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

Week 12

Through 15 November 2008

Things are really tightening up as we head into the last few weeks of the 2008 College Football Season. This week is the first week in over a month where the Top-10 managed to keep it together. Thus, most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here is my preliminary BlogPoll Top 25 for this week:

My Ballot for the Week

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

Dropped Out: South Carolina (#21), Florida State (#22), Virginia Tech (#24), Tulsa (#25).

Explanations after the jump…

Comments, Explanations, and Excuses

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

Florida (3) & Oklahoma (4):

As much as I hate to admit it, the Florida Gators may be the team to beat at the moment.  They absolutely annihilated a really solid South Carolina Gamecocks (NR) squad that I had ranked at # 21 last week.  Florida looks much better now than they did early in the season, and I believe their loss to the Ole Miss Rebels (NR) probably did them more good than harm by forcing the Gators to focus in on what they needed to do to win games.  Since that loss, they have absolutely killed every team they have played.

The Oklahoma Sooners, however, didn’t play this week.  I typically try not to penalize a team for not playing, but I really feel Florida is a better team.  Thus—in theory—I would have had Florida jumped them even if they had played.

Georgia (14) & LSU (20):

Both the Georgia Bulldogs and the LSU Tigers stayed put this week, despite winning their games while teams around them moved up.  The reason for this is simple—style points do count.  Both of these teams eked-out close wins versus the Auburn Tigers (NR) and the Troy Trojans (NR) respectively.  These games should have been blow-outs in favor of the Dawgs and the Tigers.

In fairness to Georgia, their game was less troublesome for me than LSU’s come-from-behind victory over the Trojans—especially considering the Georgia / Auburn game is to some extent a rivalry game.  Thus, I contemplated dropping LSU a position despite the win.  I realize the Tigers were deflated after losing to the Alabama Crimson Tide (1) in overtime the week before, but their effort and performance in the first 45 minutes of the game against Troy was pitiful.  I decided against dropping them due only to the fact that I have to give them some respect for scoring 30 unanswered points to steal the victory away from a tough Troy team.

Returners & First Timers:

On the heels (no pun intended) of their victory over the North Carolina Tarheels (18), the Maryland Terrapins (23) return to my ballot.  They are joined by the Northwestern Wildcats (25) who bested the pathetic Michigan Wolverines (NR), and two teams from Oregon.  The Oregon State Beavers (22) make their first appearance of the season thanks to their victory over the California Golden Bears (NR)—the Beavers have slowly cobbled together a nice season after their unlikely upset of the Southern Cal Trojans (6).  The Oregon Ducks (24) have more or less been in my poll ballot every other week throughout the season (or at least it seems that way).  The last time they left, I predicted that they would not return.  Shows what I know…

“Now Departing at Gate 21…”:

As I discussed above, Florida’s manhandling of the South Carolina Gamecocks (NR) earned the ThunderChickens a departure from my poll one week after they arrived.  The Florida State Seminoles’ (NR) loss to the Boston College Eagles (NR), and the Virginia Tech Hokies (NR) loss to the Miami Hurricanes (NR) led to the same quick departure for those two members of the ACC.  The real loser of the week, however was the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (NR) who were obliterated by Houston in a 70-30 rout.  Ouch!

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

Allegedy Related Posts (Computer Generated):

• 2008 CBS Sports BlogPoll Ballot: Week 10 (1)
• 2009 CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Week 6 (0)
• 2008 CBS Sports BlogPoll Ballot: Week 13 (0)

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