Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports College Football BlogPoll hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

Week 9

Through 27 October 2008

Another week in the record books, and we are beginning to see where teams will likely shake out at the end of the season.  Thus, here are the changes in my BlogPoll ballot for this week.  Most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here’s my ballot:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Texas	–
2	Alabama	–
3	Penn State	–
4	Oklahoma	–
5	Southern Cal	–
6	Texas Tech	–
7	Georgia	–
8	Florida	–
9	Utah	2
10	Missouri	5
11	Boise State	2
12	TCU	2
13	Oklahoma State	1
14	Ohio State	5
15	LSU	5
16	Ball State	1
17	Minnesota	3
18	Oregon	6
19	Brigham Young	4
20	North Carolina	6
	Florida State	5
22	Tulsa	4
23	South Florida	7
24	Pittsburgh	6
25	Maryland	1

Dropped Out: Boston College (#19), Georgia Tech (#21), Kansas (#22), Wake Forest (#25).

Explanations after the jump…

Comments, Explanations, and Excuses

Here are the high-points of the week’s changes:

Texas (1) & Southern Cal (5):

Both the Texas Longhorns and the Southern Cal Trojans managed to hold on to their rankings in in my Top 5 this week, but barely.  Texas nearly got up-ended by the Oklahoma State Cowboys (13) in a battle in Austin.  Southern Cal barely squeaked by the Arizona Wildcats (NR).  Texas, however, clearly had the stronger opponent and there is no shame in playing a tight game against a top-flight opponent.  It is for this reason that I only dropped Oklahoma State one spot fro the loss.  Southern Cal, however,  has less of an excuse.  Arizona is good, but not that good.  As I said many weeks ago, Southern Cal is probably overrated—especially when their schedule is taken into consideration.

Ohio State (14) & LSU (15):

The Ohio State Buckeyes gave the Penn State Nittany Lions (3) all they could handle.  That said, the Buckeyes offense still has a ways to go.  This loss probably takes them out of the BCS hunt.  In short, it appears that, while a very solid team across the board, the Buckeyes are simply too young on offense to keep up with the top five teams in the country.

I was actually surprised at how soundly the LSU Tigers (15) were beaten by the Georgia Bulldogs (7) this past weekend.  LSU has hung around in my top 10 for a number of weeks due only to the fact that all the teams behind them did not seem to deserve the bump.  Their one-sided loss to the Bulldogs ended that, and thus they drop down to the middle of my poll—where I expect them to remain from here on out.

Returners & First Timers:

This week sees a number of faces that weren’t around last week.  The North Carolina Tarheels (20) lead the pack as they return to my top 25 courtesy of their pummeling of Boston College (NR).  This makes their loss to the Virginia Cavaliers (NR) the week before look like more of a bump in the road than the begin of a slide.

The Florida State Seminoles (21) return after beating a less-than-impressive Virginia Tech Hokies (NR) squad, and are joined by the 6-2  Maryland Terrapins (25) and the 8-0 Tulsa Golden Hurricane (22).

“Now Departing at Gate 21…”:

The Boston College Eagles (NR) were shown the door by Butch Davis’ Tarheels, while Georgia Tech (NR) met with the same fate as UNC in the form of Virginia who seems to be on a mission to screw-up the season of every team in the ACC, while losing to teams that they should beat.  The Kansas Jayhawks (NR) took it the hard way in their 63-21 loss to the Texas Tech Raiders (6), while the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (NR) just laid down and died versus the Miami Hurricanes (NR).

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 and how your team fared across the blogosphere over at MGOBlog, and view the BlogPoll Top 25 results each week over at CBS Sports.

– 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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