Blogpoll Week Five

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

Troy falls and how, down to #13 after gacking it up against Stanford. Oklahoma, Cincinnati, Missouri, and South Carolina enter the top ten, Georgia drops out of the poll entirely, and some wag puts in a vote for a 2-3 team with all three losses by 20+ point margins. LSU is a near-consensus #1 with just three Cal holdouts.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• Our three Stanford wags: EDSBS, The Enlightened Spartan, and Boi From Troy.
• Less ireful than weird, this but: pollsters generally agree that Missouri could be ranked anywhere from 6 to 13... except definitely not number ten. Only Maize 'n' Brew dares to place them there.
• My Opinion On Sports (henceforth MOOS) ranks VT #5; Frank McGrath places them #5. I realize they beat the sin out of Clemson, but doesn't that seem sort of exuberant for a team with no offense?
• Texas #14? Given their best performance YTD was a loss to Oklahoma, uh... seems high. EDSBS the offender.
• Two voters are completely insane about Rutgers; Both DeepSouthSports and BruinsNation plug the Knights #15 after two consecutive losses and no victories of note.
• MOOS has Penn State #18.
• Florida is #2 to Losers With Socks and #4 to DeepSouthSports. There exists football outside the south, gentlemen.
• The whole host of people voting Hawaii high up disgust me. I am repulsed by your odor, which is immensely displeasing. Hawaii's stirring victory this week was over 0-6 Utah State, and every single one of the I-A opponents Hawaii has played to date lost over the weekend. Hawaii's opponents still have not beaten anyone outside of the state of Utah. And yet there are plenty of people voting them in the top fifteen. Inexplicable.
• Pitch Right is the only voter to rank Cal lower than #3, placing the Bears seventh.
• Pitch Right and Jonthan Tu, place Boise State at 16 and 15, respectively.

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. is Frank McGrath, one of the Cal voters. His ballot's top ten looks fairly reasonable save the inclusion of Virginia Tech and a very soft landing for Kentucky, down only three. Nothing on the rest of the ballot seems truly unjustifiable -- though what is these days? -- except maybe holding on to a thoroughly uninspiring Wisconsin at #11 and bothering to rank Texas at all. Still, if this season has been anything it's been bold. Approbation withdrawn for this week.


Mr. Numb Existence goes to Double Extra Point (ballot), which wins this award so often it's freaky. Other things DEP likes: white bread, vanilla ice cream, and the Ford Taurus. If that makes them sound racist, that's not the intent. Boring is what we were looking for. Boring.


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 strong like bull, bestowing a horrible loss upon the school favored by its winner for the fourth straight week. This week's demonstration of the award's dire power: Northwestern 48, Michigan State 41. Battered and without reason to rank Michigan State at all, The Enlightened Spartan finally gives up the ghost.

Next up: Dan Shanoff overrates Florida at #10, up one after losing to LSU (on the road against the #1 team in the country, okay). A potentially dicey game that pits Florida's wonky-to-date secondary against Andre Woodson and Kentucky approaches... can the CK award keep the streak going?


Last week:

During the season, the Straight Bangin' Award is often the property of blogs covering a highly-ranked team coming off a dispiriting loss. This week Saurian Sagacity goes flapjack nuts, as mentioned, ranking UF #21.

Our top four voters in this category represent USC, Florida, Wisconsin, and USC. The winner is Jonathan Tu, who one-ups Saurian Sagacity by leaving USC completely out of his poll. Saurian Sagacity's own total omission of Florida from their ballot can't compare; they narrowly finish second. I believe Tu's winning margin of -12.46 is the highest score ever recorded in this category.

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 the property of Mr. Tu, as tends to happen when you chuck the #3 (USC) and #11 (Florida) teams out of your poll entirely. We'll chalk things like Boise State up ten to the insane grief of losing to Stanford.


Tennessee blog Losers With Socks is (are?) Mr. Stubborn. They did move a lot of guys around, but, like... wtf: USC down only two, to #4; Florida up two, to #2.