Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

Week 15

Through 6 December 2009

Ahhh, 2009 college football regular season, we barely knew ye.  Yes friend and neighbors, here we are at the end of the regular season.  Thus, here is my final ballot for the 2009 regular season, the last ballot until after the completion of bowl season.  While I am sure some will disagree with some of my rankings, they are what they are: little more than my subjective assessment on the powers of college football.  Most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here is is:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	–
2	Cincinnati	3
3	Texas	–
4	TCU	–
5	Ohio State	1
6	Boise State	1
7	Penn State	1
8	Oregon	1
9	Brigham Young	1
10	Virginia Tech	1
11	Georgia Tech	4
12	LSU	–
13	Florida	11
14	Miami (Florida)	3
15	Wisconsin	4
16	Oklahoma State	4
17	Nebraska	4
18	Iowa	3
19	Stanford	4
20	Utah	4
21	Pittsburgh	5
22	Central Michigan	NR
23	West Virginia	NR
24	Houston	6
25	East Carolina	NR
Last week’s ballot

Explanations after the jump…

Comments, Explanations, and Excuses

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

Long-on-Horn Short on Strength:

I was completely underwhelmed by the Texas Longhorns (3) last second victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers (17) in the Big XII Championship game.  On paper, Texas out-matched Nebraska at every position except on the defensive line.  Nebraska, on the other hand demonstrated their lack of a productive offense in spades going the better part of two quarters without a first down.  Despite this, Texas was forced to kick a field goal with one second remaining on the game (which was only possible due to back to back penalties by the Cornhuskers in the final minute of the game).  Texas got the three points courtesy of their kicker and walked out of the Jerry Dome with a one-point victory.

What they did not do was play like a team deserving of a shot at the BCS Championship.

To Nebraska’s credit, they played their hearts out and did everything they could to win.  In my estimation, they earned the win but were simply unlucky when the clock ran out.

Now, I know that the Cincinnati Bearcats (2) defeated the Pittsburgh Panthers (21) by only a single point in the shooting match that was the final game of the Bearcats’ regular season, but I simply was more impressed with their performance and the tenacity of their team.  Furthermore, in my opinion Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly did a better job of coaching his team on gameday than did Texas’ Mack Brown, which really matters when it is all on the line.

For these reasons, I humbly submit that the Bearcats have earned the number 2 spot.

Turning Gators into Gator Bait:

I had picked the Alabama Crimson Tide (1) to defeat the Florida Gators (13) in the SEC Championship Game, but I did not expect the Tide to annihilate the Gators from top to bottom.  Needless to say, I was impressed with the performance of Nick Saban’s squad.

I’ll be the first to admit, I loathe the Gators—they are the only SEC team I will never pull for.  This owes to my experiences visiting Gainesville.  Still, they are clearly a very talented team.  Alabama, however, completely dismantled the Gators from the start and never let up.  I was particularly impressed by Saban’s creative and complex scheming on both offense and defense and was similarly surprised at what appeared to be a very “vanilla” game plan from Urban Meyer.  That said, there is no denying that the impressive performances of Alabama running back Mark Ingram and quarterback Greg McElroy were key components to the victory, which left Alabama smiling and Tim Tebow crying.

Didn’t hurt my feelings any…

Parting Thoughts

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 insults comments.

You can view the final results of this week’s poll over at CBS Sports later this week and check out an analysis of how the collective blogging brain-trust arrived at this week’s result. If you’re craving even more BlogPoll goodness, you can also check out how other bloggers voted and see how your team fared across the Blogosphere.

– So it goes …

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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 14 (2)
• 2009 CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Week 13 (2)
• 2009 CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Week 7 (2)

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