Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Season-ending Blogpoll

Season-ending Blogpoll:

RankTeamDelta
1 Florida 25
2 Ohio State 24
3 Michigan 23
4 LSU 22
5 Louisville 21
6 Arkansas 20
7 Auburn 19
8 West Virginia 18
9 Southern Cal 17
10 Notre Dame 16
11 Wisconsin 15
12 Rutgers 14
13 Tennessee 13
14 Boise State 12
15 Virginia Tech 11
16 Wake Forest 10
17 Oklahoma 9
18 Brigham Young 8
19 California 7
20 Boston College 6
21 Georgia 5
22 Georgia Tech 4
23 TCU 3
24 Texas A&M 2
25 Houston 1

Dropped Out:

That's right, I have one-loss Florida over undefeated Ohio State and one loss Michigan. Why? Because Florida's going to win the national championship game and extinguish all doubt about whether or not it belongs. Neither Michigan or Ohio State has faced a defense with all year with the overall team speed of Florida.

If Michigan and Florida in some alternate universe were forced to play it off, the Florida speed would have neutralized Mario Manningham and company, and the quick penetration would have made Mike Hart a non-factor.

Then consider what will happen come December 8th. Ted Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez will be blanketed. As for Troy Smith, he's actually facing a defense where all the linebackers have NFL speed, so there's not going to be any escape for him.

And that's before we break down the unusual Florida offense vs. teams that have never faced it before. Oh, and did we mention that Florida's offense is faster than either defense?

So yeah, my answer for the Michigan-Florida controversy and my pick for the national championship game in one package.

Which brings up the reason why the BCS only produces a good matchup once in a blue moon, it's all determined by arguments like the one above, argued by a select elite of voters, rather than actual game play.

Anyway, you may have noticed that Oklahoma is lower than where most people have them, and Texas and Nebraska are noticeably absent from my ballot. Well, the Big 12 was way down this year, which was apparent from their major non-conference matchups (Texas lost to Ohio State, Nebraska lost to USC, Oklahoma lost to Oregon (Which OU still had a chance to win after the replay idiocy and blew it.), Texas Tech lost to TCU, Colorado lost to Georgia and Arizona State, etc.)

And the Big 12 followed that up with less than spectacular conference games where everyone knocked off everyone else. In any conference not named the SEC, upsets make you look weak. The only thing that would have saved the perception of this conference was for either Texas, Nebraska or Oklahoma to emerge as dominant. Yes, OU won, but that loss to Texas and Dallas in retrospect makes OU look bad, especially after the second half of Texas's season.

If you want to see where everyone else voted here's the final poll.

More on my life later