Another week, another swap at the top, by a narrow margin.
Rank Team Votes 1 Florida 305 2 Alabama 304 3 Texas 301 4 Iowa 300 5 Cincinnati 296 6 TCU 294 7 Southern Cal 289 8 Oregon 280 9 Georgia Tech 278 10 LSU 275 11 Boise State 270 12 Penn State 190 13 Oklahoma State 76 14 Virginia Tech 73 15 Pittsburgh 49 16 Houston 18 17 Miami 12 18 Utah 9 19 Ohio State 7 19 West Virginia 7 21 South Carolina 6 22 Arizona 5 22 Oklahoma 5 24 Notre Dame 4 25 Wisconsin 2
COMMENTS
- Overall, that strikes me as a pretty rational set of results. As the season grinds on, it looks like there’s a consensus forming around the best 10-11 teams in the country.
- As there wasn’t a tie until #19, I didn’t list the top five vote totals here, but if you’re interested, no team received a top five vote on all 305 ballots. The team that garnered the most was Alabama, with 298.
- The lowest ranked team to receive a top five vote was South Carolina.
- A total of 30 schools received votes this week.
- It’s probably not a surprise to those who participated last year, but we lost about 10% of our voters from last week. Not sure if that’s due to a lack of interest in the poll, or a lack of interest in the way the season has played out.
- Bias watch: Georgia Tech showed up one slot lower in Georgia fans’ voting than overall, primarily because Georgia voters love LSU, ranking the Tigers sixth.
Get The Picture 
If this was the blogpoll, I would be solidly in the running for Mr. Numb Existence.
My poll matches the overall almost exactly with only two changes: I have Oklahoma State in the top twelve instead of Boise State, and I have USC in the top 5 instead of Cincinnati.
FWIW, if we were picking a #1, I agree with the computers: Iowa is it.
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I’ve got you beat. My ballot is an exact match of the final standings, including the top five.
Evidently, I need a life.
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You lost several of the 3SIB guys because we didn’t get anything reminding us that we should vote. I didn’t get through my Reader like I wanted to yesterday or I would have seen your poll that you published and that would have reminded me. Oh well. I’ll watch from afar.
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You better yell at Tidefan about that – there’s supposed to be an e-mail reminder that goes out.
The good thing is there’s a “one-strike” rule this year – no, not that one, Oskie – that allows you to miss one vote without being locked out.
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Well, the same thing happened last week, so I think that locks me out for good.
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I’m one of those who loves LSU. To me, it is more impressive to have one loss to #1 Florida and wins over quality opponents, than to be undefeated and play a schedule like Cincy does.
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I think I’d be up there as Mr. Stubborn – my top 5 of Alabama, Florida, Texas, Cinci, and USC hasn’t changed since the first ballot.
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Senator, I’m confused…which is not a news flash. If those are total vote counts, and not Top 5’s, then does that mean there was one voter that left Alabama completly off their top 12 (304 votes vs. 305 for Florida)? Surely that can’t be true for the top 4. I can understand some rationalization for every team below that being left off of a ballot (moreso the lower down you go, of course), but I guess I don’t understand the vote counts you are showing. Or, you’ve got to really question how someone leaves any one of the top 4 or so off of their ballot entirely…?!
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Have to disagree with a portion of this. I think it is very possible some would leave Iowa off the Top 12. I put them in mine, but felt it was wrong. I really think I could put 15 teams up that I would bet on against Iowa straight up. But as the Senator said in another thread, he and I see their strength of schedule differently. Miracle finish to beat Northern Iowa, a 3 point win over Arkansas State, and another two weak performances against average Big 11 teams in close games. The Penn State game looks to be the one out of character for Iowa.
I do agree that it would be hard to have a ballot without Bama, Florida, or Texas on it although none of them look invincible this year.
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Leave Iowa off the top 12?!?! I confess I don’t get that unless it is based on anti-big-10 bias. Maybe Penn State is an outlier, but lets look at each undefeated team’s record, shall we?
Alabama has played opponents with a cumulative record of 28-29. Removing the outlier best team (South Carolina (6-2), their opponents have an adjusted record of 22-27
Florida: opponents record of 26-24, best opponent LSU (6-1), adjusted record of 20-23
Texas: opponents record of 26-24, best opponent Texas Tech (5-3), adjusted record of 21-21
Cincinnati: opponents record of 21-29, best opponent Rutgers or South Florida (5-2), adjusted record of 16-27
Texas Christian: opponents record of 27-25, best opponent BYU (6-2), adjusted record of 21-23
Boise State: opponents record of 23-28, best opponent Oregon (6-1), adjusted record of 17-27
And then there’s Iowa: opponents record of 38-22, best opponent Penn State (7-1), adjusted record of 31-21.
After removing the “outlier” best team on the schedule, Iowa is the ONLY undefeated team that has played opponents with a cumulative winning record. Further, Iowa has only played one team with a losing record (Arkansas State). Look at it this way, removing Penn State from the schedule leaves Iowa with an opponents winning percentage of 59.6%. Florida and Texas have opponents winning percentage of 52% when you leave their best opponent in the list.
OTOH, Boise State and TCU have each only played a single FBS opponent with a winning record (Oregon and BYU, respectively)
Sure, Iowa wins ugly and has had some close games, but they are undefeated against what is by far the toughest schedule among the undefeated FBS teams, even if you don’t count Penn State. I can’t see any reason to not rank Iowa number one.
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LOL, let’s just say anyone who could rank Iowa #1 in last week’s poll isn’t anywhere near the universe I live in. I said I ranked them in my Top 12, but feel I compromised my integrity by doing so because I do not feel they are that good.
W/L records is what you have to feel good about? How does the record of a Northern Iowa or Arkansas State lend credibility? And Iowa struggled mightily with both of these two irrelevants, not one, both.
Don’t give me the Big 10 bias crap, the Big 11 deserves people questioning their conference’s status. I happen to like Iowa better than any other Big 11 team, but the conference has basically been a Big 2/Little 8 or 0 for most of it’s existence. Like the PAC10, the conference lacks depth which makes it easy to pad the record (OSU and Michigan have done this forever.) While the conference’s rep is in question nationally, it doesn’t change the fact they have decent teams certain years. I wish Iowa had been more impressive because I don’t see a single dominant team, but they just look seriously over rated to me. Not a bias, just a different assessment.
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I guess it would be better if Iowa had played power houses like these:
Florida International (Alabama)
North Texas (Alabama)
Charleston Southern (Florida)
Troy (Florida)
Louisiana-Monroe (Texas)
UTEP (Texas)
SE Missouri State (Cincy)
Miami Ohio (Cincy, Boise State)
Texas State (TCU)
Colorado State (TCU)
Bowling Green (Boise)
Cal-Davis (Boise)
Is it really your position that the quality of opponent doesn’t matter? If so, then Hawaii should have been everybody’s number one – not just CHM’s.
If quality does matter, then how do you determine it other than win-loss record?
Um, doesn’t that describe every conference?
The Pac-10 consists of USC, Oregon and the rest
The ACC consists of VT, GT and the rest
The Big East consists of Cincy, Pitt and the rest
The Big 12 consists of Texas and the rest
The Big 10 consists of Iowa, Penn State, Ohio State (maybe) and the rest
The SEC consists of Alabama, Florida, LSU (maybe) and the rest.
The MWC consists of TCU, BYU and the rest
The WAC consists of Boise State and the rest.
The names may change year to year, but the song remains the same.
You are aware, aren’t you, that conference records end up at .500, aren’t you? In every conference game, 1 team wins and 1 team loses. You don’t pad your schedule against conference foes. You pad your schedule against Charleston Southern and North Texas.
So lets compare non-conference, BCS league opponents:
Iowa beat Arizona (5-2) and Iowa State (5-3)
Alabama beat VT (5-2)
TCU beat UVA (3-4) and Clemson (4-3)
Boise beat Oregon (6-1)
Florida played nobody
Texas played nobody
Cincinnati played nobody
I would say that Iowa’s record in that regard is favorable to every other undefeated team, especially UF, UT and UC.
Would it make more sense if they had blown out a bad Mississippi State team like Florida did, or blown out a bad Tennessee team like Alabama did? Instead they had a last play win against a pretty decent Wisconsin team.
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Your synopsis about conferences being somewhat equal tells me all I need to know about your understanding of CFB, especially the SEC. Want to take a look at how the titles in the SEC stack up with the Big 11? See ANY difference in the spread?
About Northern Iowa and Arkansas, it isn’t that you PLAYED them, it is that Iowa STRUGGLED with both, needing a 4th Qtr comeback. That doesn’t smack of quality. Then add the near misses against below average conference teams and you have serious reasons for doubt.
When you play in a conference that has credibility issues (Big 11), you really need to step up on the OOC games. Otherwise you get questioned, like Ohio State and Notre Dame does, not just in the Southeast, but nationally. Get outside the cocoon, and you will see why there are doubters. As I said, I like Iowa, like Ferentz, and hope you guys begin to challenge OSU and Michigane for some conference titles. Their records are suspect for the very reason they claim makes them strong: you don’t have 40+ conference titles when you play in a league with several quality teams. Tough to run that SEC guantlet every year. (Bama has 21, TN has 13, UGA is thrid with 12, and LSU has 11.) That is balance, and you don’t win them by just beating 1-2 decent teams a year.
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Hmm… in the BCS era (since 1998)
ACC: 5 of the 12 current members have won or shared the conference title
Big 12: 6 of 12
SEC: 6 of 12
Big Ten: 8 of 11
Big East: 6 of 8
Pac 10: 9 of 10
Just a datapoint.
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Sorry ’bout the ballot. I went to my Doc to get an Xray of my foot before my trip for the Vandy game and came out with Swine Flu which Morphed into Pnumonia. I am just now back with a pulse.
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