1. The unceasing decade-long choruses of "parity parity parity all the upsets are about parity chaos = parity parity" have never been accurate. BYU won the national championship in 1984. Colorado and Georgia Tech split it in 1990. West Virginia twice came within a game of an undefeated season and a crown in the late-'80s early-'90s. Having the likes of Missouri or Oregon challenge for a national title or Utah or Cincinnati for a major-level bowl bid isn't anything new.
That said ... I can't remember a season where there seemed to be such universal mediocrity once you got past the top one or two teams in each money league, the Big 12 notably excepted. The SEC is down. The Pac-10 is down. The Big 10 is holding steady at "Eh." And in terms of potential top-15ish teams, the ACC and the Big East are each a wasteland. "Parity" was always supposed to be about a smaller gap between the haves and the have-nots of college football, but that's not what's happening in 2008 ... this year, at least, parity means that we have a few select haves, and past that every major-conference team in the country with a few notable exceptions is at least a have-sorta. The result? Arkansas can beat Tulsa. Northwestern can beat Minnesota. Cal can beat Oregon, but just two weeks ago, Arizona can beat Cal. Anyone in the entire ACC can beat anyone else. If you want to discuss parity, this year is finally your year.
2. Dr. Saturday mentioned this already, but it's worth going into a bit more detail about: the coaches not only have Oklahoma ranked ahead of the same Texas team that has the same record, better victories, and beat them head-to-head, they have them ranked three whole places ahead! And this poll makes up a third of the system we use to decide a championship. Goodness gracious.
On with the JCCW's ballot:
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama |  1 |
| 2 | Texas Tech | 4 |
| 3 | Penn State | -- |
| 4 | Texas |  3 |
| 5 | Florida | 1 |
| 6 | Oklahoma | 1 |
| 7 | Southern Cal | 1 |
| 8 | Oklahoma State | 1 |
| 9 | Ohio State | 4 |
| 10 | Georgia | 3 |
| 11 | Utah | 1 |
| 12 | TCU | -- |
| 13 | Boise State | 2 |
| 14 | Ball State | -- |
| 15 | Missouri | 3 |
| 16 | Maryland | 5 |
| 17 | California | 9 |
| 18 | Michigan State | 1 |
| 19 | North Carolina | 1 |
| 20 | Pittsburgh | 3 |
| 21 | Oregon State | 1 |
| 22 | LSU | 3 |
| 23 | Georgia Tech | 3 |
| 24 | West Virginia | 2 |
| 25 | Northwestern | 1 |
Dropped Out: Tulsa (#15), Minnesota (#16), Florida State (#17), Connecticut (#24).
1-3: With Alabama's beatdown of Georgia losing just a bit of its value, the gap between 1 and 2 here is awfully narrow; a Texas Tech victory next week over Okie St. would take them to No. 1. But for now the Raiders don't have enough in their sorry excuse for a nonconference schedule to justify moving them all the way to the top. What's funny is that I can't imagine Penn St. can really have too many complaints about being jumped at this point, not when all Texas really had to do to lock up one of the BCS title-game slots was catch that pick that fell in their laps. On such tiny details the entire season hinges.
4-10: Texas is your top one-loss team, and it's not even close right now. Florida has victories over the 10th and 22nd-ranked teams in this ballot and lost at home to a team outside the poll; Texas has beaten the Nos. 6, 8, and 15 teams and lost on the road to the current No. 2 team. Not a tough choice.
Re Oklahoma vis a vis Oklahoma St., in last week's Blog Poll breakdown Brian wrote that "you can argue the only thing keeping the Sooners ahead of the Cowboys is name recognition" and the same argument probably holds after both teams annihilated overmatched opponents at home. Brian's right that it's possible to argue this. But I think the better argument still has Oklahoma out in front at this time. Okie St. has the Missouri win but not much else; their next-best win is at home to 4-5 Texas A&M. Meanwhile, the value of that Missouri win is increasingly debatable as the Tigers squeaked by Baylor this last week and still haven't beaten anyone themselves better than Illinois. The Sooners, meanwhile, have smoked pretty much everyone they've played, including TCU--at this point, a win every bit as good as Missouri--Cincinnati, and Kansas. Top-to-bottom, the Sooners' resume is better, and while it's basically a coinflip between USC and Okie St. for me at the moment, I do think the Trojans' manhandling of Ohio St. puts them one notch up the ladder as well.
I'm not particularly fond of Ohio St. or Georgia--th Dawgs gets nothing, credit-wise, from the trip to Tempe and have to cite "at LSU" as their best win and "at South Carolina" as their second-best. The winner of TCU-Utah will pass them both next week.
11-14: I'll back TCU if they can sweep their Mountain West schedule, but I'm just not sold on the rest of these teams as legitimate BCS contenders. Utah has one miracle comeback at home vs. Oregon St. to their name. Boise has only the win over rapidly-fading, third-place-at-best Oregon and can't even point towards huge blowouts of their WAC foes; playing on their own blue turf against Hawaii, they only won by 20 against the same Warriors that just lost to pathetic Utah St. Ball has the blowouts, but their best possible win is home against Navy.
15-23: You can order these teams just about however you'd like, but there's a chasm between this block and the top-10, despite the relative five-slot closeness of it. Very few of these teams have any wins worth crowing about; those that do have bad losses to pair with them. As Missouri's losses are the best and they'd been pwning fools until this week, they top the lot. Maryland-Cal-Michigan St. have to go in that particular order due to head-to-head. (I know State has eight wins, but the best one of them is at Northwestern and the next-best is vs. Notre Dame. Maryland goes Cal-Wake Forest and Cal claims Michigan St.-Oregon. It's not enough for the Spartans to bypass head-to-head.)
I'm going to be seriously irked if Pitt fails to make the poll this week; no, they don't have any standout wins, but @Notre Dame-@Navy-Iowa-@USF is still a legit collection of middlebrow W's, and way better than what overrated LSU (@South Carolina + bupkis) or Georgia Tech (sorry, not impressed by beating Boston College or Florida St.) have on offer.
24-25: I can't believe these dregs made the poll. West Virginia's best win is @UConn, there's absolutely nothing behind it, and their losses just aren't entirely excusable. Northwestern gets by by getting by on the road: Minnesota, Iowa, and Duke aren't murderer's row but all three W's came away from Evanston.
Waitlist: South Carolina and Ole Miss are knocking on the door; one more round of SEC wins should do it.
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