25. It was nice having you around, Tyrone Willingham. As I told you last week, your stay was over quickly, you did not enjoy it, and I am not your king.
  

Blogpoll: I Ain't Settlin' For Anything Less Than Everything

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	25
2	West Virginia	24
3	LSU	23
4	Michigan	22
5	Louisville	21
6	Texas	20
7	Auburn	19
8	Hawaii	18
9	Georgia	17
10	Virginia Tech	16
11	Florida	15
12	California	14
13	Rutgers	13
14	Florida State	12
15	Tennessee	11
16	Wisconsin	10
17	Oklahoma	9
18	Ohio State	8
19	Texas A&M	7
20	TCU	6
21	Boston College	5
22	Boise State	4
23	Penn State	3
24	UCLA	2
25	Duke	1

Woo-hoo, it's blogpoll time! A couple beers, a well-thumbed copy of Phil Steele's guide, and some random conjecture later and the House Rock Built is making its debut splash in the blogpoll. For those of you who don't remember from last year, I have a very, very, very, ridiculously scientific way of determining my preseason top 25. You see, since there's nothing to judge any of these teams on yet, we have to use math, science, astrology, conjecture, heresay, and spreadsheets to come up with something approximately resembling a sensible arrangement of teams. In case you need a refresher on my category names, here's a handy guide that will help you out:

CIVFLYP	Completely Irrelevant Velocity From Last Year's Performance
WLBGB	Won Last Bowl Game Bonus
SAWO	Score At Will Offense
CDG	Casualty from Draft and Graduation
FSDD	Freaky Shut-Down Defense
VCC	Very Compotent Coach
SMFE	Show Me First Escrow A little more complicated stat, these are points I'm purposely withholding from a team until I've taken a look at their performance. Like Mark May, I'm old school Missouri, I demand that you show-me before I give you props. If after a few games, I see that the team has it together, these points will be added into their score.
VQB	Veteran Quarterback

If it's not obvious, this is intended to be a mockery of the convoluted logic that dictates preseason polling. Not to say that I'm not taking this seriously or that this is a joke ballot... it most certainly is not. It's just an exaggerated breakdown of the voodoo math that goes into assigning a preseason rank. By and large, it looks quite a bit like the AP preseason poll, which is probably because about 30 of the writers pay me a hefty royalty to use this very spreadsheet. But let's keep that under wraps. Scouting out any crazines...

• Hawaii is #8. Okay, that's crazy. But, to be honest, they really have everything that makes for an attractive preseason team. They have arguably the most battle-tested quarterback in the league, a lot of "completly irrelevant velocity from last year's performance", and that all-important bowl win last year, which somehow is a huge factor for preseason polling. I'm keeping them there... for now.
  
  
• Auburn gets a boost. Eh. That might mean there's something wrong with me. They were #1 in my preseason poll last year.



• No Love for Florida. Come on, coaches poll. #3? I mean, look at this. That's a full half page of lost lettermen. Sure, sure, they've got great depth and recruiting and momentum, but I'll believe it when I see it. I'm holding 15 points in escrow until Urban can show he can pull another rabbit out of his hat.



• Duke is #25. As always, so Steve Spurrier doesn't feel alone. As you can see, he did it again this year.

Full documentation of my painstaking process below:


Science, motherfuckers!