Final pre-bowl blogpoll. Comments after the squads.
Barking Carnival Ballot - Week 15
Rank | Team | Delta |
---|---|---|
1 | Auburn Tigers | -- |
2 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
3 | TCU Horned Frogs | -- |
4 | Wisconsin Badgers | -- |
5 | Stanford Cardinal | -- |
6 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | -- |
7 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
8 | LSU Tigers | -- |
9 | Oklahoma Sooners | -- |
10 | Michigan St. Spartans | -- |
11 | Missouri Tigers | -- |
12 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | 1 |
13 | Boise St. Broncos | 3 |
14 | Nevada Wolf Pack | 3 |
15 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -- |
16 | Texas A&M Aggies | 2 |
17 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -5 |
18 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 1 |
19 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | 1 |
20 | Utah Utes | 1 |
21 | Central Florida Knights | 3 |
22 | Florida St. Seminoles | -- |
23 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -9 |
24 | West Virginia Mountaineers | -1 |
25 | Hawaii Warriors | -- |
Dropouts: Arizona Wildcats |
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
Auburn vs. Oregon, AKA Clash of the Bagmen, will be supremely entertaining. If ESPN has any sense of humor at all, they'll do a Pulp Fiction style feature in which LaMichael James drives Cecil Newton to the game in his Range Rover.
Cecil: You know the thing I like about recruiting in the SEC?
LaMichael: What?
Cecil: Little differences. They call $180,000 a finder's fee. And when you openly shop your kid, but he claims not to know, they say it's NOT a violation. And you can steal laptops and cheat on tests multiple times you can still win the Heisman despite its character clause. And you can drink a glass of beer in a mega-church.
LaMichael: Goddamn. I'm going.
Cecil: Nice ride, young fella. I could have gotten you a Maybach.
**
Best non-BCS match-up? Has to be Arkansas-Ohio State. Surprising runner-up? Boise vs Utah.
There are a billion ways to break down Oregon-Auburn (though the dumbest I've seen is Kelly vs. Chizik, as if Gene coaches any unit on the field), but the final analysis may not get much more complicated than the fact that Auburn will have the best player on the field. In big games, that often trumps everything else. Particularly when you can run your entire offense through him - no one can deny Cam Newton the football. If we're going to get all intangible, Auburn also has a proven ability to respond to adversity when the other team stakes a lead. That's helpful in a big game when a quick 14-0 deficit can quickly snowball unless you keep your cool. I've got a month to mull this match up over, but right now I like the Tigers by a field goal.
Bo Pelini ranked the Nebraska Cornhuskers 8th on his ballot - about 8-12 spots too high. Oh, Bo.
Remember my mockery last week of all of the pollsters who rated Northern Illinois in the Top 25, largely because they had double digit wins and that must mean they're good?
Miami, OH - 26, NI - 21.
Sometimes the college football gods offer their rewards immediately.