This is the worst week of the year in which to compile a BlogPoll ballot. We have enough information gathered from the playing of actual games to toss aside many if not most of our preseason suppositions, but we lack adequate data upon which to base reliable conclusions. It’s too late in the game to ignore resumes but too early in the game to rely upon them entirely.
There are enough details available to use that we now know that we know more than nothing, but what we have before us is conflicting. The ACC started out looking like it was the Virginia Tech Hokies and no one else; then, for a week, it looked like the league had several potential good teams; now we’re back to thinking the ACC is the Virginia Tech Hokies and no one else.
In fact, after wrestling with it for a while, I abandoned all hope of being able to compile an even remotely coherent ballot based on resume ranking, so I fell back on last week’s final ballot and revised it according to this weekend’s results. The ballot thereby arrived at is an absolute hodgepodge that likely is rife with contradictions.
I offer no defense for my approach, except to say that the combination of three straight weekends featuring Georgia night games followed by four-hour lay speaking recertification courses on Sunday afternoons has left me wiped out, and, after standing in the cold and rain and yelling on Saturday night while facing the prospect of being singled out for ignominy in the alphabetical on Monday morning, I’m just flat beat. Here is the best I can do for now; your feedback is sincerely appreciated:
 |
||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | |
| 2 | Texas | |
| 3 | Florida | |
| 4 | Virginia Tech |
 9 |
| 5 | Southern Cal |
5 |
| 6 | Ohio State |
5 |
| 7 | Boise State |
 1 |
| 8 | Oklahoma |
1 |
| 9 | TCU |
9 |
| 10 | Oregon |
14 |
| 11 | LSU |
6 |
| 12 | Iowa | |
| 13 | UCLA |
1 |
| 14 | Cincinnati |
2 |
| 15 | Nebraska | |
| 16 | South Florida | |
| 17 | Miami (Florida) |
13 |
| 18 | Houston | |
| 19 | Georgia Tech |
4 |
| 20 | Oklahoma State |
1 |
| 21 | Georgia |
1 |
| 22 | South Carolina | |
| 23 | Brigham Young |
4 |
| 24 | Wisconsin | |
| 25 | Michigan | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
All that probably will make even less sense to me in the morning, so feel free to rip into that with willful abandon.
Go ‘Dawgs!