College BlogPoll: Week 8 Final Ballot

Hey!  It looks like I got my draft ballot in before Brian had reset the poll.  Just ignore the deltas this week; I assure you that there was more motion than a grand total of 16.  Something closer to 100ish is more the truth.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida
2	Alabama
3	Texas
4	TCU
5	Iowa
6	Cincinnati	3
7	Boise State
8	Southern Cal
9	Oregon	1
10	Penn State	4
11	Georgia Tech	1
12	Virginia Tech	1
13	LSU	1
14	Pittsburgh	1
15	Utah	1
16	Arizona	3
17	West Virginia
18	Miami (Florida)
19	Ohio State
20	Brigham Young
21	Oklahoma
22	South Carolina
23	Oklahoma State
24	Mississippi
25	Central Michigan
Last week's ballot

All commentary follows:

Changes from the Draft:

• Cincinnati up.  We've acknowledged that their numbers come up weird in the computer, most likely due to their offense leaving their defense hanging out to dry.
• Penn State down.  That sounded like a fairly universal opinion over the last couple of weeks, so there you go.
• Georgia Tech / Virginia Tech switched.  The head-to-head is worth applying here.
• Arizona down.  I really am not concerned about moving Arizona down, but it didn't bother me, either.  There's a lot of time left, and if they keep winning they'll be up where they need to be when the smoke clears.

Looking Forward

Things might get interesting up top for the first time in, well, ever.  Florida and Alabama have slowly been falling back down to the levels of the mortals, and Texas gets a great opportunity to build one of those "resume" things by actually showing up in the first half when they play Oklahoma State.  TCU is probably praying for attrition; they have Utah left, but most of the bottom half of the MWC as well, which isn't as resume-friendly.  They probably have the best shot at becoming a mid-major national title hopeful, but they won't be able to do it without help.  A strong surge by Clemson would be a huge boost for them.

Oregon and Southern Cal will obviously be the game of the weekend (aside from being on at the same time as UT) as it will be guaranteed to drop one PAC-10 team out of contention for the year.  That will leave the PAC-10 with only one hopeful team (unless you believe Arizona has an outside shot), which is honestly the place that most conferences not named "SEC" are right now.