What I’ll Be Looking For

Finally, it’s just about time to play some games.

As a Blog Poll voter I plan to actually play close attention to how teams play their games, and against who they play (unlike say, the coach’s assistant who hands in his ballot for the USA Today Poll).

In no way do I consider my preseason top 25 “set”. Ranked teams are only going to be rewarded for playing “big boy” games (in Colin Cowherd’ parlance). Playing non-BCS teams, or non Division I teams, can only hurt you – you are expected to destroy them.

As you might recall, I used a 4 year trailing accumulated recruited talent model as my preseason ranking system. I will refer to this model when I compare teams going forward. For example, number 1 USC is playing 78th ranked Idaho (per my model) the first weekend. According to my rankings, USC has 7.78 times the accumulated talent Idaho has.

They had better wipe the field with them.

For my other top 5, the talent of the teams they are playing by ratio are –

Florida – WKU too new to Division I to have a ranking.
Georgia – 1.88 times better than Ok St
Texas – 11.67 times better than Ark St
Michigan – Appalachian State is Division II – no ranking

So, for my top 5, USC, Florida, Texas and Michigan had better humiliate their opponents or they will slip in the rankings. Georgia needs to beat Oklamhoma State, but gets more leeway.

Games that really matter in Week 1 –

LSU at Miss St – LSU is 2.33 times better in talent than MSU. LSU had better win, but a big win at Starkville could help the Tigers.

Tennessee at Cal – UT is only 1.34 times more talented, and it is at Cal. The winner of this game is moving up in the rankings.

Florida State at Clemson – my talent rankings have FSU as 1.5 times more talented than Clemson, but the game is at Clemson. A more up game for the winner

Kansas State at Auburn – I have Auburn as 2.43 times more talented than KSU, and it is at Auburn, so a risky game for the Tigers.

Georgia Tech at Notre Dame – I have ND as 1.66 times more talented than Ga Tech, and the game is in South Bend. An ND loss will end any controversy to the Irish being ranked 14th in my poll, and send them packing from my ratings.

That pretty much does it. As I have said before, my ballot for the BlogPoll won’t mean much to even me until about the first week in October.