There have been some changes to the BlogPoll (as the logo attached may suggest). Now I need to have a draft on Monday and a final ballot by Wednesday. The idea being that bloggers can be influenced by rational arguments for and against teams. Note that, “you are a flippin’ moron, how can you…” is not an argument that I will find persuasive.
I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on putting Pitt in the ballot. I thought about it, and they are close. Still the body of work so far has not done it. The loss to BGSU is still huge — especially given that they are 1-3 since then. Add in Iowa going from 3-0 to 3-3 really fast.
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | — |
| 2 | LSU | — |
| 3 | Missouri |  1 |
| 4 | Alabama |  1 |
| 5 | Texas | — |
| 6 | Penn State | 1 |
| 7 | Georgia | 1 |
| 8 | Southern Cal | 2 |
| 9 | Texas Tech | 3 |
| 10 | Brigham Young | 1 |
| 11 | Florida | 2 |
| 12 | Ohio State | 2 |
| 13 | Vanderbilt | 5 |
| 14 | Kansas | 1 |
| 15 | Utah | 1 |
| 16 | Virginia Tech | 3 |
| 17 | South Florida | 11 |
| 18 | Auburn | 7 |
| 19 | Boise State | 1 |
| 20 | Ball State | 1 |
| 21 | North Carolina | 5 |
| 22 | Northwestern | 2 |
| 23 | Wake Forest | — |
| 24 | Michigan State | 2 |
| 25 | Georgia Tech | 1 |
Standing by/In the discussion: Pitt, Notre Dame, Oklahoma St., Florida St.,
UNC has really impressed me. Especially when you realize they have kept rolling without their starting QB.
Oklahoma St. may be unbeaten, but good god, when your best win is probably over Houston well I’m not buying.
Yes, I know there are plenty of teams that are rated too high. The problem as always is finding teams that legitimately deserve to be ranked ahead of them.
UPDATE: You can see the full draft poll (Pitt is unranked) and links to all voters, here.
Your point on Auburn is well-taken. I don’t have a good reason to keep them ranked. Consider them gone by the final ballot.
As for the rest, I’m not following. Arguing for Pitt by saying MSU “needed luck” to beat Iowa after Pitt had to pull out a win over Iowa late is hardly persuasive.
The BGSU loss is relevant because it isn’t just week-to-week when you get to 5 games or so. It becomes about the overall resume. BGSU has hardly gone on a tear to make it look like that was a “good” loss (2-3 overall record).
Not all 1-loss teams are created equal. It matters also how a team looked and performed in the other games.
It’s not like, prior to beating USF, Pitt was inching closer to the rankings or had performed against opponents in a way that suggested top-25.
Beat Navy as well and then I won’t have a problem with Pitt in the top-25.
I would almost like to see Pitt out of the rankings just because we seem to fall apart as soon as we get some respect. Maybe a chip on their shoulder for another week or two would help fuel the fire.
I think V Tech is not a number 16 team:
8/30 @ East Carolina L 27-22
9/06 Furman W 24-7
9/13 Georgia Tech W 20-17
9/20 @ North Carolina W 20-17
9/27 @ Nebraska 4-1 W 35-30
10/04 Western Kentucky W 27-13
Penn State should be right outside the top ten until they play a top level team.
BYU more like a 15 team, no way top ten.
Sort of hard to justify Pitt out of the Top 25 with NW in at 22??
8/30 Syracuse W 30-10
9/06 @ Duke W 24-20
9/13 Southern Illinois W 33-7
9/20 Ohio W 16-8
9/27 @ Iowa W 22-17
Personally I think Pitt deserves #24 or #25, but I like seeing them unranked just b/c as Rex pointed out, once we get ranked we fall apart.
And I don’t want Pitt to be ranked – like I tell my softball kids, even when they’re winning we don’t tell them, because it gets in their heads.
I agree with the top 10 but would flip USC and Texas Tech.
