In case you haven't heard of it, we participate in the Blogpoll here at RBR. We've discussed it on here before, so you've probably heard of it. If not, it works basically the same way that that AP poll and other polls work, except with Blogpoll instead of journalists, etc., actual bloggers vote on the poll, and they combine all of their rankings and tally them into a final poll, just like as is the case with the AP and others.
Well, the results have been tallied, and the week one poll is now out. Click here to read the entire thing.
A few notes on the initial Blogpoll:
- USC, as I've mentioned many times before, is everyone's favorite. They received 46 of the 60 first place votes. No other team received more than two first place votes. Again, everyone's favorite. We haven't seen a unanimous favorite of this magnitude in quite some time.
- I previously posted that of all of the top teams, LSU is the most likely to fall out of contention (as explained here). Apparently, I'm not the only one who sees things that way. Aside from listing the total points, Blogpoll also posts each team's standard deviation -- i.e. a set of values is in appreciating how much variation there is away from the "average" (mean). Of the top six teams, LSU has the highest standard deviation of any team, and of the top four teams, they have the highest standard deviation by a wide margin. Considering they are ranked second and thus can't really above the average (sure they can, but only to a very small degree), that means quite a few people have them a good bit below number two.
- If you look at the Alabama schedule in terms of who is ranked, Alabama plays six teams that are ranked in the Blogpoll. However, the only one of those six teams are ranked in the top thirteen (LSU). The other five teams are ranked somewhere between 14th and 20th.
- Alabama is not ranked in the Blogpoll. However, we are not far from it at all. In the "Also Receiving Votes" category, we are fourth, which would put us 29th if you tabulated the entire thing. That puts us ahead of Georgia Tech, Miami, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, Boston College, and Clemson. Not too bad. Apparently the people at Blogpoll have a higher expectation for Alabama than many others.