BlogPoll Week Three

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

Do NOT taunt the CK Award. It is truly wroth this year. Last week's winner, Journorock, chose to spit in the face of Angry Iowa Receiver Hating God upon receiving the award, titling a post "Why Brian is full of shit: Journo Rock and the CK Award" and highlighting the times previous when he won the award...

Winner, CK Award, Week One, 2005
The next game:
Alabama 26, Middle Tennessee 7

Winner, CK Award, Week Two, 2006
The next game:
Alabama 13, Vanderbilt 10

So there. Bitches.

...as if a three-point win over Vanderbilt isn't thorough proof of the fell power of the CK Award. (Not even the CKA can compel a victory or close game against Middle Tennessee... the only thing that can do that is Louisville's secondary (ZING!)). Anyway, the result:



Do not taunt the CK Award. It will fucking kill you.

Anyway... not much movement in the poll. LSU remains number one and picks up a few extra votes for solidly handling South Carolina; Penn State plummets, as does 'Bama; South Carolina isn't punished too hard for dropping a game at LSU, Georgia-- wait.

Is Georgia seriously above South Carolina? A brief resume recap:

• One meaningless I-AA hammering each.
• Blowout win for Georgia over bleah Okie State team that would lose to Troy; two touchdown victory over ULM for SoCar. Advantage Georgia.
• OT win over 'Bama for Georgia. Regulation win over frickin' Georgia for SoCar. Both on the road. Advantage SoCar.
• Loss to frickin' SoCar at home for Georgia; loss at #1 LSU for SoCar. Advantage SoCar.

Perhaps you're thinking "but what about the projection!", but in this case we have very little to project. There was a head-to-head matchup that South Carolina won, and they didn't even do it via fluke. And yet. And yet. Ooooh... it's time for...

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

First, an apology to The Hoosier Report, the lone pollster who hung on to Miami; the Canes did indeed cane the life out of A&M. Wackness retroactively retracted. Now onto the business of this Georgia thing.

Our biggest offender is Bruins Nation, which ranks the Dawgs a stunning eighth and shoves South Carolina down at #21. I mean... why bother even playing the games? Frank McGrath leaps UGA up to #10 and leaves South Carolina #19, also shoving 'Bama down to #21. Falcon Nation drops SC just two, to #11, but bumps UGA up to #10. RazorBloggers bumps UGA five and slides SC five, ending up with UGA #11 and SC #17. PittBlather never even bothered to put SC above UGA in the first place. Now they're #12 and #19. MountainLair: #13 and #20, respectively. 44::Orange: #13 and #19. Losers With Socks has UGA #14 and SC #15, something that could be repaired by switching the two and leaving the rest of the ballot completely alone. Corn Nation has UGA #14 and SC #21, Dump Dorrell #14 and #18. The Sports Frog also has an infuriating side-by-side with UGA #14 and SC #15. Dan Shanoff leaps UGA up to #15 and drops SC down to #22. The list goes on. You get the point.

Anyway, you all suck. I am ashamed of all of you and want you to think very hard about what you've done. Go sit in the corner. You suck. Other minor notes:

• Double Extra Point must have missed Thursday: Texas A&M #16.
• Similarly, 50-Yard Lion slides Texas Tech up four after their loss to Okie State, who I would remind you just took the pipe against the Troy Trojans of Troy (We're From Troy!)., up one slot.

A final reminder: anyone who put UGA above the OBC sucks. You suck.

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.


This week's Mr. Bold. has been wrested from the hands of the resume-rankers as the difference between resume ranking and projection ranking slims; our victor comes from the opposite end of the political spectrum, as it were: Falcon Nation, a consistent winner of the Mr. Stubborn award who is very chill about having these "events" things affect his ballot. So he has things like Penn State #9, down only two, UGA #10, up two, South Carolina #11, down two, etc.


Mr. Numb Existence is poll n00b and Clemson blog Danny Ford is God with an impressive <1 average differential in a time of significant uncertainty. Welcome. (Ballot.)


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 hardly has to try this week: Michigan State blogger The Enlightened Spartan isn't bothered that they appear to be the only team in DI capable of giving up an 80 yard Notre Dame touchdown drive. He ranks State #14; this week the Spartans take on Wisconsin, whereupon their sketchy run defense will be exposed and their battlements stormed by the Badger D.

And file this under "doesn't learn": Journo Rock is next with 'Bama still at #16. The ghost of Bear Bryant is going to haunt you.


During the season, the Straight Bangin' Award is often the property of blogs covering a highly-ranked team coming off a dispiriting loss. It's no surprise, then, that PSU blogs finish 1-2 here; Run Up The Score takes the prize for totally omitting PSU.

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 goes to Badger Sports... probably because said blog totally forgot to include Florida. You know, Florida? Winners of the last like billion national championships in everything? Quarterbacked by an Ewok? Etc? This is why you should always post your draft ballots, so people can say things like "hey, idiot, where's Florida?"


Gopher Nation wins Mr. Stubborn. A remarkably placid ballot that had most teams right around where they go on the poll this week, this is more an anticipation of future events than anything else. This is another UGA-SC offender, though: #18 and #20. You suck.