Week 1 Blogpoll

Posted by: Avinash on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Rank Team Delta
1 Ohio State —
2 Florida 1
3 Southern Cal 1
4 Oklahoma 2
5 LSU 1
6 Texas 1
7 Georgia 2
8 Missouri 10
9 West Virginia 2
10 Oregon 3
11 Penn State 2
12 Texas Tech 2
13 Auburn 3
14 Brigham Young 1
15 Alabama 11
16 South Carolina 5
17 South Florida 3
18 Mississippi 7
19 Utah 7
20 California 2
21 Wake Forest 5
22 Clemson 12
23 Arizona State 3
24 Kansas —
25 Wisconsin 8
Dropped Out: Florida State (#8), Tennessee (#12), Miami (Florida) (#19), Boston College (#23).

The biggest contentions:
Why did Wisconsin drop? They beat a pitiful Akron team by 21; it was 17-10 at halftime and not sealed up until late in the 4th qarter. Sure they were missing their star tight end in Travis Beckum, but does it really that big a deal. The Badgers are hopelessly overrated (eleventh in the rankings is insanity), and after one more cupcake next week, they should be exposed against Fresno State, Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State.

Why do Alabama, Missouri, Ole Miss and Utah make such grand leaps? They beat quality teams. Nick Saban wiped out a supposed national title contender, sending the ACC into oblivion for the rest of the season. They jump into the middle of the top 25 and seem to be back where they belong.

Missouri had the most entertaining debut. Their defensive performance is worrisome, although I’m guessing they didn’t gameplan for Juice Williams to throw for over 400 yards and 5 touchdowns. South Carolina was not terribly impressive against a bottom-dwelling NC State team, but no one below them was terribly convincing last week, so they get to jump up.

Although Michigan is in rebuilding mode, they weren’t that much worse than the Utes and could’ve beaten them if Rich-Rod wasn’t running spread options for a quarterback who still isn’t equipped to run the spread. Winning in the Big House always gets some dap though, perhaps more dap than it should.

The surprise is Ole Miss, who had a solid win over a talented Memphis squad. In retrospect I probably jumped them up too much, but I think

Where’s UCLA? Forget that fantastic ending. Did you watch that entire game? The only reason the Bruins won was because somebody had to. Neither team seemed to realize this game counted for something until about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter. That’s supposed to be rewarded?

Oklahoma won by 55. How do they fall 3 spots? Going into this week, I didn’t realize how freaking bad Chattanooga is. They’ve won 13 games in the past 4 seasons. They were 2-9 in the Southern Conference last season, so they’re the bottom barrel in the bottom of barrels. It was 50-0 at halftime. HALFTIME!!! That isn’t a game, that’s a homicide.

Ohio State at least played a real FBS team like Youngstown State (projected to be a solid Missouri Valley team). Ditto LSU. Ditto West Virginia. Ditto Texas Tech. They get to move up. Bob Stoops’s marauders get to take a step down until Cincinnati.

Georgia moves down to #7? Are you crazy? Dawgs are gonna be national champs!!!
That was a very telling performance by the Dawgs. Their offensive line was supposedly not impressive against an average Georgia Southern team. 45-21 is also not a terribly convincing way to start off a national championship season. So they fall down to #7. They’ll get their chance to jump back up in two weeks.

(Just to note: Dawg Sports does concur with this sentiment. Somewhat.)

Kansas, ASU and Wake Forest aren’t ranked that high:I’m not sold on any of these teams. Kansas might be the benefit of the easiest schedule in history (no Texas Tech, no Oklahoma, no Texas), but you get the feeling they’re not quite as good as last season with Aqib Talib moving on and the offensive line fairly inexperienced. Their matchup at South Florida next Friday will be telling.

Arizona State also had the benefit of an easy schedule last season. Northern Arizona was an okay victory, but like Kansas, they’ll have to prove they can hang with the big boys when Georgia comes to town in three weeks. For now they get Stanford and UNLV, and they will dwell at the bottom of the top 25.

Wake Forest didn’t make my rankings last week. A solid thrashing of Baylor was a good start to being considered the class of the ACC, although now they could probably go ahead and lose to Ole Miss by 3 TDs. Doesn’t it seem like almost half the national champions out there need to pick on little Baylor before they can be considered contenders?

On the fringes: Boston College (21-0 against Kent State is and isn’t impressive, Florida State (did not play, so they don’t deserve to be ranked in any case), Miami (beat up a bad Charleston Southern squad and incurs the Oklahoma Penalty), Nebraska (showed sparks against a likely MAC contender in Western Michigan), UCLA (they get a chance to validate the importance of their victory in two weeks against BYU), Arizona (definitely some murmurs after their win, but they’re only murmurs until they go to UCLA (New Mexico is average and Toledo stinks).



Topics: blogpoll, College Football, Teams

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