Monday, September 14, 2009

BlogPolling, Week 2

My initial effort (I abstained week one) is below.

It is admittedly quite an outlier. I prefer not to vote this early in the season and, to his credit, BlogPoll maestro Brian allows us to abstain until week 3. But I couldn’t resist voting this week.

Two things about this ballot –

1. I am a resume voter. Do I think Florida is “better” than Cincinnati? Almost certainly. Has Florida accumulated, after week 2, as good as a resume as Cincy? We have not. Look at the ballot in this light.

2. This is a DRAFT ballot. The BlogPoll allows input from blog readers, so I want your opinions here! However, please note number 1 above. If you can convince me that BYU’s win (over Oklahoma) was better than Alabama’s (over VT), let’s hear it. But if you want to talk about how stacked the Gators are and what you THINK they are going to do, that isn’t how we vote.

For my top 5 I looked at relative impressiveness of wins thus far. After the two mentioned above, I thought USC at Ohio State next most impressive, then Michigan over Notre Dame and Houston over Oklahoma State.

Remember this is a week 2 ballot! If it causes you angst that the Gators are 14th, well get over it. This will sort itself out as teams win and lose, and as the Gators finally play an opponent worth watching.

RankTeam
1 Alabama
2 Brigham Young
3 Southern Cal
4 Michigan
5 Houston
6 Boise State
7 UCLA
8 California
9 Missouri
10 Cincinnati
11 Baylor
12 Mississippi
13 Georgia Tech
14 Florida
15 Texas
16 Penn State
17 Nebraska
18 Auburn
19 LSU
20 Kansas
21 Oklahoma
22 Virginia Tech
23 Miami (Florida)
24 Ohio State
25 Notre Dame

7 comments:

Clark said...

Let the bickering over 2 data points begin!

My opinions:
Too High (5-10 spots): Michigan, UCLA, Missouri
Too Low (5-10 spots): Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, OSU
Thanks for getting it right: Utah

Selected explanations:
Michigan: Is a close game over ND really the 4th best win in the nation so far?
Florida: They haven't played any real competition yet, but haven't they done what a top 10 team should do against bad competition (win convincingly)? I'm not saying they should be in the top 5, but maybe somewhere closer to #9
OU/VT/OSU: I suppose I'm not as hard on teams that lost close games to teams that I think are pretty good. Should I be calling for Oklahoma State to be ranked, too? I suppose I wouldn't object to them showing up at the bottom of the list.

Utah: The Utes are on an impressive 16 game winning streak. However, many voters have confused this with actually looking good in two games so far this season against pretty poor opponents. If they were to play like they did vs SJSU for the rest of the seasons, I'm not sure they'd win more than 7 games. I don't think they will look that bad, but they haven't shown anything so far this season to merit a ranking, and yours is the first ballot I've seen without them in it, and generally people are ranking them in the 15 to 19 range.

Anonymous said...

I think that Houston and Michigan should be flipped. I consider the win over Oklahoma State, who beat Georgia (who beat South Carolina who beat NCSU) to be much better than Michigan who beat Notre Dame, who beat Nevada (who hasn't played a second game).

In the same respect I think Oklahoma State should get the nod over Notre Dame at 25.

I guess it boils down to I think Georgia is a better team than Nevada (and so beating one is better than beating the other), and so think Oklahoma State is better than Notre Dame.

jj gator said...

Bitche State ahead of Florida? BLASHPHEMY!!!!!!!

Tom said...

Maybe I don't fully understand the resume ballot but what is so impressive about the Auburn or Kansas resumes? I'm not begging for votes but why are they any more impressive than Minnesota's? I would never argue they are not as good as Minn, is Northern Colorado/UTEP stronger than Syracuse/Air Force?

Just curious.
The Daily Gopher

Scotty #13 said...

Gotta wonder how UF's 2 wins against 2 0-2 teams (one being a I-AA team, the other a Sunbelt team!) impressed anyone to the point that they should be ranked ahead of teams that defeated FCS competition (even if it is bad). LSU, Auburn, and Penn St should be ahead of UF at this point based on their resumes.

You can make a point for UF if they beat UT soundly, because they will at least have played a BCS division team.

This early, obviously things will appear crazy...but things sort themselves out as the cream rises.

I'd consider Houston above UMich as well, since their win was on the road and Mich won at home to a (once again) overhyped Domer hype-machine team.

Richard said...

If you're going strictly off of resume, how about USC down more than a few notches (or, alternately, stating that Navy would be in your top five had they finished the job at OSU).

Floridan said...

Resume voting is akin to hiring a job candidate solely on his or her college GPA.

Using this method you are likely to give the job offer to the applicant from Magnolia Bible College with a 3.8 GPA, rather than the one who graduated from Harvard with at 3.75 GPA.