Here’s my ballot for this week’s College Football BlogPoll which, as always, is hosted by MGOBlog.

Week 2

“Adjustments” in the Works

I have no business trying to rank all of the teams in the country, and this week’s ballot makes that obvious.  More on this week’s changes after the ballot.

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Georgia	–
2	Southern Cal	1
3	Ohio State	1
4	LSU	–
5	Missouri	1
6	Florida	1
7	Oklahoma	–
8	Auburn	–
9	Kansas	–
10	Wisconsin	1
11	Penn State	1
12	Texas	1
13	Alabama	1
14	Oregon	–
15	Wake Forest	–
16	Arizona State	1
17	Texas Tech	9
18	Utah	1
19	East Carolina	7
20	Colorado	2
21	Fresno State	1
22	Brigham Young	1
23	South Florida	–
24	California	2
25	Illinois	1

Dropped Out: West Virginia (#16), Clemson (#20), Bowling Green (#24), Tennessee (#25).

Comments,  Explanations, and Excuses

The high-points of the week’s changes after the jump:

Southern Cal (2) & Ohio State (3):

This flip-flop is guaranteed to raise the ire of Ohio State fans (including my spouse), especially since the Buckeyes won their game and Southern California did not play.  That said, the Buckeyes did not look good against the University of Ohio this past weekend, and but for a muffed punt by Ohio they have a decent chance of losing the game.  Furthermore, the continuing questions surrounding Beanie Wells cause me to drop the Buckeyes one slot.

Mizzou (5) & Florida (6):

After watching the Gators play Miami, I am beginning to have some serious questions about the Gator offense.  Their offensive line looked horrible against a seriously inexperienced Hurricanes defense.  This was especially true at the left side A and B gaps.  Though the Gators came back to beat Miami handily, a lot of that was due to Miami’s mistakes.  In the end the Gators looked beatable.

Wisconsin (10) • Penn State (11) • Texas Tech (17) • Colorado (20):

This is where I show my idiocy.  All of these changes are the result of my making “adjustments” based upon oversights in my Week 1 ballot.  I simply no longer felt that my rankings for these teams were accurate, thus I adjusted each of these according to what I perceive to be their appropriate ranking.  Thus, I suppose this renders my Week 1 ballot meaningless — or at least erroneous.  I figured, however, that it was better to remedy this problem through an honest adjustment than to try and pull some sort of BCS-esque calculation which no one could understand in an attempt and rationalize my changes.  I also figured I should do this earlier rather than later.  Thus, I suppose I am officially — and in print — admitting that I was wrong last week.  As if that was anything new.

Mea Culpa…

Alabama (13):

I dropped the Alabama Crimson Tide one spot not because I am a cussedly bitter homer, but because their win over Tulane (paired with Clemson’s performance against what should have been a woefully out-manned Citadel team) was not as impressive as I had expected in light of the Tide’s guns-blazing debut in the Georgia Dome against the Tigers.  This is a semi-adjustment, but really is less due to my pure ineptitude, and more attributable to the Tide looking much less impressive this week than last.

BYU (22):

I dropped Brigham Young due to their poor showing against the Washington Huskies.  I am not saying that the hotly-debated celebration penalty at the end of regulation ultimately had any impact on the outcome of the game (especially since Washington would still have had to win the game in overtime), but I am saying that BYU should have taken care of business a little better, thereby making the whole celebration penalty moot.

Out of the Money — Tennessee • Clemson • Bowling Green • West Virginia:

I dropped the Tennessee Volunteers and the Clemson Tigers from this week’s poll because I simply could not justify their remaining with California (24) looking more and more impressive and Illinois (23) bouncing back from its loss to a tough Mizzou (5) team.  I hope the Vols return in the near future, but they are going to have to earn it.

As for Bowling Green, they dropped for much the same reason — their strength of schedule simply doesn’t compare to those of California and Illinois.  That doesn’t mean I think they are weak, but indicates that I simply can’t compare them equally at this point to the new teams in the poll

I never personally thought that West Virginia was very good to begin with, but I ranked them based upon the fact that I figured they would still be a strong contender due to their Big East schedule.  ECU (19) proved that to be wrong, and single-handedly bumped WVU from the poll while earning a well-deserved debut in my poll for this year at No. 19.

The Rest of the BlogPoll

Having taken the time to consider my feeble attempt at ranking the powers in college football, feel free to try and convince me that I am wrong — which is part of the way the BlogPoll is supposed to work.  I promise that I will consider all comments.

As for the rest of the BlogPoll, well, you can check out how other bloggers voted, how your team fared across the blogosphere, and view the weekly results each Wednesday over at MGOBlog.

Hopefully, the BlogPoll Powers won’t have me listed as “Dropped Out” next week…

– Go Figure …

About the Author:  "Lawvol" -- I'm just a guy living in North Carolina who has an unnatural fascination with the color orange. Just because I'm a Tennessee alum and die-hard Volunteer fan doesn't mean that I can't poke a little fun at the Big Orange and anybody else for that matter. Feel free to complain all you want. >> Read more from this author

Allegedy Related Posts (Computer Generated):

• 2009 CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Week 9 (4)
• 2009 CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Week 6 (0)
• 2008 BlogPoll Ballot: Week 5 (4)

2 Responses to “2008 BlogPoll Ballot: Week 2”