BlogPoll Calling: OTS's Week One Ballot

Here goes:

1. Southern Cal: There is really no doubt, this is the best team in the country. When they really show up to play, it's just a matter of how touchdowns they win by. Unfortunately for Virginia, the Trojans decided to strut their stuff this past Saturday, and did so in absurdly dominating fashion, winning by almost seven touchdowns.

2. Florida: Blew out Hawai'i while allowing Tebow to take it easy. Further entrenched as the likely SEC champs with UGA's continued injury woes.

3. Oklahoma: About what was expected in week one.

4. Georgia: I'm not worried about how they looked against Georgia Southern, but the injuries are a major concern. With each passing injury, the less likely I see them holding the crystal ball.

5. Ohio State: Not moving anywhere for now, but with a week off and Beanie Wells hurt, something tells me that the Trojans are preparing themselves like sharks with blood in the water.

6. Missouri: Nice win over a pretty good Illinois squad, but you do have to worry about the defense. The offense will generally do extremely well, but once it runs into the better teams -- see Oklahoma -- it's likely that those defenses will limit the offense and still be able to rack up points on the porous Missouri defense. Still, nice win for them to start the year, so they stay.

7. Auburn: Moves up slightly after Clemson embarrassed themselves yet again lost to Alabama. We'll find out more come week four.

8. LSU: See above for commentary.

9. Texas: Yep.

10. West Virginia: Yep.

11. Texas Tech: Yep.

12. Wisconsin: Mm-hmm.

13. Alabama: No one should be putting the cart before the horse, but it's hard not to feel extremely good after that pounding. Being entirely objective and rational about the situation, the season opening performance against Clemson was undoubtedly one of the most impressive showings of the post-Stallings era. And yes I know that's sad, but the point remains. The sheer and utter physical domination was perhaps unlike anything I've seen out of Alabama since we left Baton Rouge in 2002.

14. Oregon: Perhaps the Ducks should invest some of that Nike money in finding out how to prevent quarterbacks from tearing ACLs. Nevertheless, they still rolled with relative ease to open the season against a conference opponent; nothing shabby about that.

15. Brigham Young: Lighting up the scoreboards, as usual.

16. Penn State: With the poor showings by both Michigan and Illinois, it's hard not to feel bullish about this squad.

17. Wake Forest: Baylor isn't that good, but it was still a blowout victory against a BCS conference opponent. Given how laughably pathetic the ACC looked in the opening weekend, this team has a great chance of getting back to a BCS game.

18. Arizona State: Middling performance against East Popcorn State, but whatever.

19. South Florida: It's either them or West Virginia, what more can I say?

20. Utah: These guys may very well be my second favorite team at the moment. Hopefully Brian Cook cried.

21. Clemson: They probably don't even deserve to be this high, but as pathetic as the ACC is, they still have a great chance at making a BCS game. Personally, I say we should revamp the BCS to where the ACC champion goes to Shreveport to play the ninth overall SEC team. We might get a close game out of it.

22. Kansas: They move up slightly because a few others fell, and for no other reason.

23. Illinois: At the very least, these guys can score a lot of points, and with the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust style of the Big Ten, that will probably still lead them to a solid season. If this bunch could have just stopped the Missouri return game, it may have been a whole different story.

24. South Carolina: Now that Chris Smelley has been named the starting quarterback, perhaps things will turn around. As was the case with us in 2005, the defense here is strong enough to where even a semi-competent showing by the offense will usually result in a victory. Unfortunately for SOS, semi-competent may be harder to get than it sounds.

25. UCLA: The Mr. Irrelevant choice of the week goes to the UCLA Bruins, for obvious reasons.

Dropped Out

#14 Virginia Tech: Lost to East Carolina, 27-22.