BlogPoll Week Four

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

Chaos! After a week in which the only real movement was Penn State taking the pipe, all hell breaks loose. Most teams move up by default after a wide array of ranked teams bite it at the hands of the unranked; one shining(?) exception is South Florida, up ten after a Friday-night turnover blizzard against West Virginia and Auburn's last-second field goal against Florida. The Bulls now sit #5; SMQB stews. (`And omits BC entirely due to oversight.)

Voters were kind to Oregon, six inches and one erstwhile five-star recruit's hands away from overtime against Cal, and Florida -- relatively -- while being vicious towards Texas, Clemson, and Rutgers.

Two notes: South Carolina is now pegged a spot in front of Georgia, which makes me ever so skippily happy, and LSU's margin over USC is now truly prodigious, which strikes me as odd since LSU was leading by, like, one at the half against Tulane and Washington's flukily close game against USC featured in Life on the Margins this week.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• Your three Cal enthusiasts: Card Chronicle, Buckeye Commentary, and Frank McGrath.
• The House Rock built is unnaturally positive about Clemson at #12.
• Uh. Crap. MGoBlog is a huge outlier for Florida State, ranking them #13; the most enthusiastic voters other than that idiot say #17.
• Jonathan Tu is currently touring the country at 82 Sluggo Win; he must be banking on the Zooker scoring him some babes: Illinois #16. Vote redacted. (Not actually.)
  
  On second thought, retract the accusations of babe-trolling. Mr. Tu is doing just fine.
• Boy From Troy: Michigan #16. Hey Jenny Slater: Michigan #18. WTF?
• My Opinion On Sports has some weird opinions: Virginia Tech #6. Hawaii #7.
• Meanwhile, Eagle in Atlanta is onboard the Hoo Express with Virginia #13. The next most enthusiastic voters are not that enthusiastic, ranking Virginia #21.
• Saurian Sagacity dropped USC to #7 after that tight-ish (but not that tight) win against Washington; how is that justifiable when Wisconsin slides up ten for a win over what's probably a mediocre Michigan State team and Boston College, who struggled against I-AA UMass?
• A couple Big Ten bloggers plant the Purdue flag high: 50-Yard Lion puts them #8; Black Heart Gold Pants slides them in at #11. The best team Purdue has played is probably Notre Dame. Go figure.
• Four other voters have Hawaii in the top ten; two more say #11, another #12. Hawaii has beaten: I-AA Northern Colorado, I-AA Charleston Southern, 1-4 Idaho -- winless against I-A competition -- 1-3 Louisiana Tech -- also winless against I-A competition and that game by a single point -- and 2-3 UNLV. No Hawaii opponent has beaten a I-A team outside of the state of Utah. Hawaii barely scraped by a Louisiana Tech team that just went out and lost 17-6 to Fresno State. They are not a top ten team. They are probably not a top 20 team.

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 Saurian Sagacity; their ballot is just plain weird. As mentioned, they drop USC to #7 while shooting struggling (but barely winning) Wisconsin up to #4; BC moves ahead of the Trojans after two uninspiring weeks against Army and UMass. Hawaii is #12, Purdue #13, UConn #14. Florida plummets to #21, Oklahoma #22. Go figure.


Mr. Numb Existence is split between Eleven Warriors and Every Day Should Be Saturday. Truly an impressive grasp on the poll hivemind even after a week of turmoil. 100 cocktails to you, sirs.


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 guided another team to a painful loss this week, as Michigan State went down 37-34 to Wisconsin. Perhaps this is not painful enough for you? The award's hatred was probably still focused on Journo Rock, who you will remember called out the award after winning it two weeks ago, promptly was subjected to an overtime loss, and then went out the next week and finished second. Alabama lost to Florida State; Journo Rock does not appear on this week's list.

Next up? The Enlightened Spartan is back again, ranking MSU #20. This does not qualify as totally awful and next week the Spartans get Northwestern, so the award's streak of inflicting pain on its winners may come to a temporary halt. The lesson is still learned, though: don't screw with the CK Award.


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.

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.


Last week:

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?"

This week SMQB wins for totally omitting BC.


Duck blog Addicted to Quack is your Mr. Stubborn. In marked contrast to some voters, AtQ dropped Florida only one spot and Oklahoma four.