BlogPoll - #1 - 2010

Football season is nearly here. Joy.

Looking at last year’s adjusted stats drives home what an explosive offense the Pigs had last year. They’re a solid darkhorse pick.

What is this? Where’s Northwestern?

Kidding aside, you’ve got all the players listed. In looking at many a draft blog poll the last several days, the divergence is amazing. What does that mean? Looks like a “Jimmy the Greek” kinda year. You know, intangibles. Like key injuries and depth, kicking game, unique under-the-radar athletes, etc. There has already been some injury attrition on the two big teams on our schedule. Don’t see a lot of talk about those types of things and their potential impact on rankings.

You are one of few giving Auburn and South Carolina some juice. I’m high on both as dark-horse contenders.

Not sure about Miami in top 15 though. Harris just seems prone to making too many mistakes.

Too many are discounting the Pac-10. I think at least 2 teams finish in the AP top 8.

CFB would be better off if Notre Dame were in the conversation. Sadly they currently don’t belong.

Scipio:

I don’t trust Iowa for the same reason that you don’t trust Nebraska.

Iowa started out 9-0 last year but it was fool’s gold. They should have lost to Northern Iowa and struggled against Arkansas State. Their QB Ricky Stanzi made some spectacular 4th quarter plays — after stinking up the field to put Iowa in a hole. His TD/Int ratio was 17/15.

I’m headed out to Vegas tomorrow and the Hawkeyes are gonna be a team circled on my under card.

My new aggie coworker is going to question your judgement on his beloved old army. (especially after I irreversibly rig this site as his home page).

After all, as he told me with all seriousness today, they return more starters on defense than we do and therefore will have better defense than us.

Huck, why do you think they are a solid dark horse? They had an explosive offense last year, and the only reason they were a respectable 8-5 instead of 7-6 is because ECU wasn’t allowed to pull any one of the dozens of 5’7" white middle class soccer players out of the stands to make a field goal. Besides that terrible game, what I remember about the Hogs was that they didn’t seem to do much against Ds with a pulse like Florida, Ole Miss, and Bama (A&M, 2 WAC schools, and some d2 scrub don’t count). Do your adjusted stats show that their offense was actually good adjusted for the level of D they were playing? The memory can be a bit selective about things like this after a year, so I’d believe you if you said yes. I just have those 4 games stuck in my head.

Is it because you are expecting a big step forward in their defense? I haven’t paid too much attention to them. Do they actually have talent on D, and they are just waiting for it to mature a little?

A quick look at Arkansas’ Division 1 opponents (not counting Missouri St) shows:

5 losses to teams that averaged 10.6-2.8 w-l. So they lost to average (1 8 and 2 9 win teams) and very good/great teams (13-1 UF and 14-0 Bama). Fair enough. Can’t read too much out of that either way.

7 wins to teams that averaged 6.3-6.6. They didn’t beat anyone with 10 wins. If you throw out 0-12 E Mich their opponents were still roughly 7-5.

So they had an average record by beating a bunch of average teams. A good team that could beat anyone on a given day yes (could also lose to anyone), but i’m not big on the dark horse nominations or the top 10 rankings. Maybe I’m missing something.

Top to bottom, I like the poll quite alot; however, I would venture to say that Florida is about 2-4 spots too high. I would have them at 6 and move everyone else up.

Three comments:

1) I am very drunk and thusly did not read very carefully.

2) FSU seems like they have the players to be good. It will be very interesting to see what the new coaching does.

3) Texas Tech scares me.

“RGIII will not be denied 6-6 and a spot in the Tampax Comfort Fit Bowl in Piscataway, New Jersey.”

still. laughing.

Second scagnetti—that is funny.

Yeah, that was funny, but would have been funnier if the location of that bowl was Cheney, Washington.

And, really, if Baylor is 6-6 you know they’ll be slotter higher than a 9-3 Mizzou. Damn Big 12….

1. I expect Lane Kiffin to continue Pete Carroll’s trend of having USC play their best in their most important games and then lose at least one WTF game.

2. Your point on the Big 12 South is very close to what I’m thinking. Texas vs OU, TxTech vs A&M, BU vs OkStU…..those 3 games could mirror how the division finishes.

3. With much trepidation, I am more optimistic than you about the Hokies. So long as they beat Boise State, I really am indifferent about the rest of their season. If Tyrod Taylor can improve a little more, him plus their running game (and a solid D and ST) should be enough to win the ACC.

TCU over Boise?

TCU over Texas? That has to be your attempt to get lots of web hits. “Dude, even the TEXAS website has my TCU over Texas.”

Capt Obvious/Orangechipper -
  
Read the first line of my post:
 
“This is a ranking poll. Not a power poll.”
 
When BYU was ranked #1 and won the MNC back in the mid 80s, they couldn’t have beaten half of the Top 20.
 
I went through and tried to predict likely season outcomes and anticipate AP jackassery. This is not a betting crib sheet.

I guess I failed to realize what a ranking poll is, then. My bad. I think of a power poll as a poll where a 3 loss LSU could still be ahead of a 1 loss Boise. (for example) A ranking poll would have Boise ahead of that LSU because of record. Given that EVERYONE is undefeated right now, i just didn’t think you were predicting everything based on final record.

You must think REALLY highly of Miami, then. Given that they have to play @ #1 Ohio State, @ #17 Piit, @ Gtech, Home vs. #18 Vtech, #9 Ncarolina, and FSU.

That might be the toughest schedule in the NCAA on paper.

I’m in complete agreement with you concerning ‘Bama. THey’ll lose a minimum of 2 this year. Defense lost 13 multi-year contributors and 6 teams have that bye week advantage against them. I’d probably have Arkansas top 5 and bama around 10 if this were my poll. :)

I can’t argue with TCU going unbeaten. When SMU is likely your 2nd to 3rd toughest game… that says something.

Yep, you’ve got it now.
 
Miami has a brutal schedule and I do believe that voters will take that into account when they split those six games with a 3-3 record. If they go 5-1, they probably deserve a shot at the title game, assuming no other blemishes.

I would love to see Les Miles try to handle Boise’s offense. He’d spend the whole week preparing for the trick plays they used against OU five years ago and get caught completely off guard by the fact that BSU is basically a downhill running/play action pass team. Then BSU would pull out some the the wacky new trick plays they came up with just to exploit Les and the Tigers defense would be in total disarray.

Basically what I’m saying here is Les Miles is an idiot.

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