Final BlogPoll Ballot DRAFT
by Todd on Jan 10, 2009 5:18 PM CST
in Football
27 comments
All right, this is just my draft ballot, so if there is some tweaking that needs doing, leave it in the comments. Obviously I've put Utah at #1, and even though it's a mostly symbolic gesture, I do feel like they have just as much of a claim to the MNC as Florida (beat four ranked teams, went undefeated, beat a top five team in their bowl, etc.).
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Utah |  2 |
| 2 | Florida |  1 |
| 3 | Southern Cal | 4 |
| 4 | Texas | 2 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | -- |
| 6 | Alabama | 2 |
| 7 | Oregon | 6 |
| 8 | Penn State | -- |
| 9 | TCU | 2 |
| 10 | Ohio State | 1 |
| 11 | Virginia Tech | 3 |
| 12 | Mississippi | 7 |
| 13 | Texas Tech | 3 |
| 14 | Georgia | 6 |
| 15 | Oregon State | 11 |
| 16 | Boise State | 14 |
| 17 | Iowa | 5 |
| 18 | Florida State | 8 |
| 19 | California | 7 |
| 20 | Missouri | 4 |
| 21 | Oklahoma State | 6 |
| 22 | Cincinnati | 10 |
| 23 | Michigan State | 6 |
| 24 | Georgia Tech | 8 |
| 25 | Boston College | 4 |
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I could not possibly roll my eyes any harder than I am right now.
Resume ranking is for people who are too lazy to watch the football games or too stupid to understand what they see.
Utah is one of the ten best teams in the country. Ranking them in the top 5 is a joke. More often than not, the Utes are going to lose to virtually every other team in your top 10.
by PeteHoliday on Jan 10, 2009 6:02 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
PS: Utah getting a blogpoll #1 is not going to unseat the BCS, I promise.
by PeteHoliday on Jan 10, 2009 6:02 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
i second
everything he said. if utah plays any team in the top 10 in a game that matters to their opponent (i.e. late in the regular season) they get their doors blown off. all of this “utah is #1” talk is laughable at best.
by gerry dorsey on Jan 10, 2009 10:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Interesting. We played TCU late in the regular season.
And won that game. Everyone (93% on ESPN, 10-pt line in Vegas) thought we’d get our “doors blown off” by Alabama. That game turned out okay for us. You think that we’d get killed because you speculate that the talent of those other teams would overpower us. Doesn’t always mean that. Hell, might as well not play the games. We can just give USC or Florida every title every year, since they’re pretty much always the most talented team.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jan 10, 2009 10:53 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No basis
There’s really no basis for your comment. Utah, the team that beat both the top-10 teams it played, all four of the ranked teams it played, all six of the bowl teams it played, and didn’t lose a game to anybody, also:
- Has the longest active bowl winning streak (8), including wins over USC, Alabama, Pitt and Georgia Tech.
- Has the longest current winning streak (14).
- Is 17-10 vs. BCS conference teams since 2000.
If Alabama wasn’t ready to play in the Sugar Bowl, that says more about Alabama and the bowl system than it does about Utah. Besides, compare the way Utah beat Alabama (throughly in every facet of the game) to the way Florida beat Alabama (4th quarter rally) and the choice of Utah as #1 is pretty much a no-brainer.
by Rhino95 on Jan 11, 2009 10:07 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
But you know what?
They didn’t lose to any of them. They didn’t lose to anyone. In fact, they beat two of those Top 10 teams, something only Texas and Oklahoma can say. If Utah is so terrible than why did 4 of the 6 computer systems pick them #1?
by rugman11 on Jan 10, 2009 6:35 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Didn't we discuss the resume ranking already?
They’re not better or worse, just different. Resume rankers think that the results on the field are the only determination, speculative rankers include things like recruit rankings, overall talent determinations, speculation about coaching staffs, etc. Doesn’t make resume rankers lazy or stupid.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jan 10, 2009 7:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
wait… isn’t resume ranking what everyone is supposed to be doing at the end of the season? evaluating each team on the virtue of it’s success during the preceeding season?
by kleph on Jan 11, 2009 9:31 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Flip Mizzou and Okie State
Head to Head. Identical records.
"penis fish"…google that, and the candiru is the first thing that pops up
by Stuck in the Plains on Jan 10, 2009 7:19 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
One thought. . .
since you’re a “resume ranker” (I am too, but I figured i’d put it in quotes for Pete’s benefit), Boise beat Oregon earlier in the year, and they’re 12-1. I’m not saying Boise is better, and I hate them (their fans are like BYU fans, only stupider) but they lost by 1 to your #9 team and they beat your #7 team.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jan 10, 2009 7:38 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
At least...
Texas is ahead of Oklahoma, where they should have been all along..
by yellowhammer on Jan 10, 2009 8:39 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Question for Ute:
Do you seriously think that the Utes would beat the Gators? Let’s assume that we aren’t missing half our offensive line when we play….
You can claim all the top ten victories you want to – we beat two #1 ranked teams. WE also didn’t have 5 “off” weeks against inferior competition.
You can bring up Ole Miss all you want as well. I would feel pretty good about Ole Miss beating Utah as well. In fact, I would contend that Utah would have 4 losses playing our schedule.
by skigator93 on Jan 10, 2009 11:22 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
I don't think they lose four
And, in a one-shot game, I like their chances to beat the Gators. That said, they did have the benefit of plenty of games to sleep walk through (as did the Gators). Some of theirs, however, were invariably in conference play. The problem here is that there was no team head and shoulders above anyone else this year (That includes UF, who has a better case in the dominance department since 9/27 than anyone). But look at the game: The gameplan and execution the Utes put together against us was the best I’d seen all year: It wasn’t picking on Marquis Johnson in the waning minutes of the 4th Q. It was a blitzkrieg out of the starting blocks. They made a case for themselves.
"penis fish"…google that, and the candiru is the first thing that pops up
by Stuck in the Plains on Jan 11, 2009 5:54 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Lets See...
There is no way that you can say that their schedule is anything like ours. If you lined up their wins from top to bottom next to ours, Florida’s opponents would be favored in at least nine of them. There’s also a huge difference between the Alabama we faced (100% healthy, still undefeated, underdogs and gunning for a National Championship berth) and the one Utah played. I’m sorry, but you’d have to suspend disbelief to favor the Utes over the Gators in your final poll. Feel free to do so, but I hope you realize that it would discredit you in the eyes of a great majority of impartial observers.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 12:26 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
hmm...
If you take away Oklahoma…
- Alabama vs. #6 Alabama
- TCU vs. #13 Georgia
- Oregon State vs. #18 Florida State
- BYU vs. #30 LSU
- Air Force vs. #45 Miami
So in four of the top five Utah’s opponents are ranked higher. Does Florida’s win over Oklahoma completely make up for the fact that they lost at home to Mississippi?
by rugman11 on Jan 11, 2009 12:53 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
What Are You Doing???
Screw rankings, right? I mean, If we cared about the official rankings, then this argument would be over. Let’s focus on the records, shall we? First of all, you can’t just remove Oklahoma. Second of all, you have to remove Alabama from both of the columns (our wins cancel each other out, even though I could argue that ours was more significant) and Weber-State/The-Citadel (they’re not FBS teams). That leaves you with the following:
1 – Oklahoma (12-2) v. TCU (11-2)
2 – Georgia (10-3) v. BYU (10-3)
3 – Florida State (9-4) v. Oregon State (9-4)
4 – LSU (8-5) v. Air Force (8-5)
5 – Vanderbilt (7-6) v. Colorado State (7-6)
6 – Kentucky (7-6) v. UNLV (5-7)
7 – South Carolina (7-6) v. New Mexico (4-8)
8 – Miami (7-6) v. Wyoming (4-8)
9 – Hawai’i (7-7) v. Michigan (3-9)
10 – Tennessee (5-7) v. Utah State (3-9)
11 – Arkansas (5-7) v. San Diego State (2-10)
On the surface, Utah’s guys hang with ours through the first five match-ups. But if you look closer, #1 (OU v. TCU) was decisively settled on the field and #4 was previewed in the thrashing that was the Chick-fil-A Bowl (LSU v. GT), both in our favor; so, even if you were to give them the other three (and I’d be willing to wager that UGA would beat BYU and that Vandy would give CSU a run for their money) that’s all they’re going to get.
We played NINE bowl-bound teams in that list (5-4 bowl record, despite one of those losses coming to us) while they played just five (3-2 bowl record, even though they had more favorable bowl tie-ins). Our opponents won 18 more games overall, despite playing in larger and more successful conferences than theirs. Despite having two more teams in our conference, the SEC lost the same ammount of non-conference games (13) as the MWC did. Any way you slice it, we faced a significantly tougher schedule.
I’d be willing to wager that if you replaced Michigan, New Mexico and TCU (teams Utah beat by a combined eight points) with South Carolina (or any of the other 7-6 teams we faced), Hawai’i and Oklahoma, the Utes wouldn’t have gone through the season with a loss. If you replaced the soft underbelly of their schedule with the depth that we saw, they wouldn’t have gone undefeated. So, does all that make-up for losing at home to an Ole Miss team that would have been the third best team you faced all year? I think so and so does most of the college football world.
If we were scheduled to play on a neutral field next weekend, is there really any doubt that the Gators would be favored? If you polled everyone willing to answer the question, wouldn’t you expect that Florida would be favored? Sure, you’ve beaten the odds all year, but since there’s no game to be played this time, that’s all we have. UF was the better team, had the better season and are deserving national champions. Texas has a better case than Utah.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 6:08 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, you'd be favored and we've been underdogs all year.
93% of ESPN readers picked Alabama to win the Sugar Bowl, and we were 10-point underdogs (biggest BCS game spread). Turned out pretty good for us.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jan 11, 2009 10:18 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Alabama.
Hang your hat on that all you want, but there are some key differences between the Tide you beat (multiple injuries turning their strength into a weakness, once-beaten, huge favorites and disappointed about their final destination) and the one we stopped earlier (100% healthy, still undefeated, underdogs for motivation and gunning for a National Championship berth). But that’s not all! Do you think Urban (remember him?) would let his team overlook an opponent like yours when he’s been on the other side of that field so recently? Do you realize we did what we did to Alabama without Percy Harvin and Chris Rainey? You guys had a good team and a great season. You deserve to be a top five team, but just not #1.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 12:32 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Florida's schedule is better.
Nobody is arguing otherwise. Any objective measure says so. The question is, is Florida’s SoS enough to overcome the fact that they lost at home while Utah didn’t lose at all.
Look at it this way. Utah’s schedule is ranked #56, one spot behind Penn State. If Penn State had run the table with wins over USC, Ohio State, and Oregon State, do you think they should have been #1?
by rugman11 on Jan 11, 2009 11:50 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No.
I was convinced pretty early on of the fact that, if it wasn’t for the human polls shoving Penn State down our throats because of JoePa, we would have leapfrogged them by winning out after the Ole Miss loss and deservedly so. There’s not much difference between the Big Ten and the MWC; that’s not a compliment. Oh, and USC is overrated because of style points (the randown the score, as I like to call) and have the least legitimate national title claim (due to the weakest resume) of all. Feel better?
And once again, the difference in our strength of schedule more than makes up for our one loss.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 12:23 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
So what exactly is the mathematical value of a loss?
Because 4 of the 6 BCS computers disagree with you. They have Utah ranked first, thus arguing that the difference in strength of schedule was not enough to overcome a loss.
by rugman11 on Jan 11, 2009 12:32 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Sweet Jesus!
If the BCS computers are with you, who could be against you?! Sagarin’s Predictor (the better of the two systems, if you’re interested in math and not politics) takes us instead of you, so it’s more like 3-3 in #1 votes anyway. Florida also never falls below second in any system, while Utah is third for both Billingsly and Colley. So, you’d edge us by a whooping .01 in the computers under the current BCS system and you’d drop behind us if they used the superior Predictor instead of the Elo-Chess for Sagarin or simply included all of the scores without dropping the top and bottom numbers. Forgive me for challenging a .01 difference in an unsettled field. All in all, I’d say the BCS computers are on my side here.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 1:08 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
First off, I'm not a Utah fan.
Secondly, for someone who decries style points (“running down the score” as you say) I’m surprised that you would rely on Sagarin’s Predictor, which is basically just ELO with style points. Plus, I’ve seen no statistical studies to prove Sagarin’s assertion that “Predictor…is the single best predictor of future games.” (anecdotal example – Predictor said that Carolina should have won by nine points yesterday. Oops.) But I’ve gone on a tangent.
I was actually on Florida’s side for awhile in this. But I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why Florida’s schedule (which is impressive) should overcome their loss. By all statistical measures (that the BCS uses anyway) these teams are essentially equal. When two teams are that close to each other, doesn’t it make sense to go with the one who hasn’t lost as opposed to the team who has.
by rugman11 on Jan 11, 2009 1:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No.
You make odd assumptions. The “best” doesn’t mean “perfect” (Sagarin’s Predictor) and I only decried USC running down the score in context (because it covered up the fact that they played a weak schedule).
If Utah and Florida are essentially equal in quantitative terms, then you must go to qualitative terms to differentiate. Our loss is offset by the strength of our schedule, or, if you prefer, their undefeated status is tempered equally by the weakness of their schedule. If you can’t “know” who is better, you’re left with who you “think” is best. If you believe that the Utes are better than the Gators, so be it, but most people would disagree. You give deference to the undefeated team that played the lesser schedule, that’s fine by me, but it’s not obvious that everyone should come to the same conclussion. Fighters are great examples of this, if you know what I mean.
by ejruiz on Jan 11, 2009 6:00 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
this is something i was wondering in complete seriousness...
…so let’s not overreact. but are we ranked too high? a bit of the logic that raises us to that number six slot on just about everyone’s ballot is that we were only beaten by the two best teams in the polls. this is true but this should be a limiter – not a factor for placement.
if we look at the ranking of our wins – mississippi at #12 and georgia at #14 (going by todd’s ballot here alone) – doesn’t it seem to follow that we should be lower? perhaps #10 or so? i guess the question could be phrased as “what is there about our wins that stands our in comparison with Texas Tech, TCU and Penn State?” – the other two-loss teams we are being ranked ahead of in most polls?
by kleph on Jan 11, 2009 9:29 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
Shhhhhhhhhhhh!
I was keeping quiet about that one myself! =)
by crimsongirl on Jan 11, 2009 12:22 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
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