BlogPoll Week 14

Previously: Preseason; Week 2; Week 3; Week 4; Week 5; Week 6; Week 7; Week 8; Week 9; Week 10; Week 11; Week 12; Week 13.

Note: if you see last week's poll it's a cache thing, I think. Refresh should cure it.

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

A BlogPoll salute to the Mountaineers, who saw the chaos of last week's rankings and promptly fixed the problem by losing to South Florida.

Risers: USC didn't move up a spot but they did solidify their hold on #2 by whomping Notre Dame. Last week we had a virtual tie at #2; this week USC has a 0.6 PPB lead.

Fallers: Voters were brutal to last week's losers: ND down seven, West Virginia down six, Texas down six, Georgia Tech down seven, and BC down eight and hanging on by the tippiest tips of their tippy toes to #25. Only Arkansas was given some grace.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• The Atlantic Coast Chronicles freakin' hates Auburn: #19. He hated them more last week: they're up a spot.
• Somebody is very wrong about Boise State. We have voters throwing them everywhere from #5 to #24.
• EDSBS gets the most outstanding flippity-flop this week, dropping Georgia Tech 14 spots after remembering that Reggie Ball is the quarterback.
• Um... Pitch Right has Wisconsin, Boise State, and Oklahoma ahead of Florida. The Sooners are #4, which doesn't hold water even if you credit them with a win in the infamous onside kick game.
• Black Shoe Diaries is still holding on to Oregon.
• Eagle In Atlanta has Virginia Tech seventh. Um.

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 FSU's Tomahawk Nation. By this point in the season the really weird stuff has been hammered out on the field and the winners in this category usually have a large number of teams slightly off instead of massively weird opinions on specific teams. This is the case here: Corey has Boise and Rutgers three or four spots high, Auburn and Arkansas low, etc. Definitely weird opinions are Nebraska #12, up nine after clubbing a 2-10 Colorado team, Hawaii #15, and Notre Dame way down at #19.

Mr. Numb Existence is Double Extra Point for the third time this year, which is a BlogPoll record. (This is like holding a D-I record at Florida International, granted, though you don't have Ned watching your back.)

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 is the property of Texas blog Bevo Sports for keeping Texas #15 in the face of two straight losses, albeit with a starting quarterback who either warn't playing or warn't right.

Straight Bangin' Award has only one contender this week, -- the other four entrants are noise -- Burnt Orange Nation, which is of course also a Texas blog. Our most gung-ho positive and kill-me-now negative voters both support the same team.

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 ... holy crap. That's a lotta movement on Eagle In Atlanta's ballot. Former #8 WVU plummets out of the poll entirely, which has to be an oversight, right? No offense to the fine bloody-eyed folks at TCU, but when they're in the poll and WVU isn't it looks like someone pulled the old Herbstreit. Even aside from the Mountaineer drop, EIA goes nuts: VT #7, up six. UL #8, up 9. Rutgers #9, up five. Green and red all over the place. Um. Yow.

Mr. Stubborn is ND's Catholic Packer Fan, who serenely moved Georgia Tech up a spot after their loss to Georgia, left Arkansas at #6, and gave light slaps on the wrist to most other losers. He's about forgiveness.