BlogPoll Week 14 Rubbish

by JazzyUte on Dec 1, 2008 1:18 PM MST in Football Comment 2 comments

While I've been slacking on getting reader input, I have been submitting my ballot every week, so at least I've been doing something right. But since there isn't much to talk about right now, at least not until tomorrow (MWC awards) and the seventh (BCS bowl announcments), I'll post this week's ballot and ask for input, as per the usual.

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Alabama	--
2	Oklahoma	--
3	Florida	--
4	Texas	--
5	Utah	--
6	Boise State	--
7	Southern Cal	--
8	Penn State	--
9	TCU	1
10	Ohio State	1
11	Ball State	2
12	Texas Tech	1
13	Oklahoma State	1
14	Cincinnati	3
15	Georgia Tech	3
16	Boston College	4
17	Oregon	4
18	Brigham Young	1
19	Mississippi	6
20	Georgia	5
21	Missouri	7
22	Oregon State	6
23	Northwestern	1
24	Michigan State	2
25	Virginia Tech	1

Dropped Out: Florida State (#23).

You'll notice the top-8 has not changed one bit since last week's poll. There is a reason for this, none of those teams lost. Now the biggest debate comes from the top, specifically between Oklahoma and Texas. I put Oklahoma in the second slot, but realistically, there isn't much seperating Oklahoma, Florida and Texas. I do believe Florida is playing the best football right now in college football, but I can't justify ranking a one-loss team over an undefeated team from the same conference. Thankfully, Alabama and Florida will play each other Saturday in the SEC Championship, most likely knocking out the loser from title contention. We aren't as fortunate with Texas and Oklahoma, who both have a legitimate argument as to why they should be in the championship game.

Texas beat Oklahoma straight up. That has to count for something, right?
Well it would have not mattered had Texas not lost to Texas Tech a few weeks ago. If the Longhorns would have won out, they would be playing for the Big 12 Championship and most likely the national championship. They did not.
Oklahoma managed to really take it to another level since their loss to Texas, even going as far as defeating the team the Longhorns lost to in dominant fashion. Oklahoma also had their schedule backloaded with some of the toughest games of the season, in fact, ending it over the weekend on the road against a very good Oklahoma State program. That has to count for something, right?

The fact is, neither Texas or Oklahoma went undefeated, so each has that one game they lost to blame for their current position. Sure, the Sooners' loss came at the hands of the Longhorns, but even after defeating Oklahoma, Texas still failed to win out, losing a heartbreaker to Texas Tech. Which makes this entire situation the biggest mess we've probably seen since the BCS began. The only real solution would be to have a playoff, since this would he avoided, but that isn't happening. So, both teams have a case to make for playing in the national championship and it's essentially a toss-up as to who will get in. For every point made for Texas, a counterpoint can be made for Oklahoma.

Outside of all that, I moved TCU to 9th, Ball State to 11th, dropped Texas Tech to 12th after they struggled against Baylor at home, moved the Cowboys down a spot because of their competitive loss against the Sooners, while Cincinnati and Georgia Tech round out the top-15. Once you get out of the top-15, it really doesn't matter. So that's my ballot, anything strike you as being off? Let me know.

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