SEC Power Poll: Week 1 Ballot

by David Hooper on Sep 6, 2010 4:00 PM EDT in College Football

Well, if there was ever a logic to completely scrub preseason logic with high-concentrate brain bleach, last week was it. Most of the SEC went as planned, but a few teams gave us plenty of 'discussion material'. Not everybody was ready for the opening of the season. My ballot is here, and after the jump I'll include the ballot exactly as our computer ranking system spits it out (along with explanations).

Just remember, I place only nominally more value in a week 1 ballot than a preseason ballot. Feel free to disagree mightily.

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And, for comparison, here's the computer rankings. As a quick reminder, the scores in each individual columns are the number of standard deviations that a team's performance deviates from the mean. Positive is good in all cases. The 'SCORE' column is a weighted sum, where the columns to the left are weighted more heavily than the columns to the right. (And for those keeping score from last season, I haven't changed the weights yet. I know they're wonky, but I'm waiting until all D1-A teams play a game before tinkering, as the empty references screw up the computer calculations.)

SEC	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD	SCORE
1	Alabama	0.694	1.552	1.118	0.547	1.388	1.216	1.100	1.156	1.629	1.787	100.993
2	Mississippi St.	0.694	1.814	0.139	1.084	0.523	0.722	2.705	0.893	1.443	1.416	95.535
3	Georgia	0.694	1.328	1.296	1.386	0.337	1.589	0.255	0.893	-0.184	1.061	90.610
4	Arkansas	0.694	1.267	0.068	0.659	1.316	1.120	1.057	1.156	1.019	0.541	82.267
5	Tennessee	0.694	1.028	1.464	0.916	-0.533	1.478	-0.422	1.354	1.172	1.519	77.237
6	Auburn	0.694	1.117	-0.271	1.062	0.523	-0.304	2.580	-0.358	1.773	0.468	68.795
7	Florida	0.694	1.153	0.944	1.498	-1.061	0.921	-0.121	0.564	-1.582	0.541	60.984
8	South Carolina	0.694	1.476	-0.021	0.793	-0.110	-0.606	-0.085	0.498	0.426	-1.163	47.022
9	Kentucky	0.694	0.728	0.919	-0.583	0.280	0.086	0.047	0.300	0.570	0.541	45.677
10	LSU	0.694	1.417	-0.927	1.274	-0.004	-0.860	0.341	-0.227	-0.726	0.747	39.459
11	Mississippi	-1.428	0.536	-0.902	0.390	-0.004	-0.216	1.475	-1.873	0.680	-0.797	-51.189
12	Vanderbilt	-1.428	1.047	-2.525	-0.057	-0.695	-0.296	-0.331	-0.161	0.282	0.272	-78.365

Alright, the explanations.

First, the SoS is a little askew at this point, thanks to Boise State and Virginia Tech. Sagarin won't update his preseason rankings until those games are finished (which makes sense), but the ballots are due this evening. Sooo.... they're still the preseason SoS estimates which, for this time in the season, is close enough for me.

Now for the edits I made. First was to bump Auburn ahead of Tennessee. This was done solely due to Auburn being in their second year with their head coach and Tennessee being brand new. Next was bumping Florida down: South Carolina played a much better game than Florida (as did Kentucky), so they rightly move up. Arguments can be freely made between Florida and LSU, but I just wasn't inclined to worry about them right now. No big deal though; both teams have 11 games to atone for their opening weekend miscues. Vandy went ahead of Mississippi for two reasons: one was that they played a better team (and still very nearly won), but the other was that Mississippi's failure to close was, in my eyes, the more egregious weakness of the two teams.

One final note: if you're wondering why teams that won have a lower absolute value to their W/L than teams that lost, that's because of the sheer number of 1-A vs. 1-AA games. Most 1-A teams won, so the average W/L is skewed positively, which means that 1-0 is closer to the mean than 0-1. It makes some individual conferences look odd, but it works out over the course of the whole 1-A, which was what this was intended to do.

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Comments

I completely agree with those rankings...

I think Mississippi State and Alabama are the two best teams in the SEC right now, irregardless of this being an early computer ranking. Dan Mullen is a great coach, and they looked incredibly disciplined against a Memphis team that was better than most of the teams the rest of the SEC opened with.

And if that wasn’t just some single game wonkiness from Florida, they are in for a long season… and I really don’t like Brantley’s comments after that game.

Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas all looked good against some of the worst competition one could possibly play and still stay in D1.

Auburn looked ROUGH defensively, but lights out offensively. Like a less predictable version of a Hal Mumme Kentucky. Some of the same from South Carolina, but with less offense and more defense.

Vanderbilt will be improved offensively this year, and would have had a real shot at getting enough wins in conference for a second bowl game if they had pulled out the NW game. No way they get to six now.

by Caban on Sep 6, 2010 4:53 PM EDT reply actions

I missed Brantley's comments.

I’ll have to dig for them. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, though; I’m sure they’re engraved on a wall somewhere in Gainesville.

by David Hooper on Sep 6, 2010 6:06 PM EDT up reply actions

From what I've found so far, nothing too serious.

Brantley doesn’t think it’s a big deal, it’s taken care of and all that. I don’t know if there’s something else, though.

Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.

by Chris Pendley on Sep 6, 2010 6:26 PM EDT up reply actions

That's pretty much it...

He seemed to believe that it wasn’t a big deal that the team had struggled… despite the struggles being in very large part attributed to him and Pouncey being unprepared despite having 9 months to work on snapping. Can it be fixed? Fairly easily… Will he be able to push the team and keep them focused like Tebow did? I get the distinct impression he is more Casey Clausen than Peyton Manning.

by Caban on Sep 6, 2010 9:43 PM EDT up reply actions

note...

the above is not an indictment of Casey Clausen, who was a very good QB… but just an insight that they both seem VERY laid back.

by Caban on Sep 6, 2010 9:49 PM EDT up reply actions

+ 15

Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on Sep 6, 2010 9:47 PM EDT up reply actions

Auburn allowed 26 points to Arkansas State

Bump them DOWN. I’d actually move South Carolina up to take their place, as USM is traditionally a tough out.

Bump LSU UP. They dominated the first half and almost lost only because of the Mustang. But the rest of the game shows that their defense is better than that. Don’t bump them up too much, but ahead of Florida and Kentucky is reasonable.

by Incipient_Senescence on Sep 6, 2010 4:54 PM EDT reply actions

My other concern with LSU was their second half offense.

That UNC defense wasn’t just missing starters; they were thin on depth as a result of the suspension. I can’t figure out how LSU managed to get blanked in the second half on offense. Even a field goal anytime in the second half would have made the endgame far less dramatic.

Not that I don’t agree with your comments by any means; I just really don’t know how to interpret LSU at this point in time.

by David Hooper on Sep 6, 2010 6:10 PM EDT up reply actions

Bump LSU's third down defense down.

::cough::

Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.

by Chris Pendley on Sep 6, 2010 6:20 PM EDT up reply actions

Heh.

Freaky, isn’t that?

by David Hooper on Sep 6, 2010 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions

They got up and slacked off.

I think it was underestimating UNC’s ability to come back, basically. I’d put that on the coaching, which is why I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.

Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.

by Chris Pendley on Sep 6, 2010 6:29 PM EDT up reply actions

And I killed Ole Miss for the same thing.

by David Hooper on Sep 6, 2010 7:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Yes, but:

- Ole Miss lost.
- to a FCS team.

Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.

by Chris Pendley on Sep 6, 2010 8:12 PM EDT up reply actions

Right

Level of competition is greatly different. Also, the end result, even if it was almost similar. Also, we’re not saying that LSU should be #2. Just #8 or so. The level of competition and actually getting the result is enough for a difference of 3-4 places.

by Incipient_Senescence on Sep 7, 2010 3:10 AM EDT up reply actions

Oh, I'm just mocking LSU and Ole Miss.

Honestly, I’m not too concerned about rankings in week 1; this will all get shaken out pretty severely over the next few weeks.

Simulated Gameday Experience - just like the real thing, only we have smoke machines.

by Chris Pendley on Sep 7, 2010 7:03 AM EDT up reply actions

And I'm going to swing things pretty heavily, I'm sure.

I’d probably bump LSU, except for having submitted the ballot prior to posting this (lesson learned). I don’t mind them at 8, really. And I don’t mind them at 10.

But I’d probably still want Florida ahead of them, for what little it matters. Despite Florida’s massive problems, they still had terrific defense. And I do think that Florida’s problems are more easily fixable than they appear.

by David Hooper on Sep 7, 2010 8:28 AM EDT up reply actions

For what it's worth

LawVol from Gate 21 has the same top four (in different order), the same 5-7 (in different order), and the same 8-10 (in different order) before Vandy at 11 and Ole Miss at 12. So you at least have somebody with you here.

by Incipient_Senescence on Sep 7, 2010 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions

Ole Miss needs to be last

Vandy lost by … 2? (Not looking this one up right now) to a middling 1-A team from a Power Conference. Ole Miss lost in the most spectacular way to an FCS team.

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I will give my North Carolina for Tennessee Today. Apparently.

by bobothevol on Sep 6, 2010 8:16 PM EDT reply actions