October 29, 2008 · 6:15 AM

Mumme Poll, Week 9

Fewer voters, fewer schools receiving votes.  That’s the main story this week.  As always, top five votes in parenthesis.

MUMME POLL – WEEK 9 RANKINGS

1.   Texas (50)

2.   Alabama (48)

3.   Penn State (46)

4.   Florida (35)

5.   Oklahoma (32)

6.   Georgia (21)

7.   Texas Tech (10)

8.   Southern Cal

9.   Oklahoma State

10.  Utah

11.  Boise State

12.  TCU

13.  Missouri

14.  Ohio State

15.  Florida State

16.  Tulsa

17.  LSU

18.  Minnesota

********************************************************************

COMMENTS

  • For the third week in a row, Texas remains the only school that was a unanimous top five selection.
  • Look, Ma, no ties!
  • Southern Cal took a noticeable hit for its close game with Arizona.
  • Teams receiving top five votes that didn’t appear on all of the ballots:  Southern Cal, Oklahoma State and Boise State.
  • There’s a very clear consensus on the top ten teams in the country.  Utah appeared on all but six of the ballots.
  • I received a lot of comments this week to the effect that this has been fun, that it’s been a good exercise to keep up with college football on a more involved level than before and that it’s forced many to hold their Bulldog favoritism in check (especially with those top five votes for the Gators).
  • Most people have stopped holding their noses over Texas Tech.  If the Longhorns don’t blow out the Red Raiders this week, it will be interesting to see how the voting is affected by the result.
  • Voters do seem somewhat conflicted about the mid-majors, even as they cast votes for them.  Utah and TCU face off, so some of that will clear up.
  • Again, the time spent on this remains very consistent from week to week, with most of you putting your ballots together in less than 45 minutes.
  • Blogs mentioning the Mumme Poll:  Hunker Down Dawg; Picture Me Rollin; The Connecticut Yankee; A Bulldog In Exile.

Finally, a public service announcement.  I thought I made this clear at the beginning, but in light of some of the e-mails I’ve received, I guess I need to reiterate something:  once you fail to vote, that’s it.  You can’t get back in the voting the next week.  I want to have a consistent, core group of folks casting ballots over the entire season.  So please don’t take a week off and expect to jump in again the following week.

3 Comments

Filed under Mumme Poll

3 responses to “Mumme Poll, Week 9”

  1. Munson's_call
    October 29, 2008 at 9:31 AM

    Interesting that USC and Ok. St. didn’t make everyone’s Top 12 to me. I’d be interested to hear from those who left them out of the Top 12 as to what caused you to do so and who you included instead. Not saying you are wrong just curious to see how different people view the various teams.

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  2. Ally
    October 29, 2008 at 11:52 AM

    I didn’t leave either out of my top 12, but I’m really glad to see USC finally getting a dose of reality. We were moved down in the polls are not winning “convincingly enough.” It warms my heart to see USC finally suffering the same fate, and deservedly so.

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  3. mcboyt
    October 29, 2008 at 11:05 PM

    I can speak to the USC question. I included them in my 6-12 category, but they were the last team included.

    My rationale for (nearly) leaving them out:

    1. Their loss is a relatively bad one–they lost to what is currently a 3-loss team, as opposed to other one-loss teams: UGA, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma St lost to undefeated teams; TCU and BYU lost to one-loss teams; and Minnesota lost to a 2-loss team. FSU also lost only to a 3-loss team. (I consider Wake to be a better team than Oregon St, although they have the same record.)

    I’d put them about 8th among one-loss teams in the least-sucky loss category.

    2. In my mind, they have two quality wins. Ohio St and Oregon both have 2 losses, and appear to be pretty good teams. Arizona is marginally respectable. That is a benefit, but they also play tomato cans other than that.

    When they played them, Virginia was Syracuse-level bad. Washington State is probably worse. Arizona St was on a free-fall, and then they lost their star quarterback going into the USC game.

    I’m not convinced by the margins of victory in those games, because, honestly, what is the inherent difference between 34-0 and 69-0? Why should they get extra consideration for scoring five extra TDs long past the point when the game was out of reach?

    My opinion is that people give them consideration far out of proportion to what they deserve.

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