The Thrillingest BlogPoll Ever! (Week 5)

Previously: Preseason; Week 2; Week 3; Week 4.

Hurray, that's the poll hurray. If you're interested, you can see all the individual ballots here.

Achtung, voters! Michigan is in the Eastern time zone. So 10 AM means 10 AM EST.

Well... yeah. Nothing really happened. Michigan jumped Florida in the top five. ND dropped a spot after accepting a gift from Michigan State. Probably the most interesting thing is TCU falling three spots as a few BCS teams solidified themselves as "good" in voter's minds. Auburn picked up a couple first place votes.

Fallers: Most thrilling poll ever! Boston College did drop out entirely after bonking at NC State.

Risers: Say hello to #23 Rutgers. Apocalypse scheduled for Thursday.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• A Georgia Tech blogger won the CK Award this week... and still wasn't even close to Black Shoe Diaries, which ranked the Jackets #15.
• Frank McGrath still has ND in front of Michigan.
• TrojanWire hates Florida: #12.
• House Rock Built thinks Boise State is better than Notre Dame. I agree!
• Not necessarily wack given the situation, but it is interesting that we have two voters with OU above Oregon: BGS and Bruce Ciskie.

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.

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.

Mr. Bold is House Rock Built, I believe for the second time this year. Formally requested explanations on:

• Oregon at #3. I know they're technically undefeated, but, well... you know.
• Boise State #11 and TCU #14. I mean... you really think those teams are better than LSU and Texas, #16 and #17, respectively?
• WVU #18, down 11(!) after that ECU win.

Now last week we had Frank McGrath flip out and try to justify his weird ballot in confrontational style. But mayhaps we can do this friendly-like?

Mr. Numb Existence is OSU blog Men of the Scarlet and Gray. ....And I'll pass on lame OSU joke. But it was close for a couple seconds.

Also, Dan Shanoff's appearance on the list is an excellent pretext for me to point out that, yes, that's Dan Shanoff, late of Page 2 Daily Quickie fame until Page 2 decided to get rid of everyone who wasn't Simmons and Scoop Jackson.

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.

I cannot remind you strongly enough about this: do not tempt the wrath of The CK Award. Angered by Michigan State blogger tES's homer-riffic ballot a week ago, it not only brought a mindbending loss to ND that can only be described as "typical State" but pounded attendees with biblical quantities of rain. Wisconsin also was pantsed by Michigan. This is reaching "don't $%*! with Cartman" proportions.

Next on the chopping block: Georgia Tech again, though it should be noted that the margins of overrating are coming down and thus the wrath may be lessened.

And... aw, hell. Am I fifth on this list? If Michigan loses to Minnesota I'm going to have to go into hiding with the replay official from the Oregon-Oklahoma game.

Team bloggers have revealed a strong inclination towards extremism in voting, often voting their teams way high after a win and similarly low after a loss. This week, the Straight Bangin' Award is an all-disappointing-win affair, as the top five has no fewer than four Georgia bloggers. The lone exception? #3 Mountainlair, a WVU blogger who watched his team struggle against East Carolina (which probably isn't even a state). Our week five pessimism champ is Hey Jenny Slater, who dropped UGA to #19 after a 14-13 win over Colorado.

Oh, yeah: he also destroyed a toaster.

Swing is essentially 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 Kyle at Dawg Sports, who managed to find a way to wildly flip his ballot around in a week where a lot of things almost happened but none actually did. Iowa, omitted last week, is #13. ASU and BC, #14 and #15 a week ago, plummet entirely out of the poll. Everyone else moves at least a bit.

Mr. Stubborn is My Opinion on Sports, which has the fun abbreviation "MOOS". Just sayin'. Anyway, he didn't knock WVU down at all from #2 after struggling with East Carolina, which I have officially Cocked An Eyebrow at. But nothing much happened this week.