Hurray, that's the poll hurray. If you're interested, you can see all the individual ballots here.
Blogpoll Declares Victory! Um... yeah, Auburn is lower than Wisconsin. I love you guys.
Fallers: As expected, both Miami and Oregon got thumped heavily, Miami because they lost by 37 points and Oregon because they finished the season as unimpressively as any 10-2 team ever has. Also getting pounded was Auburn after they were run out of the (cough) Citrus Bowl by Brian Calhoun and Wisconson. Fellow top-ten losers Georgia and Notre Dame found a softer landing, dropping only 3 and 4 slots respectively.
Risers: Mass carnage in the top ten allowed several teams to slide up quite a ways, most notably Wisconsin. Their unexpected throttling of the aforementioned Tigers catapulted them from #17 to #10. Also shooting upwards: Sugar Bowl-shockers West Virginia and Miami-assistant-coach-murderers LSU, each gaining five slots. Towards the bottom, an 8-4 Oklahoma team parlayed a victory over Oregon into the #20 spot, largely because down there a lot of nose-holding took place.
Wack Ballot Watchdog: Come on, now, Boi From Troy. Y'all lost. It does the poll no credit to be the only one in existence with someone holding out for USC. Nor does your sanity seem, uh, sane when Florida State is #10. Not to be outdone, Pitt Sports Blather ranks the Tide #17, a full six spots worse than any other voter.
Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.
Now we can't figure out what to do with 11-1 TCU... not a huge suprise. Opinions vary immensely, from Sporting Fools' #7 vote to BFT's #25 (he's pissed at the whole state!).
Ballot math: First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.
Go ahead, take a guess as to who Mr. Bold is. Yes, it's Boi From Troy. We've discussed TCU, Texas, and FSU already. Georgia at #17 is also a huge outlier and various smaller ones are dispersed throughout the ballot. It's okay, BFT: two national titles is still pretty good.
Oddly enough, our final Mr. Numb Existence is is RD Baker from Cheap Seats, who was a frequent visitor in the "Mr. Bold" category, winning it three times (I think). Newly staid and plaid-donning RD Baker, the BlogPoll salutes your for your ruthelessly efficient ballot! [/Big Ten Wonk]
Next we have the Coulter/Krugman Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.
The CK Award belongs to Oklahoma blog The Gaylord Memorial Gathering for placing the Sooners #15... but given the mess in the middle of this year's poll that's not too insane.
Straight Bangin' Award candidates number exactly two in the post-season, as only two blogs got above the paltry -0.4 registered by any Michigan blogger who (justly) omitted his team from the final poll: Bruins Nation, your champion, and Mayor Kyle King. One wants Karl Dorrell fired... the other is above such petty things as overrating his own team. Salutes all around.
Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.
Mr. Manic Depressive is a less notably insane version of The View From Rocky Top, who dropped his tremendous SEC fixation in favor of... well, a lot of stuff. You don't hit 172 on the swing scale without seriously revamping your ballot.
Mr. Stubborn goes to the aforementioned Pitt Sports Blather, who had West Virginia in front of Georgia even before all this crazy Sugar Bowl stuff happened... and reacted to that game by bumping WVU up two spots and Georgia... up one spot! Likewise, the (cough) Citrus Bowl saw both participants drop a single slot. I, uh... okay.
Aaaaand that's all folks. Except not really. I'll throw together some season averages for next week so we can have some fun badgering the outlying voters with evidence of their clear insanity. Thanks to all who participated by voting, writing roundtable responses, commenting, and reading. We'll wind down over the course of a few weeks, discuss what went wrong and what went right, and then start up again in the summer when the impending season can no longer be ignored.
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