Brian Cook

 

Rank	Team	PPB	StdDev	Delta
1	Alabama (42)	24.3	0.9	1
2	Texas Tech (21)	23.8	1.0	4
3	Penn State (10)	23.4	1.0	--
4	Florida (1)	21.3	1.4	1
5	Texas	21.1	1.4	4
6	Oklahoma (1)	19.9	1.3	2
7	Southern Cal	19.2	1.2	--
8	Oklahoma State	18.5	1.4	1
9	Utah	16.4	1.8	1
10	Boise State	15.5	2.0	1
11	TCU	14.4	2.0	1
12	Ohio State	13.2	2.3	1
13	Georgia	12.3	3.0	5
14	Missouri	12.2	2.8	--
15	Ball State	9.4	4.1	1
16	LSU	8.8	3.7	3
17	Michigan State	8.2	2.5	5
18	North Carolina	7.4	3.4	3
19	Brigham Young	6.7	4.6	1
20	Georgia Tech	6.4	2.7	6
21	California	5.1	3.4	5
22	West Virginia	3.4	3.0	4
23	Maryland	3.3	2.8	1
24	Florida State	2.0	2.5	6
25	Northwestern	1.9	2.3	1

Also Receiving Votes: Pittsburgh(1.7), Tulsa(1.1), Oregon State(0.9), Cincinnati(0.7), Minnesota(0.6), South Carolina(0.5), Kansas(0.5), Miami (Florida)(0.3), Air Force(0.2), Oregon(0.2), Connecticut(0.1), Iowa(0.1), Wake Forest(0.0), Central Michigan(0.0), Virginia Tech(0.0), Memphis(0.0), Mississippi(0.0),

Total Ballots: 75

Votes by blog here, votes by team here.

Hey, we're better than the poll actually used in the stupid BCS standings: Texas remains in front of Oklahoma, a team they beat by ten a few weeks ago. Although we do have odd first place votes for Oklahoma and Florida.

The rest of the poll is relatively placid, with Georgia's throttling at the hands of Florida shoving a wide array of teams up a spot.

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Most Disagreement

#	Team	StdDev
1	Brigham Young	4.6
2	Ball State	4.1
3	LSU	3.7
4	North Carolina	3.4
5	California	3.4

BYU is the disagreement king as pollsters try to figure out where to put a team that plays in the Mountain West, annihilated UCLA, beat Washington by one blocked extra point, and got hammered by TCU goes. The answer: I don't know.

Ballot Math

First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.

Mr. Bold

#	Blog	Team		Avg Error
1	mgoblog	Michigan		3.01
2	Burnt Orange Nation	Texas		2.94
3	Eagle in Atlanta	Boston College		2.88
4	Hey Jenny Slater	Georgia		2.63
5	Mizzourah	Missouri		2.58

Oh, hell. I won an award? I won Mr. Bold? Death. Deaaaaaaaaaaath!

All right, why did this happen? The primary reason appears to be extreme skepticism about mid-major teams not named Utah. There are no major outliers in the top ten until you come to #10 Boise, and #11 TCU, which I slot in at 17 and 19. Ball State, #16 in the poll at large, is #22, and BYU is unranked. Each of these teams slipped in the ballot this week as other teams took on respectable opponents. I remain skeptical of the entire "BYU is good!" progression that happened after the UCLA game. UCLA beats Tennessee, BYU beats UCLA by a million, BYU is awesome! Except both Tennessee and UCLA turn out to be very bad. Too late, though. Off and away we go.

Other oddities: LSU ejected from the poll entirely after a re-evaluation of their season to date (in a word: mid-major like), Pitt in the mid-teens, and unnatural enthusiasm for North Carolina, Missouri, and Cal.

Mr. Numb Existence

#	Blog	Team		Avg Error
1	Saurian Sagacity	Florida		0.89
2	Dawg Sports	Georgia		0.94
3	Around the Oval	Ohio State		1.11
4	Lake The Posts	Northwestern		1.13
5	Falcon Nation	Bowling Green		1.14

And we complete the circle of irony with Saurian Sagacity, a few weeks ago the winner of three different awards because of an unusual focus on losses instead of wins (and a huge skepticism about Florida), your Mr. Numb Existence victor with a truly impressive final margin under 0.9.

Next we have the Coulter/Kos Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.

The Coulter/Kos Award

#	Blog	Team		Bias
1	ACC Football Report	Florida State		7.03
2	Tar Heel Mania	North Carolina		6.64
3	TheES	Michigan State		4.77
4	Hey Jenny Slater	Georgia		4.75
5	Braves and Birds	Georgia		3.75

You'll note a name change; there were protests that drawing an equivalence between bomb-throwing skeletal nut Ann Coulter and a boring, if lefty, economist was not correct. So the other side of the coin is now Kos of Daily Kos, since he is prone to say things like "screw dead mercenaries."

Anyway, the CK Award has a new home, and it's kind of a weird week for the award. Usually you'll see recent losers in the flipside of this category; here we have three teams that lost, two of whom saw their team lose by a billion. Odd.

The CK Award winner this week is the ACC Football Report, which places Florida State #17 after their loss to Georgia Tech. The Seminoles have a loseable game against Clemson coming up, FWIW.

Oh, and last week Michigan State snatched victory from the jaws of defeat thanks to Bret "Meathead" Bielema's inexplicable decision to take a timeout as State's field goal team rushed on to the field, clock running down, to attempt a game-winner from 44. So thanks for that, Bret. MSU was favored by 4.5, though, which brings CK Award winners to 2-8 ATS this year.

The Straight Bangin' Award

#	Blog	Team		Bias
1	Mountainlair	West Virginia		-2.41
2	Buckeye Commentary	Ohio State		-2.21
3	Tomahawk Nation	Florida State		-1.97
4	Pitt Blather	Pittsburgh		-1.69
5	Barking Carnival	Texas		-1.05

Straight Bangin’ Award goes to West Virginia blog Mountainlair, which is clearly just a little more frightened of Bill Stewart than the rest of the planet, and who can blame them? (Yes, WVU fans, you can feel free to laugh at Rich Rodriguez; fair is fair.)

Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.

Mr. Manic-Depressive

#	Blog	Team		Swing
1	Subway Domer	Notre Dame		148
2	Eagle in Atlanta	Boston College		130
3	Dawg Sports	Georgia		120
4	Big Red Network	Nebraska		114
5	Saurian Sagacity	Florida		114

Your Mr. Manic-Depressive victor is Subway Domer, who

1. moved every team at least one spot
2. dumped former #8 Georgia and former #10 Tulsa entirely, and
3. shot Texas down nine spots (boo), placing them below Oklahoma (also boo).

When two top-ten teams disappear entirely ten weeks into the season, you win this category. That's not a law or anything, but it's as close to one as you get in this enterprise.

Mr. Stubborn

#	Blog	Team		Swing
1	50-Yard Lion	Penn State		64
2	Varsity Blue	Michigan		66
3	Mizzourah	Missouri		66
4	ACC Football Report	Florida State		68
5	Orange::44	Syracuse		70

50-Yard Lion is Mr. Stubborn, though not by much. The reason he wins out over his chasers (all of whom have voting patterns almost matching the overall poll above) was his enthusiasm for Texas Tech, #4 in his previous ballot. He has to move them a shorter distance.