Blogpoll: Week 7
Losses by Oklahoma, Missouri and LSU on Saturday meant our top three was blown to bits. While it was difficult to decide who should move up, it was even more difficult to decide how far the losers should drop considering they all lost to legit teams.
With Texas’ win over previous #1 Oklahoma, we moved them to the top spot followed by Penn State and we vaulted Florida to #3 after beating LSU by 30.
On the Buckeye front, we dropped them one spot to #11 but frankly they could find themselves out of the polls completely in another week unless they put forth a better effort than what we saw against Purdue.
With all the upsets this week, I’m sure you all have some opinions so let ‘em fly. As is customary, we have until Wednesday to take your feedback and submit our final ballot for the week.
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| 1 |  |
I officially have a man crush on Texas WR/KR Jordan Shipley. The Great White Hope hauled in 11 passes for 112 yards, 1 TD and ran back a kick for a 96 yard TD in the Longhorn’s 45-35 win over previously #1 Oklahoma. Quan Cosby ain’t bad either (9 catches, 122 yards). Next up: host wound-licking Mizzou @ 8pm. |  4 |
| 2 |  |
The Nittany Lions embarassed Wisconsin 48-7 in Camp Randall scoring 31 unanswered to close the game. QB Daryll Clark continued so spark PSU with 3 TDs (2 pass, 1 rush) and 244 yards through the air. PSU had just 1 turnover (int) and 1 penalty while forcing Wisconsin into 4 turnovers. The Lions are 7-0 for the first time since 1999. | 4 |
| 3 |  |
The Gators put a 51-21 smackdown on LSU in the Swamp behind 3 TD’s from Tebow (2pass, 1run) and a defense that held LSU to 80 yards rushing and forced 3 turnovers. Is Florida the SEC’s best? | 8 |
| 4 |  |
Idle. Next up: Ole Miss | – |
| 5 |  |
So, will this finally be the year Stoops gets some flak for being a big game choker on par with OSU/Tress? 10 penalties, 2 turnovers, blowing 2 different 11 point leads and an 8 point lead…Not impressive. |  4 |
| 6 |  |
It wasn’t pretty as USC racked up 10 penalties and turned it over 5 times behind 3 INT’s from Mark Sanchez but the Trojans still managed to shut out hapless Arizona State 28-0. McKnight ran for career high 143 yards. | 1 |
| 7 |  |
Georgia outrushed Tennessee 148-1 and got 310 yards (1TD, 1INT) from Matt Stafford in a pedestrian 26-14 win over the putrid Vols. Knowshon went for 27/101 and UGA stayed consistent racking up 11 penalties. Next up: Vandy | 1 |
| 8 |  |
The Cowboys picked off Chase Daniel 3 times and held the Tigers to 64 yards rushing in their 28-23 upset win at Missouri. Ok State QB Zac Robinson threw for 215 yards and 2 TD and ran for another. Their 6-0 start is tied for 2nd best in school history (9-0, 1945). | 7 |
| 9 |  |
Chase Daniel removed himself from the top of the Heisman pack with 3 INT’s in Mizzou’s 28-23 upset home loss at the hands of Oklahoma State. The Tigers need to regroup quick – next up: @ Texas. | 7 |
| 10 |  |
The Red Raiders beat Nebraska 37-31 in OT thanks to an uncharacteristic defensive stand on the last possession of OT. Offensively, it was typical T-Tech as Graham Harrell threw for 284 yards and 2 TD with WR Michael Crabtree grabbing 5 for 89, including both of Harrell’s TD tosses to become the Red Raiders’ all time TD catch leader with 32. Two more games before the gauntlet of Texas, Ok St. and @ Oklahoma begins. | 1 |
| 11 |  |
An anemic offense (222 total yards) was helped by a strong defensive / special teams effort (2 turnovers, 1 punt block TD) as the Buckeyes posted a less than impressive 16-3 win over Purdue. A similar effort in East Lansing next week will result in an L. | 1 |
| 12 |  |
How’d that taste, Les? Ricky-Jean ran his mouth, then couldn’t play as Florida put up 475 yards of offense on the Tigers. The 51-21 spanking was the worst loss in Miles’ 4 years at LSU. My heart aches – with joy. | 9 |
| 13 |  |
BYU posted an unimpressive 21-3 win over New Mexico behind Max Hall’s 265 pards passing and 3 TDs. The Cougar defense held their opponent without a TD for 3rd time in last 4 games. Impressive, huh? Maybe not – those three teams: UCLA, Wyoming, New Mexico. | 1 |
| 14 |  |
Boise State went out of conference to post a 24-7 win over Southern Miss. Kellen Moore led the Broncos with 174 yards through the air and 3 scores. Boise State D stopped all 4 Southern Miss 4th down tries and forced 2 TO’s. | 1 |
| 15 |  |
Jayhawk RB Jake Sharpe ran 118 yards and 3 TD’s and Todd Reesing 256 and a TD as Kansas moved to 2-0 in the Big12 for only the 3rd time since the conference’s inception in ‘96. The Jayhawk D held Colorado QB Cody Hawkins to 8/22 before daddy pulled him for excessive suck. | 1 |
| 16 |  |
The Utes got 5 turnovers leading to 3 defensive or special teams TDs in a 40-7 win over Wyoming. Offensively, Utah managed only 11 first downs and went 4/17 on third down. How bad is Wyoming? They’ve been outscored 153-23 during their 4 game skid. | 1 |
| 17 |  |
Idle. Nex up: @ Boston College | 1 |
| 18 |  |
Javon Ringer ran for 124 yards and 2 TDs while Brian Hoyer passed for 169 yards and 2 TDs in Sparty’s 37-20 win over Northwestern. MSU struggled defensively giving up 459 yards and 15/24 third downs though they forced 3 TO’s. | 4 |
| 19 |  |
Idle. Next up: @ Navy | – |
| 20 |  |
Idle. Next up: Syracuse High | – |
| 21 |  |
The Tar Heels forced 5 Irish turnovers (4 in 2nd half) and overcame some shoddy reffing in the closing seconds to 29-24 decision over Fat Charlie’s boys. | 2 |
| 22 |  |
Idle. Next up: @ Arizona | 2 |
| 23 |  |
The Gophers improved to 6-1 thanks to an impressive 27-20 road win over Juice and the Illini. The Gopher D sacked Juice 4 times and ran his fumble back for a score putting Minnesota up 27-13 with five minutes left in the game. DeLeon Eskridge rushed for 124 yards and 2 TD’s. | NR |
| 24 |  |
Ball State moved to 7-0 with a 24-7 win over Western Kentucky. MiQuale Lewis paced the Cardinals with 112 yards rushing and 1 TD. | NR |
| 25 |  |
Smoke and mirrors ran out as Vandy fell 17-14 at Mississippi State. The Vandy offense generated a paltry 109 yards with 2 turnovers to send them plummeting in the rankings. | 11 |
DROPPED OUT: Illinois (#21), Wisconsin (#25).
You have Florida to high for waxing an extremely over-rated LSU. They should be 6th, and Georgia should be down to 10th (you can’t get waxed like that at home, at night, and get any respect).
Two issues with your poll:
1) Florida jumping Alabama? That is criminally short sighted – do you not remember a mere two weeks ago, when Florida lost to Miss St and Alabama CRUSHED the team you rank number 7? Unless you’re going on pure power poll, pure opinion without regard to actual results over the course of the season, I don’t see how Florida is above Bama. And if you are going on pure opinion (i.e. “I think Florida would beat Bama”), are you really going to trust your (or anyone’s) opinions afte the week-to-week madness we’ve seen over the past few years? Resume ranking, at this point in the season, is the only logical choice.
2) You’re heart aches with joy over LSU losing…sure, I see that. But isn’t that offset by the fact that it was a great day for Florida? The only good result from that game would have been a 0-0 tie. Give me Miles over Urban Meyer any day.
Glad to see you’ve kept OSU in their proper place – this is not a top 10 team we’re watching each week.
What Buckeyeexpat said. And no, I’m not his father. Alabama has the second most impressive win (Georgia) this season as well as a complete domination of an overrated Clemson. They should be at least #2 if not #1. Oh, and that 1/2 a team you have listed at #11 is too high too. Unless that was quintessential Tressel ball, there were discouraging signs Saturday. I’m speaking of you fatboys on Offense.
I agree with the previous posters regarding Alabama and FL, you should change that. IMO only Texas and Alabama have a legitimate claim at the number one spot and they should be 1 and 2, in whatever order.
as for the buckeyes, this is not a top 10 team and unlikely to become one unless there is a talent potion out there somewhere. Otherwise, we are just gonna have to wait for new players to upgrade the talent level. This team likely is somewhere between 15-20th best team. I would definitely have LSU and BYU ahead of them, probably Vandy as well. Before you laugh, what have the Bucks done that is more impressive than those teams?
We beat Minnesota! LOL
Bama damn near lost to Kentucky following the UGA win so not sure why everyone commenting is sucking them off? Are we sure they didn’t shoot the wad in one game? I think head to head Florida is a better than Alabama. The poll shouldn’t care about records. It should be a power ranking of who the best teams are.
Lt Dangle – yeah, Bama might have almost lost to KY, but that is still better than actually losing to any of those pitiful teams from the state of Mississippi, at home, like Fl did
Bama looks as good as any team I have seen this year.
Wil…Yo! I’m trying to organize everyone’s feedback…Regarding UGA, I know they got whipped at home, but do you think OK St, Mizzou and Tex Tech are all better teams than UGA?
We’re trying to have the poll be more of a power poll than anything so I want to make sure you are basing your thoughts on that same line of thinking so I can determine what to re-adjust. Give me some more thoughts on the UGA reasoning…
To the rest of you…again just looking for clarification so our ballot is reflection of both ours and our readers thoughts…If you like Bama ahead of Florida, do you like them at #2, #3 or where does PSU fit in?
Personally, I would go Alabama, Texas PSU in that order. However, I would have no problem swapping Texas and Alabama. I am probably a contrarian in regards to the SEC koolaid that the national media tries to feed everyone, so on general principles, I would be inclined to put OSU (other guys) ahead of Uga. But thats probably my own prejudice showing through.
Thanks for the follow up, Todd…I could live with Bama ahead of PSU but think Texas will likely stay #1 in our Wednesday ballot.
Power polling is an iffy proposition, at best. Again: opinion about a team (mine, yours, consensus opinion) means very little in the face of actual game results.
Remember when everyone’s “opinion” was that Clemson was a top 10 team? Auburn? Remember when USC or Oklahoma or Georgia or Florida were unstoppable forces? Opinions (which is what Power Polling comes down to) end up being wrong Every. Single. Week.
For Lt. Dangle to say “The Poll Shouldn’t Care About Records”… one of the silliest comments I’ve seen in a while.
All that being said…if your design for this poll is to reflect a Power Poll, pure “who-would-beat-who” guessing-conjecture…that’s good to know, so I don’t come on here every week saying the same things :)
The top 3 has to be Texas/PSU/Bama, and that’s the order I would put them in. Florida at 4 is fine, their performance Saturday was unbelievable. Than Oklahoma (tough loss to #1), USC.
Thanks, Expat…I can live with that top 4…as for your power poll comment, while I agree it fluctuates, so do the other polls using whatever methodology they choose to employ. I think opinions change as the season wears on but not as much because teams typically define themselves creating a shaking out process of sorts. Totally agree it’s all jacked up at the beginning – we’ve advocated to Brian and others that it’s a bad idea to even have a blogpoll (or any poll) before at least 4 games are played – to try and eliminate some of the Clemson’s of the world from ever showing up in the rankings to begin with.
As for Lt. Dangle, I think his point was probably more about the need to have a poll try and reflect who the best teams are and sometimes the better teams lose a game. Should they be able to get away with losing 2 and 3 games? Not in my opinion but I do think there are plenty of 1 loss teams that deserve to be ahead of the BYU’s, Utah’s, Boise St’s, and Texas Tech’s of the world. Maybe that’s not what he’s saying – but if he is, I think I tend to agree.
Georgia should be ahead of USC, because their loss looks better than USC’s. LSU shouldn’t be ranked at all, what have they done?
Bama, Texas, PSU, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, USC, OK State, BYU, Mizzou
Bucksfanxc – Thanks for the thoughts…Just to dig a little deeper, who would you take on a neutral field – USC or UGA? just curious. I only ask because since they both have a loss, I’d rather rate them based on who we think is the better team versus who had the “better” loss.
Plus, I’d contend neither loss looks better than the other. USC lost to an unranked team but at least on the road…UGA lost to a better team, no doubt, but it was a home blowout.
Chris-I thought I throw in my two cents and let you know that your current rankings are spot-on. PSU is a reasonable #2 right now as they are playing mistake free football and they are balanced on offense, defense and special teams. They may have a loss in the next couple of weeks to say otherwise, but they look gook at this moment in time. Florida did crush LSU, but I felt LSU was overrated anyway.
You certainly aren’t alone in this–indeed, nearly every pollster out there seems to agree with you–but I can’t see how it is justifiable to have a one-loss Kansas team ahead of the one-loss USF team that beat them, or a one-loss MSU club ahead of the one-loss Cal club that beat them. That just ain’t right.
this is the second biggest debate in modern US culture: whether you rank teams based upon who would win on a neutral field, or based upon actual resumes
Personally, I think you have to vote based upon who “looks the best” because you never have comparable apples to apples to compare resumes.
Remember the big 8/12 in the 90’s with Nebraska, it was so tough to gauge how good that team was because the competition was so bad; the only decent program was the crooked one in Boulder, CO (remember OK and TX were terrible until Brown and Stoops came aboard) … many of those NE teams ended being awesome, even though they played relatively weak schedules.
The same thing goes for FSU in the ACC for many years, and Miami in the Big East. because they simply were not going to get to play many good teams their resumes would not measure up to other teams, yet they would beat most those teams on a neutral field.
having said all of that, trying to pick which team is the best right now is not easy, but my 2 cents is: Alabama, FL, USC, TX
That’s a good point. I would probably take USC over Ga on a neutral field. I think your first two or three games of a season aren’t necessarially indicative of how good a team you are in week 7. If we are ranking on who can take who on neutral fields, right now in week 7 then I amend my top ten to be: Texas, Bama, Penn State, Oklahoma, USC, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma State, Mizzou, BYU
I would take USC because Georgia has a great running back and that is it. I do think now that season is over half gone, that the Bucks will not finish the year in the top 20 after watching us. I would like to know the last team to have twenty returning starters from a national runner up and play like us. I try not to hate on Tressel but other then 2002 i can’t remeber when we beat a team better then us and most great coaches do or when i thought to myself what a great coaching job. It seems to me everybody likes to compare Tressel to Copper which Tress is better but on a national scale Tress is not doing well. Somebody tell me any other top 10 program that looks like us. If anybody thinks Tressel has not gotten overhyped because of Big Ten then you need to wake up, other then Michigan during Tressel tenure there was no elite programs in the Big Ten and just maybe when he first started out here, his assistants made him look like a great coach. I guess all i am saying is the proof is in the pudding Tressel is the OC and our offense is anything but good and each game we think our offense will be better with Pryor having more seasoning but we just played the worst team other then Indiana in the Big Ten. I want to believe but this team is looking like anything but a well coached team, which our line sucks but if you watch other big games alot of QB are getting killed thats when you play calling helps.
Just one thought about purdue. I think the wisconsin game last week took alot out of the badgers and the buckeyes. Both teams played below avg. the following week. Im sure we see a much improved team this week