Blogpoll Ballot Week 12

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	1
2	Missouri	2
3	West Virginia	2
4	Ohio State	2
5	Arizona State	3
6	Oregon	5
7	Georgia	--
8	Kansas	1
9	Virginia Tech	2
10	Southern Cal	2
11	Boston College	1
12	Oklahoma	9
13	Texas	--
14	Florida	3
15	Illinois	1
16	Connecticut	6
17	Clemson	3
18	South Florida	2
19	Virginia	4
20	Wisconsin	1
21	Cincinnati	3
22	Tennessee	2
23	Texas Tech	3
24	Auburn	1
25	Hawaii	1

Dropped Out: Michigan (#19), Penn State (#23).

As always, no real checking was done to see how this ballot and last week's ballot lined up, so there's jitter. Criticisms will be more swaying if they rely on team A versus team B instead of the delta column. One thread of conversation I would like to contest, this from Big Red Network:

Once again, Kansas and Hawaii are #1 and #2. For those would complain about those rankings, I submit the 1983 Huskers. Only one team from Nebraska’s regular season schedule that year finished in the AP top 20. Both Kansas and Hawaii will face one team in the regular season that will finish in the top 25 (Missouri and Boise State). To suggest that these teams don’t deserve a title shot after a perfect regular season, is tantamount to saying the 1983 Huskers should not have been playing for a national championship. Boise State’s win over Oklahoma should be all the proof we need that schools from small conferences can play with the big boys.

Kansas we'll let slide. I obviously don't think much of the Jayhawks but they're still #8 in my poll. But comparing this year's Hawaii team to 1983 Nebraska preposterously undersells the Cornhuskers, which swept the Big Eight and played this nonconference schedule:

• Penn State (8-4-1), W 44-6
• Wyoming (7-5), W 56-20
• Minnesota (1-10), W 84-13 (yes, 84, in case anyone was feeling even a tiny bit bad for NU during the Kansas game this year)
• UCLA (7-4-1), W 42-10
• Syracuse (6-5), W 63-7.

Four of the five opponents were "BCS" teams; four of the five had winning records. Though Nebraska didn't play any really high level opponents, they played a lot of decent to good opponents and slaughtered them all. Exactly two Nebraska games were not enormous blowouts, one a 14-10 win against 8-4 Oklahoma State and the other a 28-21 win versus 8-4 Oklahoma. Nebraska's pre-bowl points for: 624. Points against: 186.

Meanwhile, Hawaii has the worst SOS imaginable and has beaten 5-6 Louisiana Tech by one point, 4-7 San Jose State in over time, 6-4 Fresno State by seven, and 5-5 Nevada by two. Meanwhile, Boise State "proved" it could hang with the big boys last year. This year it's proven it can lose by two touchdowns to the worst team in the Pac-10. Death to Hawaii... even if I held my nose and dropped them in at the end.