Over The Pylon

When it comes to the blogpoll and the evaluation of which teams go where, what teams get moved, who jumps, who drops, etc. the first week is probably one of the hardest weeks to do. Is the preseason poll that’s totally a guess the basis for where to start or should it be totally disregarded for the empirical evidence we witnessed over the last couple of days, however limited that may be. It’s a challenge to be sure, and that’s where you, the readers come in. This is an exceptionally rough and early draft of our Blogpoll ballot this week. Rip it to shreds in the comments, but do provide some rationale of why whatever team you think should be higher/lower should in fact be higher/lower.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida
2	Texas
3	Southern Cal	1
4	Alabama	3
5	Mississippi
6	Penn State
7	Oklahoma State	2
8	California	3
9	Boise State	5
10	Georgia Tech	7
11	Brigham Young	12
12	Oklahoma	9
13	Nebraska	2
14	LSU	1
15	Ohio State	7
16	Virginia Tech	6
17	Notre Dame	8
18	Florida State	4
19	Utah
20	Georgia	8
21	TCU	1
22	Cincinnati	4
23	North Carolina	3
24	Kansas	2
25	Oregon State	1
Last week’s ballot

The specifics on this particular draft are sort of tricky. There’s three newbies to our poll, North Carolina, Kansas, and Oregon State at 23, 24, and 25 respectively. They had decent games against not so impressive competition, and were in my sort of waiting room before the week began. They were the benefactors of teams not performing well and getting the bump.

Which brings us to Oregon, Iowa, and Clemson, last week’s 16th, 21st, and 24th ranked teams, all dropped for very different reasons. For the Ducks, it was not only the loss but the way they looked in losing. Plus the suspension of LeGarrette Blount impacts them. Hugely. For the Hawkeyes, it was a day to forget, nearly being upset by Northern Iowa and winning by 1. For Clemson, the injury to CJ Spiller gives pause, but should he return, they’ll be back soon enough.

The big movers up in the poll are Georgia Tech, BYU, and Notre Dame. All looked very good in victories.

Cincy may move up depending how they do in their game against Rutgers. A non-impressive win keeps them where they are, and a loss drops them out entirely. Florida State is in a similar situation.

There is a boatload of teams that I considered ranking in, but I am still not entirely sold on them. Michigan, Tennessee, Arkansas, and yes, our Kentucky Wildcats are in the OTP Blogpoll waiting room for next week.

Final draft of this ballot is due Wednesday morning, so get your thoughts and commentary in by Tuesday evening. Comment section… rippage apart… engage.

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