And Texas doesn't have Hart, Henne, Long or Manningham.
UCLA at 17? I loves me some Bruins, but seriously - Notre Dame only avoided 0-8 because the Bruins were unable to run the ball against a team that's currently 95th in the country in run D - they had 37 attempts for 89 yards. Gack.
A very good win against a solid - but now obviously vulnerable - Cal team bodes well. But I'd hold off on putting UCLA into your rankings at least until UCLA shows it can go on the road and play well, which it will have to do @WSU and @Arizona in the next two weeks. Their road games so far:
45-17 @ Stanford - Unless you're USC, Stanford is terrible.
6-44 @ Utah - Yeah. 38 point loss to Utah.
40-14 @ Oregon State - Anybody who watched the game would realize OSU handed this away. The Beavers were up 14-12 until 10 minutes were left in the game. UCLA scored on a 69-yard screen pass that went the length of the field, then recovered two straight fumbles on kickoffs leading to their next two scores. Then OSU let UCLA block a punt deep in their territory. 4 TDs, one on a screen play that went the length of the field and 3 boneheaded special teams plays (not to mention UCLA's only other TD came after an OSU fumble at their own 5). The point being, the game's score in no way reflects the game itself.
The point here is that UCLA has an excellent run defense, a very medicore pass defense (good at creating turnovers, and giving up lots of 20-yard completions), a so/so rush offense, and a nonexistent passing game. Pat Cowan's day against Cal (18/27 for 161 yds and a TD) was probably the 2nd-best, maybe 3rd best, performance the Bruins have gotten from the QB this season. This is not a good thing.
If you want to put UCLA in your poll, fine, but at least have the decency to keep them in the 20s. Sticking them 17 is just asking for them to get thumped by the Cougars.
I say this as a Texas fan: Anyone who claims that beating a crappy TCU team that dominated us for 2½ quarters then folded like a cheap suit (and did exctly the same thing against a far inferior Air Force team the very next week) is some kind of positive for us either didn't watch the first half of that game or is a gibbering homer.
As noted in the post, there's plenty of room for disagreement on teams like TCU or Purdue and how much they should be valued as wins (not much, in both cases). Two points, though:
1) I have no problem with your gap between Michigan and Texas. The point of the post was to illuminate ballots in which the gap met or exceeded seven spots in the rankings - a more difficult position to defend.
2) Texas' body of work, weak as it is, does not have a home loss to Appy State.
With that in mind - the tenor of the post was exceedingly geared towards asking voters to explain themselves, rather than some sort of assertion that Texas wasn't being recognized for great work. I found the side-by-side look a rather probative comparison for methodology purposes. How much do you punish Michigan for a home loss to a Division 1AA school? How much do you punish Texas for beating no one of significance?
Bush-league would have been a disingenuous claim of Texas supremacy. Now who's being unfair here?
To put it another way: Kittens, my man. Your blog was reduced to kittens.
Brilliant, funny, and sad as that was, I'm asking a serious question here. A voter could, I think, make a case for Michigan having moved past its season-opening malaise and, on that basis, justify a higher ranking for Michigan than others would conceded. I
The point of the question, though, was to ask voters to explain whatever it was that led to the gap between the two teams. What ranking philosophy drives your ballot?
In that spirit, I asked voters who ranked Texas way up past Michigan to explain themselves as well. Believe me, though I've not yet shut down the blog for a week, you're far more likely to find me in the running this season for the Straight Bangin' Award than the CK.
And finally: you motherfuckers better beat Ohio State this year. Swear to God there's a fight to be had if y'all let the Buckeyes in the BCS Title Game.
You obviously didn't watch Cal/UCLA. It was more Cal blowing it than UCLA doing anything. BTW, there's an HD version of UM/Illinois out:
http://mgovideo.com/details.php?
...23fda8b23543cbd
"dios mio man..."
Cincinnati has lost two in a row to teams outside the top 25, and has looked really bad doing so. They don't belong in the top 25.
8 year olds, Dude.
The polls must hold themselves to the same asinine standards that held us out of the title game last year: Losing early is fine. For example, if we had lost to Ohio State in September and had the Notre Dame FBD on November 17th there would have been no dropping from the spot we climbed into. "What've you done for me lately," as ass-backwards and pathetic as it is, should work in our favor and send us to the title game this year if we win out.
Not that we deserve it, but just to show you how f'ed up the polls work.
I hate Gary Danielson.
I still don't understand all the love for Oklahoma. I watched the game this week, granted it was at a bar and I was playing poker and watching multiple other games. They didn't look at all impressive. Iowa State is bad, maybe not Stanford and ND bad, but definitely bottom 40 of Div I-A bad.
Also, LSU doesn't belong at #1 anymore. They don't seem to have recovered from the Florida game. I'm not sold on them as some sort of elite team that deserves special recognition.
Also, how is Kansas so low? I don't see that big of a difference between them and Missouri. Granted, Mizzou has played a nominally harder schedule, but they have also been in closer games. In my opinion they should be back to back, and both of them ahead of U$C. Talk about a team being exposed as a fraud.
I'm pretty sure that Appy State wins the majority of the games if they and Stanford played 10 in a row.
This year more than ever proves polls are bullshit and should be done away with.
Every team needs to be in a conference, only conference champs go to the playoffs (interspersed throughout bowl weeks with a week in between rounds). Other teams can get invited to lesser bowls based on current ranking/tie-in system.
i hope les miles does nothing this weekend that we as a blog community can nitpick for weeks to follow...
oh good, bye week
Why Florida over South Florida? South Florida has a better record, no bad loses, and their one common opponent - Auburn - lost to South Florida and beat Florida. I know reputation and watching them play makes you think Florida is better, but results should count for something.
What's this day of rest shit? What's this bullshit? I don't fuckin' care!
is it just me or is VT perhaps a bit low? Penn State over texas? Thats more surprising than the michigan texas gap.
When does previous games overtake head to head matchups (UCLA/Cal)? I understand head to head should make alot, but Cal hasn't had nearly as bad of losses, and has a much better win over Oregon.
I think Bama belongs in the top 25 more than UCLA.
Am I high or is this thread full of people explaining why their team is ranked too high? Where's a Penn.St. dude to explain no Morelli Qbed team should be in the top 25?
UCLA needs to be punished longer for losing to ND. This is not a reflection on their abilities it is simply punative.
BC better check their emergency parachutes. Anyone play Crazy Climber? They's gonna be fallin' like that little man. Exit light. Enter night.
I gotta run over to some other blogs and explain why M is ranked too high.
Anyone got advice on what to see this weekend on my undergraduate transfer visit to A squared? Obviously on the list already is the Batte for that Adorable Lil Jug, the Bo Schembechler exhibit and a campus walking tour...Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
mike:
blimpy burger or Maize&blue deli for lunch.
if possible, catch a hockey game fri or sat night.
Peter -
I have to quibble about a few things. I don't view a +3 game against UCF and a +8 against Arkansas State as mere filler. Those were atrocious wins. Obviously, I recognize that they were better than losing to Appalachian State; but it is only because Michigan and ND were flailing so bad at that time that UT did not take more heat for how poorly it played in those contests.
Also, I, like many others, cannot accept a win over TCU as "quality." The best resume game that UT appears to have is a not-too-bad loss to Oklahoma.
The Oregons and KSU games appear to be a wash, so it comes down to how much should UM be penalized for losing to App. St. I can understand people who will not give UM the benefit of the doubt against any 2-loss team because the App. St. loss was and will remain the most embarrassing loss in the modern era of college football. So if someone wants to rank UT above UM because of that, I won't quibble too much.
But while App. St. should not ever beat UM, it could beat other D-I teams (how many out of 119? I don't know. 10? 20? Is 25-30 too high?). So if one doesn't rank merely on App. St.'s status as a I-AA team, then I think that UM has a better resume than UT based on the quality of wins and losses.
I am the walrus
Auburn drops nine for losing at LSU--your number one team--on a last second play?
Tedford has a case of Transitive Football Herpes after Cal's loss to infected UCLA... he's got nothing to worry about moving to AA. Hopefully he's immune now.
http://www.irishenvy.com/irishro...and-mac-as-
well
Illinois in the top 25?
Just in case you missed it...
App St lost its second game of the year, GA Southern 38 - ASU 35.
I live in NC and there is not a week that goes by that I don't have someone say something. Not the biggest upset of this wacky year, but certainly the signature upset.
Cincy should be out. They got Kragthorp'd and Wannstached.
Auburn drops too much, especially since KY only drops one spot. Wouldn't you say losing to Florida versus losing to LSU are roughly equal?
Put Auburn slightly behnind KY.
More on the Texas-Michigan comparison:
Sagarin rankings (take 'em for what they are worth) on the victories for both teams against top-100 teams:
Texas:
Central Florida (#66)
TCU (#75)
4 wins against sub-100 teams
Michigan:
Penn State (#29)
Purdue (#32)
Illinois (#45)
Northwestern (#72)
Notre Dame (#87)
1 win against a sub-100 team
Michigan's wins are clearly much more impressive than Texas'.
The Longhorns haven't beaten anyone ranked better than #66 in the country. While I wouldn't go so far as 'bush-league psychout stuff', the TCU win is clearly more at the NU-Notre Dame level than at the Penn State-Purdue-Illinois level, and worth much less than any of those.
With respect to losses, Texas was blown out by Kansas St (#18) which is comparable to Michigan's blowout loss at the hands of Oregon (#6). The ASU loss (Sagarin #71) could clearly be a factor for voters preferring Texas, as that's a lot worse than losing to Oklahoma (#9).
By the numbers though, I think there's a strong argument to rank Michigan above Texas - even substantially above Texas. But this ain't exactly a brilliant season for either program, is it?
Yeah; I think that's the proper case. Michigan has wins it can point to. Texas does not. Michigan has one really glaring loss that's hard to ignore, though.
When you slice it all up, it seemed to me that you could have a preference for one resume or the other - depending how you view the Appy State loss - but that it was bizarre to have Texas way ahead of Michigan, or Michigan way ahead of Texas.
auburn falls nine spots after nearly beating #1 LSU AT LSU? little harsh...
Nothsa, I've actually got the KSU-OU losses and the ASU-OR losses as a wash. But then again, I don't think K-State is anywhere near as good as either their poll position or their Sagarin ranking. Plus, I think Sagarin is total crap, so I take any appeals to it with a large grain of salt.
At the moment, I've got Michigan at #20 (serendipity, n'est-ce pas?) and Texas at #32. Having watched all of UT's games and most of Michigan's, that difference looks just about to me.
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