Mumme Poll, Week 9

Rank	Team	Votes (top five)
1	Alabama	363     (354)
2	Florida	363     (352)
3	Oregon	363     (118)
4	Texas	362     (358)
5	Cincinnati	359     (210)
6	Iowa	359     (188)
7	TCU	353
8	LSU	349
9	Georgia Tech	345
10	Boise State	344
11	Penn State	300
12	Pittsburgh	129
13	Southern Cal	127
14	Houston	88
15	Ohio State	36
16	Miami	35
16	Utah	35
18	Oklahoma	9
19	Virginia Tech	8
20	Oklahoma State	7
21	Tennessee	5
21	Wisconsin	5
23	Auburn	4
23	Arizona	4
25	South Florida	3

COMMENTS

• How ’bout them Ducks!  Oregon jumps up five slots from last week after taking it to Southern Cal.
• Total number of voters this week climbed to 364, up from 305 the previous week.  Good job, gang.
• Yep, that means that no single school appeared on every ballot this week.
• Pittsburgh was the highest ranked team without a top five nod;  #23 Auburn was the lowest ranked team to get top five consideration.
• Again, you can see a steady consolidation on the part of the voting pool.  There’s a clear consensus on the top 10-11 teams and then things drop off considerably.
• Bias Watch #1:  None of those Tennessee votes came from the UT voting bloc.
• Bias Watch #2:  We Georgia folks continue to show the love for our rivals on the Flats.  As a group, we voted Georgia Tech seventh, two slots higher than they finished in the overall rankings.

Things that make you go hmmmm…

From Tim Tucker’s blog:

Coach Mark Richt expressed concern on his weekly radio show Monday night about Washaun Ealey’s pass-protection performance and said King “will probably start for us” this week…

“Washaun certainly ran the ball well,” Richt said Monday night. “He still needs to continue to get better in his pass protection, and I think Caleb has earned the right to be the starter because of his ability to run and pass-protect. But Washaun — we will continue to work hard on him and his ability to pass-protect.”

Richt said a problem with pass protection is “very typical” for a true freshman back. “We don’t want to get him in too many situations where he could put everybody at risk if he’s not able to do a good job there.”

Let me see if I have this straight.  We’re being told here that Ealey is experiencing pass protection problems “typical” for a freshman running back.  Yet the staff selected him to start against the best defense in the country, while elevating King to the starting slot against the first 1-AA team Georgia has faced this season.  If there’s rhyme or reason to their logic, it escapes me.

No knock against Caleb, but it seems like the coaches are going out of their way to raise questions about their decision making.

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

UPDATE: It looks like I’m not the only one puzzled by this.

Is Tater Tot hot? Call in and let the media know what you think.

You want to see how stupid rumors get started?  Here’s a textbook example.

Terry Bowden’s return to coaching has helped North Alabama to a 9-0 start, a No. 1 ranking and at least a share of the Gulf South Conference football championship.

It also has made Bowden a popular name on sports talk radio shows and the Internet when potential coaching vacancies are discussed.

Bowden has been linked with potential coaching openings at several schools, including Virginia, Memphis and Central Florida.

None of the schools has announced coaching changes, but many sports Web sites are speculating that openings will come at the end of the season. And Bowden’s name has already been mentioned as one of the possible candidates.

That’s right.  Idle, half-assed speculation equals substantive opportunity for Bowden.  His agent’s got to be thrilled, at least.  And this crap has already been picked up by the Orlando Sentinel as something worth pondering seriously!

If this is what passes for sports reporting these days, no wonder the print media is withering before our eyes.

Irrefutable means never having to say you’re sorry.

If you want to put your finger on the real problem with the inconsistent level of officiating plaguing college football that we continue to see and rail about seemingly on a weekly basis, check out this wonderfully useless statement from Verle Sorgen, the Pac-10’s point man for its replay officials, who, in response to a question about what constitutes irrefutable proof (the amorphous standard by which a replay guy has grounds to overturn a ruling on the field), had this to say:

… I called Verle Sorgen, director of instant replay for the league, and he gave me an emphatic explanation. He said there must be irrefutable proof that the original call was wrong.

Sogren said if you gathered 100 college football experts in a room to look at the play, 99 of them would have to come to consensus.

Too bad there’s only one guy in that replay booth.  If that’s your standard, why even bother to have a review at all?  But that’s Sorgen’s point.  After all, remember that this didn’t constitute irrefutable proof for the replay official.

You may also remember Sorgen’s response to that replay official’s decision.

Sorgen was quoted saying the lack of replay on Bernard’s fumble “wasn’t that egregious unless you are an Oregon State fan.”

You know what is egregious?  That this was irrefutable proof last weekend – in the Big Ten.

That’s some consensus you got there, fella.

There is one thing conference officials do respond to consistently.

There has to be a better answer than conference commissioners reprimanding coaches for criticizing officiating crews that end up getting suspended because the coaches were right about the refs being wrong.

Open-ended standards inconsistently applied from conference to conference and an overall lack of transparency in the review process make for a bad system.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure where the motivation to change things for the better would come from.

SEC Power Poll Ballot – Week Nine

The separation between the top three and the rest grows larger every week.

1. Florida. Tebow and the boys got untracked against Georgia.  We’ll see if that’s all the Gators needed to jump start their offense for the rest of the year.
2. Alabama. No bye week bounce, but still looking good.  McElroy needs to do a little jump starting himself, though.
3. LSU. Solid beatdown of a cupcake.  But this is the week that’ll tell us what we need to know about the Tigers.
4. Tennessee. Somebody has to go in this slot.  If you count moral victories, the Vols are 4-1 in conference play.  That’s gotta be worth something.
5. South Carolina. Has the slide started?  It’s too early to tell, perhaps, but a narrow win over Vandy and a sloppy loss to Tennessee don’t bode well for Spurrier’s team.
6. Ole Miss. When Snead plays well, the Rebels look like the fourth-best team in the conference.  When he doesn’t, they’re eighth-best.  Average that out…
7. Georgia. Know who Lee Sweeney is?  If you answered (a) the most excited player in Division 1-AA this week or (b) Tennessee Tech’s starting quarterback, you’re correct.
8. Auburn. Jevan Snead was just what the doctor ordered for these guys.  Furman this week doesn’t hurt, either.
9. Arkansas. They beat Eastern Michigan handily.  That and five bucks gets you taken care of at Starbucks.
10. Mississippi State. It’s hard to believe I’m doing it, but I’m moving these Dogs up one more slot.  Dan Mullen’s done a fine job, considering what he’s got to work with this season.
11. Kentucky. Poor ol’ Rich Brooks is running out of bodies.
12. Vanderbilt. You knew that lead against Georgia Tech was never going to hold up, right?