Here it is.
Give me your comments and I'll try to get more up later.
Barking Carnival Ballot - Week 8
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
| 2 | TCU Horned Frogs |
 1 |
| 3 | Auburn Tigers |
2 |
| 4 | Alabama Crimson Tide |
2 |
| 5 | Oklahoma Sooners |
6 |
| 6 | Boise St. Broncos |
1 |
| 7 | Utah Utes |
3 |
| 8 | Stanford Cardinal | -- |
| 9 | Michigan St. Spartans |
6 |
| 10 | Ohio St. Buckeyes |
 -8 |
| 11 | LSU Tigers |
1 |
| 12 | Iowa Hawkeyes |
2 |
| 13 | Wisconsin Badgers |
7 |
| 14 | Missouri Tigers |
2 |
| 15 | Nebraska Cornhuskers |
-11 |
| 16 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys |
5 |
| 17 | Florida St. Seminoles |
1 |
| 18 | West Virginia Mountaineers |
-1 |
| 19 | South Carolina Gamecocks |
-6 |
| 20 | Arkansas Razorbacks |
-11 |
| 21 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | -- |
| 22 | Arizona Wildcats | -- |
| 23 | Texas Longhorns | -- |
| 24 | Miami Hurricanes |
1 |
| 25 | USC Trojans | -- |
| Dropouts: Air Force Falcons, Nevada Wolf Pack, Florida Gators | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
The Texas Longhorns are back in the Top 25 and the timing of the next two home games against Iowa State and Baylor is fortuitous. Two confidence-boosting wins carries Texas into Manhattan, Kansas followed by a three game home stretch against OSU, Florida Atlantic, A&M. Win out and who knows what might fall into our lap?
If there was ever a year ripe for BCS mischief, it's this one. We're going to see a choice between several 1-2 loss major conference champions and undefeated mid-majors like TCU, Utah, Boise State with a massive PR campaign waged by all sides to politic their way into a bid. With a sympathetic press eager to embrace a massive BCS meltdown. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. We're going to have a national champion that isn't all that great - not quite the travesty of BYU '84 but more along the lines of Tennessee '98, Colorado '99, or LSU '07.
Speaking of, Boise State remains stubbornly outside of my Top 5. Their Virginia Tech and Oregon State wins are degraded no matter what Virginia Tech does to the rest of the awful ACC and no matter how scrappy Oregon State looks playing .500 ball (Washington? Really?). Their marquee wins are two teams with a combined 5 losses, including a non-FBS school. Penalizing teams unduly with one loss who are playing real conference schedules while Boise coasts doesn't fly. Nevada getting pantsed out in Hawaii helps their cause not at all. They're fortunate to be at #6.
Don't look now, but Oklahoma is improving. I'm still not terrifically impressed with their talent and they have big holes on their defense, but they massacred Iowa State in Norman. The real test will be how they handle road environments @ Missouri, @ Texas A&M, and @ Oklahoma State down the stretch.
LSU continues its hilarious run, struggling with lowly McNeese State (16-10 halftime lead) before finally pulling it together enough to win unimpressively. I wish them nothing but success and I hope the Bayou Bengals continue to exhibit nine lives every Saturday. A closing stretch that features @ Auburn, Bama, & @ Arkansas doesn't look good for them though.
Auburn's Cameron Newton is single-handedly making the TigerWarEagles relevant and though they play no discernible defense at all, it's fun to watch a 6-5 250 pound guy with wheels running wizard schemes. They won't stay a #3 long, but I hope they enjoy it while they can.
And finally, last week's commenters have been answered as to why I had Alabama ranked significantly ahead of South Carolina despite a head-to-head win in Columbia.
Kentucky - 31 South Carolina - 28
Now you get to puzzle over how I could have Ohio State ranked ahead of Wisconsin and we can do this again next week.