First off, again, let me say how much I appreciate everyone’s interest in this. I wound up with 59 ballots being cast, which looks like it’s enough to generate a respectable number of schools receiving votes.
I don’t want to read too much into the dry run votes, because it’s impossible to say if everyone was completely serious with the ballots, although I must say that I didn’t see a single vote cast that I thought was truly off the wall. So while I didn’t tally the voting, I did note that twenty two schools received votes from you.
Including me, there are sixty voters in the Mumme Poll. Some of us have more than one school affiliation. Here’s how that broke down:
- Georgia (55)
- Virginia (3)
- Alabama (2)
- Clemson (1)
- Colorado (1)
- Connecticut (1)
- Tennessee (1)
- UCLA (1)
- West Georgia (1)
And, yes, to answer the obvious question, judging from the ballots cast, there is going to be an issue with Georgia bias. Let’s just say there’s a little disconnect between the negative comments about the ‘Bama game that I’ve seen here and on other sites and people’s votes for Georgia as a top twelve team. I suspect that no other team that got owned the way Georgia did Saturday night would show up on every voter’s ballot. I hope that this is something that will wash out over the course of the season, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
Anyway, now that your votes will be for real, I’m looking forward to watching this play out. There are no Sunday games this week, so ballots should be turned in between 9:00 AM Sunday and 9:00 PM Monday. I’ll post the results on Tuesday.
Get The Picture 
Where Georgia has just as much to do with how good you think Bama is as it does with UGA. You can’t just discount one or the other. If someone has UGA in their top 12 but Bama not in their top 5, that’d be a little hard to explain.
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Well, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. For example, I suspect that most people right now think LSU is slightly better than Alabama is, yet Auburn, which hung in against LSU far better than Georgia did against Alabama, didn’t show up nearly as well in the ballots as did the Dawgs.
Georgia showed up on every ballot I received. That probably winds up translating into a ranking somewhere in the 6-8 range. Do you really think Georgia is that good right now?
And ask yourself this question: is there any team in the top twelve that’s had anywhere near as bad a showing as Georgia did Saturday night? The only one I can come up with is Southern Cal, which definitely laid an egg in the first half against an inferior team. Personally, I’m not sure that right now either one of those teams have justified a top ranking.
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I think it’s still too early to really tell if anything you’re saying is true. We don’t know how good Ole Miss is. They lost to a team that lost to Navy and they lost to Vandy. Is getting beat in a tight game to Ole Miss any more shameful than losing to Bama the way we did?
Do I think we are 7 to 8? Pretty close if not that. Can you show me that many teams who have better arguments at this point based on the schedule. I’ve tried to tell you over and over that the college football schedule just simply doesn’t lend itself to show who is the best team or better teams most years because teams are so tied to their conference schedule and their are so little opportunities to play good teams in other parts of the country. More than any other sport college football is an educated guess at it’s very best as to who are the actual top ten schools, etc.
So did you put UGA on your top 12? If you recognize that as bias, maybe you should reexamine your own ballot.
I took an hour and a half to fill mine out. I went to the conference standings page on yahoo and looked at the top four or five teams in every one of the BCS conferences. Looked at their schedules and tried to determine things like bad losses, good wins, etc. I didn’t just throw UGA up there because they’re my team. Maybe the others did the same. If I’m bias, I’d say it’s a lot more towards the SEC than UGA. But the conference has earned my bias with what they’ve done the last two years.
I realize you’re looking at the thing at a whole and I’m not saying you’re calling anyone out personally. But maybe all those who filled it out did their research and felt strongly that UGA belonged.
Did anyone have UGA in their top 5?
Did anyone not have Bama in their top 5?
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The problem for me was that this early in the season, nobody’s resume is any good. OU and Missouri look good until you see who they played, but I put them top five because just about anybody that’s played anybody has a loss. In the end, I had a half-dozen or so “name” programs (Aub, Ohio St, Fla…) that all looked pretty sorry, and I figured UGA and USC had the most upside of the group, though I admit if I were a Gator fan, I might see things differently. (Then again, both the AP and Coaches had us in their top 12… not that that means much.)
With any luck, of course, the Dawgs will get angry and win big from here on out, and bias won’t matter.
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senator,
i wasn’t sure whether or not we were supposed to get a confirmation on our ballot being cast. i sent one and didn’t get an ok back; just wondering if we sent it correctly the first time, are we in, and if it was wrong would we get it back? thanks
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Ben – didn’t you respond to my request for your school affiliation? You’re fine…
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I don’t think the Dawgs were on my ballot….
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Bulldawgy, you’re right. I stand corrected.
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Senator,
At one point you discussed others in the bogosphere (sp) conducting similar polls as a comparison. Did any of that materialize?
I sent the link to a friend in Texas and asked him to participate and pass it along. I guess he didn’t since I don’t see any Texas/Okl/Texas Tech affiliates on you list.
Thanks for doing this and your site. It is a must read for me everyday.
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FYI UGA was not on my ballot either…
If they win the next two games maybe they’ll make top 12
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Senator,
I think while the bias is probably a concern, there’s probably a lot of “top” teams we really haven’t seen do much yet (I’m looking at you, Big XII). Alabama, to me, is by far the clear top SEC team. LSU doesn’t look that great, and Auburn is atrocious. (I left them off the poll, by the way.) As I look at it, I had 5 Big XII teams, 4 SEC teams, and no Pac-10 or ACC teams.
But, I admit, I felt like I didn’t really know enough about some of those teams. I think I have a good grasp on the SEC, but I think it might take a few more weeks before we actually see the rest of the country play. Understanding that the bias exists, we might see this thing work itself out.
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Pingback: Crimson & White Roundtable; Post-(Huge) Georgia (Win) Edition « Picture Me Rollin
I was interested in seeing how many different teams would receive votes. I am glad to hear we had 22 get votes as I was wondering if we would be forced to expand to a Top 15 in order to generate a 20 best or 25 best teams for the poll.
I am looking forward to next Tuesday to see how the first poll shakes out. It will be interesting to see how much separation will be created between teams to create a Top 20 or 25. Will we end up with ties in the top 2 0r 3 teams or will we actually get a spread in the results that will give a clear 1-5? For some reason I envision a tie for number 1 where 2 teams appear on everyone’s Top 5 section thus giving no separation in the votes especially with the strong southeastern voting base.
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By the way, I am one of those “two school affiliation” guys. I put down Georgia and Colorado. I grew up a Georgia fan as my parents are alums. I received my undergrad degree from Colorado, however. To be honest though it is not even close as to which team I have the stronger ties. I pull for the Dogs first and foremost and have season tickets. I can’t even name many players for CU anymore and pulled for the Dogs against the Buffs in ’06 while wearing my UGA hat with my Colorado shirt in Sanford Stadium. I also went to Vanderbilt for grad school but really don’t consider them one of my teams unless they have conveniently upset someone!
The main reason I put Colorado down as an affiliation was that I do probably follow the Big XII more closely than the average UGA/SEC fan which gives me a little bit different perspective as I might see more Big XII games by following CU. Even though I don’t know the roster inside and out like I used to I still watch every Colorado game I can and usually watch some Big XII match ups that others would have no interest in viewing.
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