You would think teams won the fringe of the top 25 would want to be ranked. Georgia Tech, Northwestern, Virginia Tech, and Boston College would disagree with you. The back half of the poll continues to go through more turnover than ... than ...the machine, at McDonald's, that keep the apple turnovers warm.
That was horrible. I apologize. And hate Mondays. Anyway, your weekly JCCW ballot:
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | -- |
| 2 | Alabama | -- |
| 3 | Penn State | -- |
| 4 | Florida |  1 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | 2 |
| 6 | Texas Tech | 8 |
| 7 | Georgia | 2 |
| 8 | Southern Cal |  2 |
| 9 | Oklahoma State | 5 |
| 10 | Utah | -- |
| 11 | Boise State | -- |
| 12 | TCU | 4 |
| 13 | Ohio State | 5 |
| 14 | Ball State | 5 |
| 15 | Tulsa | 5 |
| 16 | Minnesota | 5 |
| 17 | Florida State | 9 |
| 18 | Missouri | 8 |
| 19 | Michigan State | 5 |
| 20 | Maryland | 5 |
| 21 | North Carolina | 5 |
| 22 | Oregon State | 4 |
| 23 | Pittsburgh | 10 |
| 24 | Connecticut | 2 |
| 25 | LSU | 13 |
Dropped Out: Georgia Tech (#15), Boston College (#17), South Florida (#18), Northwestern (#22), Virginia Tech (#23).
1-3: Texas is now an unassailable No. 1; they'll have to lose for Alabama to take the top spot. But likewise, Penn St. isn't a threat (in the JCCW's book, at least) to snag No. 3. "Alabama 31, Georgia 0" in Athens remains the most stunning, impressive scoreline of the season and the Nits' schedule--even after the win in Columbus and with Oregon St. on the rise--just doesn't have the juice to overcome it.
4-9: All six of these teams have something substantial to hang their hat on: Florida's LSU beatdown, Oklahoma's TCU win and general blowouterrific excellence, Texas Tech's undefeatedness and legitimizing annihilation in Lawrence last Saturday, Georgia's win in Baton Rouge, Southern Cal's Ohio St. win, and Okie St.'s win in Columbia. With so little to separate them, I basically said "the hell with parsing the resumes" and ranked them in order of how good I think these teams are, with a slight nudge in Tech's favor for being undefeated, even against a schedule that's still quite, quite questionable; it's not like UGA's or Okie St's victims have been terribly impressive aside from their singular big victories anyway.
10-12, 14-15: Honestly, Boise's getting by on their reputation a bit with this vote; Oregon just hasn't accomplished enough to this point to really justify ranking them this high. But the Broncos are also not going to lose again this season, so eh, screw it, I'll just keep them here until the end of the year. Ball ranks ahead of Tulsa by virtue of 1. the Navy win 2. the ever-so-light burnishing of the Indiana blowout 3. having not been seriously challenged once all season whereas Tulsa scraped by SMU. But the Golden Hurricane are still probably a tad underrated by the mainstream polls; no, they haven't beaten anyone of substance, but they've also obliterated teams like New Mexico, Rice, UTEP, and UCF that have on occasion proven to be competitive with larger programs. Besides: who of the motley crew ranked below them would you nominate to move up?
13, 16-17: Man, I wanted to drop the Buckeyes lower. But they've beaten the other two Big 10 teams below them in the poll and their two losses are to top-10 teams. This is where they belong. Minnesota and Florida St. don't have a whole lot in terms of quality victories--The 'Noles home win over a Va. Tech team down two QBs is still probably the best one on either team's resume--but hey, having only one loss this late into the year counts for something.
18-21: Here comes the two-loss parade, finally. With the Illinois victory having lost almost all of its luster over the last few weeks, Missouri still doesn't have any real eye-popping wins to speak of, but whatever, they've been blowing said lesser lights away and the losses are understandable. The order of the other teams here is virtually interchangeable.
22: Yep, Oregon St. Two of their losses are on the road at Penn St. and Utah; the third, yes, is Stanford, but I think a win over USC--miles and miles and miles better than anything any of these other bottom-of-the-poll teams have to offer--is enough to alleviate that.
23-25: If it was just their Big East wins UConn and Pitt would be well out of the poll, but the Huskies still have the Virginia and Baylor wins as well as the freshly-baked thumping of previously one-loss Cincinnati; Pitt still has the W's over Iowa and an underrated Navy team. They belong. As for LSU, their best win is at South Carolina and after that ... at Auburn? vs. Miss. St.? A loss in two weeks to Alabama would knock them out of the poll.
Waitlisted: BYU probably sneaks back into the poll with a win at halfway-decent Colorado St. next week, but to place them above, say, Tulsa right now--when the Cougs' best win is "home to UCLA" and Tulsa pounded their one common opponent (New Mexico) by a substantially greater margin than BYU did--is madness. Cal and Oregon are close, but neither has wins over any of the other "second-tier" Pac-10 teams like, well, each other, Oregon St., Arizona, or even Stanford; W's against Arizona St., UCLA, and Washington don't cut it. South Florida getting into the poll ahead of Pitt is just as stupid as ranking them ahead of the Panthers was last week. Way to go, pollsters!
Auburn content coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment