Blogpoll Week Eight

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

Ohio State retains its first place standing in the wake of USF's loss but picks up little ground overall, as it appears most of the USF voters went for LSU when given the option. It will be interesting to see if there are defectors should OSU roll into Happy Valley and win this weekend.

Elsewhere it's mostly the usual: win and slide up as other lose around you. Voters do seem to be coming around on the general uselessness of Hawaii's opponents, sliding the Warriors three spots after yet another narrow victory against a team most BCS squads would thoroughly beat.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• Too many LSU votes to consider it "wack," but our Arizona State outlier is still Boi From Troy.
• Rocky Top Talk... uh... WTF? First: Oregon #13 is four spots worse than any other pollster. Second: boosting Hawaii from #25 to #8 after Hawaii's stirring one-touchdown victory over 3-5 San Jose State?
• Speaking of Hawaii: there is but one other top-ten vote for the Warriors this week, this a #10 from Bruins Nation. I've made my position re: Hawaii and their horrible awful very bad schedule that should eliminate them from serious consideration many times, so I'll skip it.
• This might be an excise in rank homerism, but so be it: EDSBS omits Michigan but ranks Penn State #14 (which is pretty wack all by itself; the next most enthusiastic Penn State voter has them #17) and Illinois #25; both these teams have lost to Michigan and have equal or, in the case of Illinois, worse records than the Wolverines. Obligatory yes, but they lost to Appalachian State goes here.
• This week's preferred bout of rank AP-ism appears to be West Virginia over South Florida, which happened on so many ballots that it's impossible to call out the perpetrators and, indeed, actually made it into the poll itself, where WVU sits #9 and USF #10.
• Eagle In Atlanta is highly enthusiastic about #9 Virginia.
• The most popular places to put USC: #10, #12, and #13; no one voted them #11.
• Hey Jenny Slater loves the Rutgers (#14); next most enthusiastic voter has them #17.
• Boi From Troy ranks Ohio State #9 and Michigan #12; both are outliers but in opposite directions.

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 Boi From Troy for the second straight week.


Mr. Numb Existence is the property of Colorado blog Buffs.tv. Their ballot is sensible and uncontroversial aside from the unfortunately conventional WVU > USF thing.


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 had an impossible job last week: lead Notre Dame to victory. As mentioned, there isn't a dire annoying-pundit-based college football poll award on the planet that can propel Notre Dame to victory against USC. But Boi From Troy helpfully provides a second chance for the CK Award to wreak havoc, as he still ranks the heretofore struggling Trojans #5 just in time for the Oregon game.


For the third straight week, a USC blogger wins this category, but this time it's not Jonathan Tu but rather Conquest Chronicles. Can this self-flagellation combat the dire power of the CK Award? Probably not, but we'll find out this weekend. Also, you can file the pessimism of the next two voters, both Georgia bloggers, under the heading of "maybe they know something we don't."

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 tie this week between the aforementioned Rocky Top Talk, they of the enormous bumps for VT and Hawaii for no particular reason, and Jonathan Tu of 82 Sluggo Win, who just seriously recalibrated a bunch of stuff, most notably returning to something resembling sanity (== poll consensus) on USC.


Mr. Stubborn is WVU blog Bastard Sons of Pinfall Marks despite their total omission of Arizona State from last week's ballot -- repaired -- and a few other wild moves. Swingy week, this.