Okay, a bit more tweaking from the initial draft. Thanks as always to Dennis for starting it and everyone who offered thoughts on it.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	1
2	Southern Cal	1
3	California	3
4	Ohio State	5
5	South Florida	8
6	Boston College	4
7	Wisconsin	4
8	Florida	4
9	Georgia	3
10	Oklahoma	7
11	Kentucky	6
12	West Virginia	7
13	South Carolina	6
14	Hawaii	2
15	Oregon	1
16	Cincinnati	5
17	Texas	10
18	Missouri	—
19	Rutgers	11
20	Arizona State	3
21	Nebraska	1
22	Florida State	4
23	Miami (Florida)	1
24	Purdue	2
25	Kansas	1

Most of the tweaking came in the second half of the ballot.

Virginia Tech was always shaky and the more I thought about what I saw in the UNC game, the less comfortable I was with keeping them in it. Kansas takes the spot instead. They may not have actually beaten anyone either, but at least they are doing it with a comfortable margin.

Texas and Rutgers ended up taking a bigger tumble the more I thought it through. Oregon less of one.

I gave South Carolina more of a boost, but no they are still behind Georgia.

The full Blogpoll is here and as always, you can look here for individual ballots.

So Levance Fields is essentially in the clear as long as he keeps his nose clean. Obviously this is good for Pitt basketball. Fields had not been permitted to practice with the team or the coaches since it had happened. He is now, apparently back in the fold. All punishment by Coach Dixon will remain in-house according the brief statement released to the media.

“Over the last three years, I have viewed firsthand the very positive way Levance Fields has conducted himself as a person, student and athlete while at the University of Pittsburgh. The initial report of this incident did not reflect the young man I have come to know.

“We have let the judicial process run its course and acknowledge today’s decision. Levance has been, and will continue to be, held to our team’s disciplinary standards. Those disciplinary actions will remain within the confines of our program. I know he has learned valuable lessons from the experience and will be better for it.”

Did Levance Fields get any extra benefit because he is a basketball player on a top-25 team? Well, the most obvious one was that he was able to hire/retain/use the services of a well-known and very good defense lawyer. It made it easier to negotiate and work with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office.
That the charges Fields was initially facing,

…aggravated assault, disarming a police officer, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. The aggravated assault and disarming a law enforcement officer charges are felonies.

Ultimately were withdrawn by the DA and only a simple assault to which Fields pled guilty also suggests that the case wasn’t nearly as strong.
The judge’s role in this case was minimal. Despite the story saying Judge Firestone, “ordered Mr. Fields to be admitted to the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program for first-time offenders,” he was actually approving the deal. The Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) Program is a Commonwealth program administered at local county levels across the state by the  District Attorney’s office in each county. That means it is primarily at the discretion of the DA to approve an applicant’s request.
I wouldn’t have minded a couple games suspension of Fields as well. The best thing, though, is that the case is already resolved. It isn’t being drawn out and hanging over his and the team’s head for the season. No games at delaying and putting things off. Fields has pled and accepted his punishment/deal.

That seems to be the growing question being asked. The media is even wondering about it.

Q: Do you really believe this team can even win four games, and if that is all, how can you justify keeping this pair of coaches – Wannstedt and Cavanaugh, who are trying to play 1950’s football — for another year?

Zeise: Four games, I just don’t know if they can win even another game unless a few things change dramatically. Take the Navy game for instance: Does anything you have seen from this defense over the past six seasons lead you to believe it has any prayer of consistently stopping an option team? And further, do you think the offense will attempt to score against Navy — a team it should be athletically superior too — or will we see more of the same passive game plans of the past two weeks in an attempt to win 3-0? I would hope the coaches are at the point where they understand that desperate times call for desperate measures, and make no mistake, these are desperate times.

And it isn’t as some half-hearted joke.

The scary thing is, things might not get better this season. It’s hard to call anything a guaranteed win with this team.

The Panthers have a week off to regroup before Navy visits in one of the two remaining games they have any kind of chance of winning. A Nov. 3 game with Syracuse is the only other contest in which they seem to have any shot. The rest of the schedule includes home dates with Cincinnati and South Florida as well as road trips to Louisville, Rutgers and West Virginia. Each of those teams is either currently ranked in the top 25 or has spent most of the season there.

In September I did a few brief taped Q&As with a Louisville radio station (1570 the Zone) about Pitt. They were doing weekly bits on each Big East teams and would talk to the team appropriate blogger. (Strangely, the bits stopped happening right after Louisville lost to Kentucky.) During the last interview with them, I was recounting the injury list and how unsure basically Pitt fans were about this team after the patsies and shaky play at times. I tried to put it in a positive way at the end by saying, “at least Pitt isn’t Syracuse.”

Yeah. Not so funny now with the realization that Syracuse is essentially going to be a toss-up. In 2004, I called the Pitt-‘Cuse game the “Lame Duck Bowl,” because the losing coach was sure to be fired. Turns out both were. This year’s game is still a month away. Is it too early to wonder if we will be looking at Part 2?