BlogPoll Week Nine

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

Earlier in the week, I fretted that my insane ballot would be a sure Mr. Manic-Depressive lock and perhaps a major outlier in general. Wrong. This is the week of anarchy. Kentucky, Cal, and South Carolina shoot right out of the poll, each losing for the second consecutive week. Florida finally takes a major hit; South Florida goes with them. UConn, Georgia, Alabama, and, oddly, Michigan shoot up a minimum of eight spots each. At the top, the damage wrought to LSU's SOS and one dominant performance by Ohio State solidify the Buckeye's grasp on the top spot.

Wack Ballot Watchdog:

• Scattered first place votes this week. Oregon's vote comes from Tomahawk Nation; BC's is from Dan Shanoff; Arizona State retains Boi From Troy's vote and picks up Burnt Orange Nation's.
• Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician ranks Virginia #10, up six after a loss to UConn. Missed the score?
• MOOS, absent last week, returns and is still ranking Hawaii #4. Why? We've heard an eloquent case against Hawaii; what is the case for? Why are you ranking Hawaii #4, MOOS?
• Dan Shanoff loves him some very probably overrated Big East teams. After banging the drum for Rutgers early in the year, he's now got UConn #7, three spots higher than anyone else in the poll. A commenter on my ballot reminded me of this: have we all (myself included) forgotten that UConn was an obviously blown call away from losing to Temple?
• BFT is uncommonly hard on Kansas, ranking them #13; #10 is the worst anyone else can manage.
• A cluster of voters placing Boise State on the verge of the top ten also grates: Boise's one test against BCS competition came against 2-6 Washington. The Huskies' other win: Syracuse. Boise lost to this very bad UW team by two touchdowns. Maybe they deserve to be ranked towards the bottom of the poll -- lord knows teams get thin down there -- but #11, Jonathan Tu? #12, Saurian Sagacity and Black Heart, Gold Pants?
• DumpDorrell has Texas #8, which even Texas-biased folk would strenuously disagree with.
• Eagle In Atlanta votes Wake Forest #9.

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.

I generally don't comment on these, but I would like to point out Missouri's remarkable distribution: every voter placed them somewhere from #7 to #10, with the vast majority picking #8 or #9. It's highly unusual for a team not ranked at the very top of the poll to have the lowest standard deviation.

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 Every Day Should Be Saturday's. Nothing looks too off until we get to wanton enthusiasm for Texas and Wake Forest at #11 and #12, then more wanton enthusiasm for Clemson and Cal. Georgia is seven spots lower than the poll at large, as is Michigan; Florida and USC figure in not at all.


Creepy mind-reading domination of this category by Double Extra Point continues: they win Mr. Numb Existence for the third time this year and fifth or sixth in their two years of participation. A salute to you, sirs, and a request for lotto numbers when you get the time.


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.



#$&*!



Yes. #*&#. Not one but two Michigan blogs, Maize n Brew and The M Zone, share The CK Award this week. You will note that the award's dire power helped USC lose to Oregon, though that was probably going to happen anyway. Quick... to the justification machine!

Well, first of all, a margin of 2.91 isn't that big. Also, both Michigan blogs in question ranked the Wolverines #11... precisely where they're located in the blogpoll. (How can this be? The numbers here are based on average points per ballot, not the actual poll rank.) Also, four other voters ranked Michigan even higher and two also joined in at #11. Surely this will evade the wrath of the award. We are humble, foul pundits! Humble! A penitent man... KNEELS!


Florida fans wrest the Straight Bangin' Award from the sweaty grasp of USC fans, as both Saurian Sagacity and Every Day Should Be Saturday totally omit the Gators from their ballots in a typical bout of "we lost, we are the suckiest sucks who ever sucked". See: USC fans the last three weeks, or Conquest Chronicles this week.

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 EDSBS, which is just all over this week's poll. Ohio State shoots up from #6 to #1; every team from 11 to 19 has moved at least eight spots save static Texas, and Florida, USC, Kentucky, and Penn State (#14 last week) plummet from the ballot entirely. I'm dizzy.



Mr. Stubborn is Bruins Nation, which was uncommonly restrained about Connecticut -- whereas most of the poll flipped out and shoved them in the top 15, they deigned to include them at #25 -- and Florida, down only five. Already low opinions on South Carolina, Kentucky, and South Florida also helped.