Week one is behind us, and it was a pretty good opening round of CFB. The big story, of course, was Appy State's take-down of Michigan in the Big House, totally eliminating the Wolverines from our poll. Zero votes, lol. Texas needed a succesful on-sides kick to be overturned by the ref's to preserve their shaky 21 -13 win. The poll is out a little late this wee, due to the Monday night game and the fact that i have to earn a living.
Several of the big boys made quick work of the directional schools they had lined up for fodder. There were some teams that looked good against legitimate competition, including Georgia's whooping of Oklahoma State, the" Greatest Offense in Stillwater", and Georgia Tech's dismantling of Notre Dame. Wisconsin also looked sharp against WSU, and Cal made an SEC team look slow. (Can you say that?) For the most part, everyone else did as expected.
We had 13 voters this week, about half the number we started with. I'll continue to do this as long as there's interest, but fewer voters means the results can be skewered more easily by a single ballot. So I had to make a slight change in the rules. To keep a team from appearing because a single voter rated them very high, one that no one else even acknowledged, teams must appear on at least two ballots to be included in the top 25.
Here's links to voters who blogged their picks. If you blog your selections, be sure to let me know and I'll link it.
Demonicume's ballot was markedly different from everyone elses, and the main reason I had to change the rules. Demon is using a formula based on the RPI used by college basketball. It rewards teams for wins, strength of schedule, and opponents SOS. As would be expected, early season this will look somewhat disheveled. I'll be interested to see how this shakes out as the season goes along. So here's a big Hog Call to Demonicume, our voter of the week.
DEMONICUME'S BALLOT
i know this will look kinda odd. But remember 3 things as you read these rankings:
1)this is based off the NCAA's basketball RPI.
Its winning percentage (as a decimal) times .25
Its opponents' winning percentage times .50
Its opponents' opponents' winning percentage times .25.
so i'm not grading people according to how well i think they may be, I'm grading them according to how well they've performed within their schedule. I don't care if ou have 55 blue chippers - until you beat someone, it don't matter. We've had plenty of examples of teams getting blasted despite how highly we regarded them (OSU last year against Florida, Michigan against App State.)
2) this ranking system is much more dynamic than the current one. this system allows unranked teams to compete for the national championship. as teams start winning and losing, they'll rise and fall by a dozen spaces of more. this means that if a Big East team goes into November with 3 ranked teams - even though they prolly only played 1 ranked opponent in that 9 weeks - they wont be in the top ten. or the top 20. They may even sit below teams with 2 and 3 losses. in my book, losses to LSU, Auburn and Florida mean more than blowout wins against rice, Maryland and Purdue. No one will sit in my top 25 simply because they have a big name.
3) I don't think we should be doing a poll until Week 4, anyways. All the so-called POWERHOUSES front-load their schedules with weaklings... *cough* Michigan.
this system rewards tams for winning big games and punishes teams for losing games they should win. Many people saw Michigan lose to App State and still felt they belonged in the top 25. That's ridiculous. Had S. Carolina lost to App State, no one would be touting our 'bad day'. Why is that? It's because we've decided in our minds that Michigan is a powerhouse and even when they lose, we give them a pardon. We should be pissed they even scheduled App State, SC fans would have paid $500k to see Michigan. And we would have won. They could have put out the collection plate in the stadium. The truth is that Vanderbilt had Michigan down the same way last season until their QB melted down. Michigan is not good and their schedule is designed to protect them. We've decided that the Trojans are good, even when they sucked against 4 straight opponents last season. We grade our favorate teams on a popularity curve and we stay in denial for years. in 3 years, Bobby Bowden will be gone and we'll all be quietly shocked that FSU is no longer any good. Everyone will wonder how it happened. i'll tell you how it happened: FSU has been in decline for nearly 5 years; but we always float them credit. like Notre Dame. FSU is the new Notre Dame... they'll be on TV even when they go 5-8. This ranking system puts these losers in their places. thanks to John Wobus for doing all the math...
Anyway..."weaklings"...Miami...#4 in Demon's poll...number 23 in the Hogfan poll..."weaklings?" Ninth ranked D in the country last year...returning players and their coach. I think it is a great match-up for OU! Last week...not so much...next week...not so much...this week...very much! However...polls before week 3 at least...as most of us have agreed...are senseless. And some of them won't make sense after week 3. Hogfan - I'll work on it for next week. Sorry about this week.
LSU Fan, how ya doin'? What did you think of the offensive performance against MSU? Very average, i thought. No matter how good your defense is, you better be able to roll with the ball when you have it.
I kept hearing about LSU's great group of runners, never saw them on the field Thursday. Most impressive of the bunch was the freshman, don't remember his name. Way too early to worry about, I guess, and 45-0 is pretty impressive.
Good job Hoggy! Although Demon's ballot is skewed...how can he have Navy in 8th? They played Temple, who scored around 20 pts on them. That makes no sense, and I do understand the system, but we need to use common sense here. Oh well...he was always a rebel! LOL!
Yeah, Demon's poll bothered me at first too, there are obviously some teams there with no reason to be ranked. But I think it'll be interesting to follow as the season goes along. The ballot is controversial and takes a totally different view of things. (Sounds like Demon himself, huh?) Like Demon said, the poll is volatile, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it more closely reflect the other voters as the season goes along.
I tried to figure out a way to honor Demon's ballot and still keep the poll valid. I thought my compromise was a good one. As long as someone else agrees a team is worthy of being ranked, we'll count 'em.
Thanks for props to my Hogs.... and
Go Trojans!!
Last edited by hogfan480618 on September 6th at 10:15 AM.
For most teams, week one was a throw-away. anyone who reads too much into 'Bama's blowout win, Oklahoma blitz of NTU, PSU's romp or LSU's and USC's "struggles" needs to realize it's way too early to get a true reading on most of these teams. It's the reason most of us object to early season polls. Ours doesn't count though, so we get a free pass, lol.
Go Parachutes!!! (Wasn't sure who your team is, but I figure if I was a skydiver, I'd be cheering for the chute.)
Yeah, I can't argue too much with the poll. I still have some questions about Va Tech, i wonder how much of their vote is sentiment. And Georgia Tech looks top 10 to me, but i thought so preseason. Cal was impressive against the vols, I doubt many people will be as bright as Fulmer and kick it to Jackson, lol.
As always, good stuff. Thanks again for organizing this.
I guess it's appropriate that Eugene, Oregon is commonly referred to as "Tracktown USA", because I think it'll be more of a track meet than a football game in Ann Arbor this weekend. Jonathan Stewart and Mike Hart might be competing against each other to see who can put up the quickest 40 time...while the game is still being played!
Dixon may be a problem for Michigan, he's similar to the Appy State QB in style. No knock on the ducks, more a complement to Appy, but I'm not sure Oregon will be as well coached.
I liked Oregon's chances more a week ago than I do now. Never wake a sleeping giant. Stewart would win the 40 race, not sure he's the better back though. Hart was sensational Saturday.
Hog go to my blog and scroll down to the post I made back in March about LSU's Spring Game. In it I said Richard Murphy (freshman) was the most impressive back I thought. He is very strong for his size, but his size is misleading.
I thought LSU's offense looked good. I mean they converted 30 smoething points on turnovers, exactly what you want your team to do with turnovers. They didn't use Holliday at all besides end arounds twice. In the spring game he was a WR. LaFell wasn't used either. Scott & Williams were not used much. LSU kept it very basic. Their offense will normally be the kind you saw in the opening of the 2nd half. On that drive they opened up their offense.
I am telling ya, the plays they ran last week, were nowhere close to the ones they were running at the Spring Game. The only thing I did see different in the game was that they ran the option with Flynn twice. They didn't do that in the Spring Game.
I am calling a blowout Saturday night. LSU is going to comeout wide open and blow VT out.
LSU, I agree with the VaTech game, it could be ugly.
I think the reason many questioned LSU after the MSU game was because they were the first team we saw, and people hadn't seen their own team work out the first game kinks yet. After we saw our teams play, LSU's rusty start was more understandable.
LSU didn't look good on the O-line against MSU. they were flat out whipped a few times. Poor line play is always a concern in the SEC. All in all, though 45-0 is a pasting. Good job Bayou Bengals.
Hey I can agree with the right side of the line, especially Stewart. But LSU also didn't play guys like Arnold the whole game either.
Hey I took the family up to Hot Springs this past weekend. Went to Lake Ouchita and Mount Ida. Never been up that way before. That is a pretty area. My kids were flippin out. They were amazed at the mountains. The only kid that remembers mountains is my 5 year old when we went up to Buffalo River 2 years ago. It was alot of fun.
LSU, yeah, and Stewart was going against a great player too.
There's an area near Mt Ida called Albert Pike. Go in the spring when the creeks are up, it's absolutely incredible. Tubing down the light rapids, what a rush. My wife and I vacationed in that area this year and had a great time. There's also a golf course in Glenwood, same general area. $35 green fees including cart. Championship quality course and they treat you like royalty. Unbelievable area.
Whoops! I apologize. Was I supposed to post and e-mail my rankings by a specific time? I was waiting all Monday and Tuesday for the new national polls.
thats why my system is the best. ou can 'think' a team is great all you want - but if they dont do it on the field, it don't matter. Navy is ranked higher than S.Cal because they beat a stronger team than S.Cal played. when SCal starts playing real opponents, then their ranking will go up. but dont see how you can say a team is any good after watching them play one game and a scrub team at that. this system eliminates all human foul-ups. honest to god, the last thing we need is someone hyping a team into the top 15 with absolutely no history to back it up. thats why the Big Easy is called the Big Easy. thats why we have teams like 'underated' and 'overrated.' a team can be called either if its ranking matches its play. so, you big time fans, why dont ya'll go out and beat someone. you gets no free pass from me'sa boi... believe it.
Maybe it went into my spam box or I just missed it... but OK, no title... maybe I missed it. I have no idea.
Yeah I'm going... had four tickets and they fell through and now I have none... but I"ll be there trying to get some more outside the stadium, and I'm sure I'll find a way in. It should be a great time!
And I'd like to say in passing thank you Messr's Weis and Carr for participating in that fiasco you'd call a college football game. And after you'd summized what went wrong. Perhaps you'd offer an apology to the fans and alumnus of your respective educational establishments ?
I think demon's poll is great and maybe you should include a link to his blog so that he can post his poll on his site and you could just alternate featuring a particular blogger's poll. I will promise to send my poll in on Sunday, this time.
DatStar, that's my plan. I featured hoit in the preseason poll. My goal is to spread around the glory, lol. I featured Demon this week, he obviously put a lot of work into it.
