Here’s my preliminary ballot for this week’s College Football BlogPoll which, as always, is hosted by MGOBlog.  Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.

Week 3

My Ballot for the Week:

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

Oh, how the Winds of Change are a Blowin’…

Comments,  Explanations, and Excuses

Here are the high-points of the weeks changes:

Southern Cal (1):

After watching Southern Cal’s annihilation of Ohio State (14), I really don’t think there is any doubt that Southern Cal is the best team in the country at the moment.  That said (and I know I am going to be in a serious minority on this point, and may end up in the looney bin) but I do believe that Southern Cal is beatable.  At times they seemed to be on the edge of out of control — but it worked.  Furthermore, the team that beat the Buckeyes is not the same team that beat the Virginia Cavaliers.  In other words, the Trojans knew they were in the spotlight and they wanted to send a message.

Message received and duly noted.

The flip side of that is that (again based upon the largely ignored game against Virginia) it appears that Southern Cal plays much harder when they know everyone is watching and I thus think that a less hyped opponent — if they play near flawlessly — can beat the Trojans.

They are still an amazingly talented and balanced team…

Oklahoma (2) & Georgia (3):

I know that some of the members of the Dawg Nation are going to be ticked that have dropped the Georgia Bulldogs from No. 1 to No. 3.  The fact of the matter is that the Bulldogs continue to look very shaky.  The Bulldog offensive line showed their inability to play pass protection against a South Carolina Gamecocks squad that lost to Vanderbilt (25) the week before.  The 112 yards of penalties against the Dawgs paired with their grand total of 83 yards of offense in the second-half only adds to this.  When it comes to being No. 1, style-points count.

By the same token, the Oklahoma Sooners put on a 55-point clinic versus Washington.  I realize that Washington was probably feeling a let-down after the controversial loss to BYU (18) last week, but Oklahoma looks good.  The Sooners are taking care of business, thus they get the nod at No. 2.

The Rest of the Top 10:

I think the rest of the top-10 is fairly self-explanatory.  The only additional thing I can say is that if Missouri continues its dominant ways once it gets into its conference games, then they will move up.

Ohio State (14):

All I can say is “damn…”

Simply losing to the Trojans would have resulted in drop of about five spots.  The Buckeyes, however, got absolutely violated — in my opinion, the score does not reflect ho badly they played.  The Ohio State offensive line left Todd Boekman to fight 1-on-1 with a freight train, and the defense let Southern Cal dance all over the field.

In my humble opinion, there were a lot of unranked teams that could have done as well as the Buckeyes, perhaps even better.

New Faces — Florida State (23) & Vanderbilt (25):

Although they have yet to play a single FBS / Div-1 team, they have destroyed both teams they have faced.  Given Bobby Bowden’s ability to motivate over the years, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed with what I’ve seen from the Vanderbilt Commodores so far.  They are 3-0 against quality teams, one of which was in the top 25.  I think they’ve earned it.

Go ahead, Show Your Gold…

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.

More on the Tennessee v. UAB game soon…

– 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

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• 2008 CBS Sports BlogPoll Ballot: Week 12 (2)

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