BlogPoll Ballot: The Eyes of Texas Are (Bleeding) Upon You

The final ballot, with commentary after the jump.  The delta is rather large for this late in the season, so some explanation is needed.

Rocky Top Talk Ballot - Week 11

Rank	Team	Delta
1	TCU Horned Frogs	2
2	Oregon Ducks	-1
3	Boise St. Broncos	-1
4	Auburn Tigers	--
5	Stanford Cardinal	5
6	Wisconsin Badgers	1
7	Nebraska Cornhuskers	1
8	Ohio St. Buckeyes	3
9	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	11
10	LSU Tigers	6
11	Arizona Wildcats	-2
12	Michigan St. Spartans	--
13	Iowa Hawkeyes	--
14	Alabama Crimson Tide	-8
15	Nevada Wolf Pack	--
16	Utah Utes	-11
17	Arkansas Razorbacks	4
18	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	--
19	San Diego St. Aztecs	--
20	South Carolina Gamecocks	-1
21	Missouri Tigers	-4
22	Texas A&M Aggies	--
23	Virginia Tech Hokies	-1
24	Northern Illinois Huskies	--
25	Central Florida Knights	--
Dropouts: Oklahoma Sooners, N.C. State Wolfpack, Baylor Bears, Hawaii Warriors

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "

Stanford made the top of the non-undefeateds because, quite frankly, they deserve it.  A very impressive team that had as good of a shot at Oregon as anybody so far this year.  Wisconsin ended up on the top of the Big 10 groupings and slid in ahead of Nebraska because, well, I couldn't decide.  Oklahoma State also has been impressive and I had probably undervalued them the last couple of weeks, which is why there's such a huge bump up for them.

Much of LSU's bump was tempered by the even more significant drop of Alabama, which may or may not be 100% fair, but they were probably well overhyped to start the year and seem to be regressing.  Nevada deserves a solid ranking and to be ahead of Utah, but they're hard to fit into the mix.  San Diego State is ahead of Missouri both for the better record and because Missouri scored their game-winning points on a play where the refs admitted they botched an obvious penalty.

Virginia Tech stays in because I honestly think they have as much resume validity as teams like Northern Illinois.  NIU might actually be the better team, but neither are strong on defense.  Lastly, Central Florida got the last spot, and teams like Florida are out but really close.

The delta is 94 if you include teams that moved in and out of the top 25.  Much of that comes from a very few number of games.  The LSU/Alabama tilt accounted for 14, and Oklahoma/TAMU accounted for 20.  That is largely a function of re-valuation of an Alabama squad that has been increasingly flat as the season has gone on, and of an Oklahoma team that has been begging to be dropped in the ranks and just needed the loss to justify the move.  Conversely, the Oklahoma St. / Baylor game accounted for 13 largely because the Cowboys had been held behind the Sooners in the ballot, and that's just not justifiable by any logic.  These three games accounted for a delta of 47, which is half that of the total ballot.

Oh, and Utah got rocked by TCU to the point of embarrassment, and the Utes do not have enough resume strength to avoid the free fall.