BlogPoll Week 9

Previously: Preseason; Week 2; Week 3; Week 4; Week 5; Week 6; Week 7; Week 8.

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

Fallers: Oregon and Georgia Tech are your main fallers after getting waxed this weekend.

Risers: I'm not sure exactly what caused Boston College to shoot upwards into the mid-teens. Could SMQB's impassioned case for the Eagles have had a widespread effect on the voting? (Although apparently not that impassioned: SMQB then predicted an FSU victory over BC). Surely it wasn't the Eagles' confirmation that yes, Florida State is a long way from its glory days.

Clemson managed to hop past Cal and Notre Dame on the strength of their 31-7 throat-crushing of Georgia Tech. I wonder if Charlie Weis will bitch out blogpoll voters now.

Rutgers and Wisconsin continue to crawl up the poll, as well.

Wack Ballot Watchdog: Wack ballots are given a pass this week due to illness.

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 Dawg Sports. Unusual ballot features: Clemson #4, Wisconsin #6, Arkansas #7, Boston College #10. South Carolina? #23? Okay. Note that the ballots are falling in line as more and more of the season passes.

Mr. Numb Existence goes to the Sports Frog. Congratulations and stuff; your ballot is as per usual difficult to talk about.

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 remains in the hands of Badger Sports for placing the Badgers #11. Too bad Wisconsin doesn't play anyone with a pulse, like, ever. Otherwise the dark power of this award could be brought to bear once more.

Straight Bangin' Award is Boi From Troy's for a second week. He bumped USC to #8, passing a plummetting Oregon and static WVU, but is still pessimistic about the Trojan's chances to remain undefeated.

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 also Dawg Sports. Kyle's ballot is either the work of deep reconsideration or general jumpiness, moving just about everyone around some.

Mr. Stubborn is Conquest Chronicles; top nine unchanged and only gradual movement afterwards.